Pokemon Masters Review

A note before going into detail about this game: I am up to Chapter 10 in its Story Mode, have completed just one "Event" so far, and haven't obtained anywhere close to all the characters, so the opinions expressed here are to some degree tentative.  Nevertheless, I feel I have spent enough time with this game that I can now say a lot about what I do and don't like about it. Onto the details.

Hey; how did you know I wore a ring?!  Or were you talking about yours?

Foreward

In case you haven't heard, Pokemon Masters is a mobile platform spin-off of the Pokemon series, and while it keeps the collecting aspect of the core series, this time each Pokemon obtained has a human trainer to go with it; trainers brought back from all previous generations of Pokemon thus far.  In fact, these human trainers are what you collect directly, their (under most circumstances) one-Pokemon-each forming what is known as a "sync pair" with them, and them all having gathered on the Island of Pasio to compete in a special tournament called the Pokemon Masters League, and their dialogue and interactions with each other and the player occupy a lot of the story now.  This new focus on a previously underrepresented aspect of the Pokemon series proves to be double-edged; displaying some admirable creativity and passion, but with frequent reminders that this isn't what the series was designed to do.

Story Time

I've read it said in multiple other places that this game has good writing.  By the standards set by other Pokemon games, that's a fair assessment.  Characters speak in ways that fit their archetypes, occasionally their dialogue is relatable, and on some rare occasions it can be funny.  However, the problem is that this still is a Pokemon game, so not much is really going on in it to foster stimulating conversation.  The vast majority of what everyone talks about is Pokemon, a fair amount of talk about Pokemon is about them battling, and a fair amount of that Pokemon battle talk is about battling in the Pokemon Masters League tournament, which in typical Pokemon fashion takes center stage even though there's also a rival and an evil team to take on.

Well this sounds exciting!  Except that fight never happens.

Yes; such shallow plot, characterization and dialogue are typical of Pokemon games, and that wasn't a big deal in games where plot, characterization and dialogue weren't the big draw anyway, but in this game they are, and having to wade through so much more of the same gets tiresome fast.  There are some dialogue trees in the process, but no choice really makes any difference besides sometimes getting a different response.

There's no greater testament to how much this game's banking on character appeal and dialogue than the "Sync Pair Stories".  These side missions, of which each sync pair has at least one, mostly have no actual gameplay; merely many lines of dialogue to read through or pretend you're reading through as you keep tapping the screen.  They aren't what I'd call optional, as they grant you extra gems that can be used for the game's "GachaPon" system, which both unlocks new characters and can help power up characters you already own. (More on that later)

For a game whose appeal is supposed to be its characters, it doesn't focus nearly enough on making its characters appealing.  One of the most immediately noticeable missteps of the game's story is that while the first two allies it grants the player are Brock and Misty, presumably due to them being Ash's traveling companions in the first three seasons of the anime, their personalities here bear no resemblance to those of their anime counterparts.  Granted, the anime is divisive even among Pokemon fans, with some opining that it makes the whole franchise look too childish, but since these characters are obviously there for people who do like the anime, lacking parity just makes them feel hollow.  Brock being constantly lovestruck and Misty having a hot temper may not be the deepest character traits and their appeal is subjective, but at least they're something.  Brock and Misty in this game don't have much of anything to their personalities.

Also noticeable is that the graphics and voice acting don't do a very thorough job of bringing these characters to life.  In still photos, Pokemon Masters looks quite good; while I wish most characters weren't so skinny and it seems like their upper bodies are a bit too small compared to their lower bodies, the vibrant colors and cell-shading give it an appropriately animesque look that's easy on the eyes.  In motion, though, this game can stumble into the uncanny valley, with animations that seem poorly utilized or at times outright unfinished.  Cutscenes progress as you click through lines of dialogue, and while the game is waiting for you to move on, characters might freeze in an awkward pose, or cycle repeatedly through an animation that seems like it's only supposed to be played once and then stop at the end.

Misty's mouth is not moving during that caption; it is just frozen in that open pose.

Then there are moments where dialogue text refers to things happening which clearly aren't, such as Korrina saying to watch her do her rolling axe kick and not doing it, or Blaine telling Flannery to get back up when she's already standing.  Voice acting, meanwhile, is constantly like that, with every character's voice being limited to an introduction speech and a few catchphrases.  Those catchphrases do well enough to add personality to battles, but they're spruced into text dialogue that is saying different things; sometimes very different.

So in short, a good rule of thumb for game narratives should be that their quality should increase with their presence, and this one's quality has increased, but not nearly as much as its presence has.  If only they let people talk about something other than Pokemon, even things that seem as mundane as taxes, vacuum cleaning and hiphop, they might manage to give people comparable appeal to Pokemon.  But still, at least it has the things the Pokemon games are good at to fall back on, right?  Somewhat.

Enough Talk; Let's Fight!

Combat in the traditional Pokemon games is turn-based, usually one-on-one, occasionally two-on-two, or very rarely three-on-three, utilizing four moves per-Pokemon, each with a limited number of uses, and an expanded "Rock Paper Scissors" system of strengths and weaknesses to the Pokemon and their moves.  This game's battle system bears an obvious resemblance to those, but almost everything has been altered to some degree.  Combat is now in real-time, the four-moves of every sync pair are split between the trainer's moves (most of which affect status) and the Pokemon's moves (most of which damage other Pokemon), and each sync pair only has one strength and weakness compared to others.  Often, they're based on how the Pokemon's type worked in the core series, but with only one power relationship in each direction allowed, it can only go so far.  Finally, while the trainers' moves still have a limited number of total uses, Pokemon moves have switched to using up stores of an energy meter that gradually recharges. (Generally the better the move, the more energy it costs.) Finally, bit by bit super attacks called "Sync Moves" charge up, which can make a big difference between victory and defeat.

All of the pros and cons surrounding basically every move lend the combat in Pokemon Masters far more depth than you'd expect from a free-to-play game on a non-game-focused platform; possibly even enough to garner the affection of fans of the core Pokemon titles, despite the reduced use of type effectiveness.  In stark contrast to the narrative portions of the game, you can't just click through battles and expect to win unless you're a much higher level than the opponent; you constantly have to think. (You can set an AI to fight battles for you, but it's not very smart.)  That's good.

However, some of the limitations placed on moves slow things down far more than they should in a real-time combat game, and worse still, keep the team mechanics from reaching their full potential much of the time.  The aforementioned energy meter is unrealistically shared by all three Pokemon on a team, and while sometimes being unrealistic can lead to better gameplay, it really doesn't here.  If a Pokemon's attacks have an advantage over an opponent (and it's easy to adjust your team so that they will), the best strategy is usually to fire off these super-effective attacks (or just one, repeatedly) as quickly as possible, hogging up most if not all of the energy bar.  As a result, in most matches I have fought, there's at least one Pokemon that I don't use for anything besides an extra target for opponents to hopefully attack instead of my more effective Pokemon--and in some matches, two Pokemon might be ignored in kind.

Come on, refill! Cross Poison!  Cross Poison!

Another place where unrealistic mechanics bog the gameplay down is the relationship between Pokemon and their trainers.  They're obviously separate entities, but if you choose to use a trainer move (which again, don't affect the energy meter), somehow that trainer's Pokemon's moves become unavailable to use for a time.  Probably a brief time, but when you have two other Pokemon who aren't disabled that's just one more thing that will lead to some Pokemon doing almost nothing.  Conversely, while the trainers aren't attacked directly in fights, if their Pokemon faint that makes the trainers' moves unusable, too.  What can I say, when a big part of a game's premise is that a party of three is fighting in tandem and a third of that party is often nearly useless, something has gone wrong, and play-testing should have made them see that and fix it.

The Story Mode of Pokémon Masters is almost completely linear, with scant room for emergence.  In occasional sections you'll be allowed to navigate a bit around a map by clicking on arrows, looking for (poorly hidden) items and talking to people, but the majority of Story Mode is you moving where the plot says, meeting whom the plot says, talking and fighting with whom the plot says, in the order the plot says.  Even though you can change who's on your team between every sub-chapter, that has no bearing on which characters feature in the cutscenes.  As addressed in last section, the story that gives this mode its name isn't exactly worth the price of admission, and then at some point, difficulty shoots up, forcing grinding, and engagement with that plot plummets even further.

Let's Keep Fighting!

Pokémon Masters has been praised for how limited its microtransactions are, with the only things costing real money being the gems used for the trainer gacha machine--and note that the Story Mode will unlock a lot of sync pairs, and that there are many in-game ways to get the gems.  That is indeed nice, especially in a franchise aimed at children, but it seems like the game was designed to feature a lot more microtransactions that were dropped before release.  I say this because much as in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Legends and probably other freemium mobile games, the new, stronger opponents in later chapters will force you to battle weaker opponents to level up, and it seems purposefully inefficient.  Leveling up seems straightforward at first; just fight and gain experience, but it soon becomes apparent just how much more complicated it is.  Sync pairs have maximum level caps that you must pay other items to raise, and furthermore, leveling up does not unlock new moves the way it does in the core series; these, too, require items to buy.  Finally, there are items that can be spent to level up characters in the same way as experience was.  The fastest way to earn all of these items is to visit a designated training area, but it's still not very fast.  It's a mess of collectable trinkets that seems to be there just to annoy people into paying their way through it, except they can't.

Of course, grinding (that is, fighting weaker enemies to power up gradually) is common in the core Pokémon RPGs, too.  There are likely few RPGs where it isn't.  However, in the past it felt better incorporated into the adventure.  Can't beat this gym leader?  Then take a hike to the outskirts of the town, explore tall grass, and get in fights with Pokémon to power up, and then come back into town.  It's wasn't great worldbuilding, but it still lent some sense of a consistent story.  In Pokémon Masters, a game with almost no independent movement, you just open a menu and select what you want to do; continue the Story Mode, whose battles are tied together by cutscenes and dialog, or spend some time in Training Mode, whose battles aren't.  This game breaks with freemium convention by having no energy system to limit how much you can fight these battles before having to either wait or pay for a refill; you are free to play this game for as long as you like, earning what you can. [NOTE: That has changed since I wrote this article] But would you really want to?  Your reward for playing this game more is getting to play it more, and playing it just isn't that satisfying.

Conclusion

This review has been almost entirely criticism, so to clear the air up, the game is not terrible.  Its actual combat has a commendable amount of depth for a mobile game, and on occasion its dialogue is appealing.  Everything in this game is, at worst, okay.  It doesn't often rise much higher, though, and the thing about things that are just okay is that when they're constantly crammed down one's throat, particularly the same few just-okay things repeatedly, they start to feel much worse than just okay.  Among mobile freemium RPGs, you can certainly do worse, but among Pokémon RPGs you can certainly do better.  DeNA seems to have missed the point of making a Pokémon game.  They focused on the things that the Pokémon series hasn't traditionally been good at without changing them enough, while throwing out many things that the series has been good at and changing those few good things it left in too much.  However, I still support a character-focused Pokémon game in theory, and I hope this game can eventually grow into its self-appointed shoes with new events.  For the moment, though, while this isn't the worst mobile game I've played by a long shot, it is easily one of the most disappointing.

River City Girls Demo Impressions: Comedy Vs Characterization

Our "heroines"

When River City Girls was announced months ago, I was excited.  When it was revealed last week, I got even more excited.  More excited still when I learned that it would have a playable demo at Anime Expo 2019; to the extreme I spent a lot of time revisiting Twitter just to see if someone posted footage and info.

While that describes many people, I have a special stake in this because by American standards, I know a lot about the Kunio Kun series, localized in various ways in the West.  I never heard of it during the earliest phase of its life on the NES, SNES, and a few other consoles of that era, but Seanbaby's amusing tribute to River City Ransom got me interested in it; enough that when I learned Atlus would port the game to the Game Boy Advance, I had to buy it.  So I bought it, I had fun, and I got confused by the ending text saying that the adventure was just beginning.  Last I checked, there weren't any sequels.  Still, digging around online, I discovered that there were; most just never were released outside Japan.  I became more than a little obsessed (NOTE: I actually wrote the original version of that linked TV Tropes article, back before the site banned me for insisting Spider-Man 3's plot had flaws.  Some people have soft spots for the weirdest things!), seeking out and playing many games of this series I missed out on, and probably my favorite of the under-appreciated games was Shin Nekketsu Kouha: Kunio Tachi no Banka. (Yes; this series' games often have very long titles.)  It starred Kunio and Riki, going up against mobsters with the help of their playable girlfriends, Misako and Kyoko.  Sadly, the series had all-but died by then, and its revivals seldom called back to that game, but then River City Girls promoted Misako and Kyoko to the starring roles, and I was stoked.  So again, I eagerly awaited and searched for footage of the demo, and finally Metro Kingdom Radio posted it.  I remain quite excited for this game--but I also have some reservations about its narrative.

These issues didn't actually dawn while I was watching.  I was too busy laughing at all of the biting humor and being impressed at the fanservice that implies a great familiarity with the source material.  This game directly addresses how confusing the series' continuity is by having Misako and Kyoko interact with Hasebe and Mami, playing on how which are Kunio's and Riki's girlfriends differs from game to game.  It has someone actually, physically barf.  It helped that the graphics were great and the gameplay looks great, too.  After the demo was over, though, I started to consider that some things feel offputting about the writing.  Characters seem too shallow and mean-spirited.  Let's go through the scenes in chronological order to demonstrate why I feel this way.

We'll start with the intro, where Misako is zoning out during a dull math lecture, while Kyoko keeps her sanity by looking at her cellphone.  Misako complains, Kyoko gets a text revealing that her boyfriends have been captured, and the two skip class; Misako insulting her teacher's math lecture on the way out.  The principal comes over the PA, inviting the other students to beat the girls into submission, and the game begins.  I'll be honest, I don't have a huge reason to like these girls.  Certainly, I remember feeling like Misako and Kyoko did in that math scene, and I even covertly read Treasure of the Lost Lagoon: An Otto and Uncle Tooth Adventure during math lectures, but that was in Elementary School; I'd long-since grown out of such covert distractions by High School. (Though not the out of being bored by math and getting distracted by my mind wandering.)  Also, note that I said "covertly"; why is Kyoko able to look at her phone in full view of everyone else, and only get caught when she reacts? (For that matter, as she says, she doesn't normally go to that school, so why is she there now?) Then there's Misako mouthing off to her teacher.  It's not like I was unaware this series' protagonists were described as delinquents, and it was obvious from the reveal that Misako was going to be a bit of an antiheroine compared to Kyoko, who both looks and acts nicer (even if she looks at her phone during class), but where's her good side?  Sure; she's going to rescue her boyfriend, but the way it's presented just comes off as shallow and possessive.  We don't get enough background to for it to come off otherwise.

That same theme repeats itself when they meet Hasebe and Mami, whose only character traits are being rivals for the affection of Kunio and Riki (Also maybe their kidnappers, but who knows?), and mean to the heroines as a result.  Again, it's funny because it references how the heroes have different girlfriends in different games, but it sacrifices all of those characters' likability for the sake of that one joke.  Walt Disney called this reckless dedication to laughs at the expense of other qualities, "The Tyranny of the Gag".  What's worse, the sorts of people who will actually get the joke are also the sorts of people who will remember that no past Kunio game has ever portrayed Hasebe and Mami as awful, catty characters.  I still tend to think of Hasebe as Roxy, the sweet girl in River City Ransom who pretended to be the villain's girlfriend in order to spy on him and go report his actions to the heroes, and I'm not alone.  More recently, she's become a very powerful fighter with a no-nonsense persona.  That doesn't mean I didn't also love Misako and Kyoko in Banka (Would you want to type that game's whole title out every time?), but this game just decides up front to designate that game's heroines as the preferred girlfriends and make the other girlfriends jerks to suit that narrative.  When fanfiction does this, smarter readers call the writers out on it.

The next conversation of note is with Misuzu.  There are a lot of funny jokes exchanged, but then Misuzu gets catty too; implying that Kunio and Riki should dump the heroines and instead get with her.  It's funny, sure, but where did this even come from?  When was she ever romantically linked to them?  Readers of a certain inclination may note that every female character who had a lot of dialogue in this demo seems to be driven by desire for male characters.  (Specifically, the two male characters who are usually the heroes of the series, but here were meant to have the spotlight removed from them.)  Some people, that bugs a lot.  For me, there's not anything wrong with caring about people of the opposite sex; in fact, it stands to reason that there is plenty right about it.  A female action protagonist isn't less dignified for caring about a male character; any more than a male action protagonist is for caring about a female character.  In this game demo, though, what's on display reads less like caring about people of the opposite sex and more like just wanting them, for reasons that can't be assumed to be much more than lust without much more info given.

If it seems like I'm a bit too obsessed with having likable characters in a game about people beating each other up, I point out that this series' normal hero isn't just a badass; he's a badass with a good heart.  The very first Kunio game had far less narrative elements than this demo did, but it started with Kunio's friend Hiroshi being beaten up by thugs.  Kunio goes and beats them up in retaliation.  He's not a squeaky clean hero; such as would leave it to the cops.  Since Hiroshi isn't captured or currently under attack, this isn't a rescue or defense effort; it's a painful punishment for misdeeds, dished out by someone who enjoys dishing it out.  Still, he wouldn't do it to someone who was either unable or unwilling to fight back.  It's strongly established from Scene One that there's a conscientious side to Kunio.

While this game is clearly more comedic than that one, it also features more narrative elements.  A character like Misako could get away with just being a badass if there was little plot to speak of, but since they're going to have a plot, she should have a nicer side.  The more narrative complexity increases, the more character complexity should increase, and sometimes this means sacrificing quick and easy jokes for more nuance.  The portrayal of the girls in the intro scene to this demo, Misako especially, felt like what that video describes as Newgrounds-style humor.  There is not much apparently driving her character besides "I hate math, I like fighting, and Kunio is sexy", so quick jokes are possible, but it's harder to see her as a sympathetic protagonist in a game where she will have much more dialogue.

For that, she would have to be fleshed out, and the best way to do that would be to go into detail about her and Kunio's relationship; establishing that it was actually a very good one.  Here is a rewrite of the scene that allows the girls to be more sympathetic:

Teacher: We find the absolute Min and Max on the specified interval--

Misako: This is unbearably boring and confusing!  I wish I had Kunio here to help me with math.  He might be even worse than I am at it, but he'd certainly try!  He's too nice not to, and his company would make it more fun.

Kyoko: [Rushing in with cell phone] Misako!  Kunio and Riki have been kidnapped!

Teacher: Hey!  No cell-phones in class!

Kyoko: But this is important!  A student from this school is in trouble!

Teacher: Eh, he was a dumb jock anyway who gave our school a bad name.  Now I demand you take your seats!

Girls: No; you take them!
[The rest of the scene proceeds as normal]

The above is probably less funny because it is less spontaneous, but it adds more depth and a sense of karma to the ordeal, establishing that Misako and Kyoko aren't just the heroines; they deserve to be the heroines.  Misako is revealed to be driven by more than just lust; her relationship is also a friendship based on compassion.  Kyoko isn't just misbehaving; she's in here with the phone specifically to sound the alarm.  Finally, by establishing the teacher as not just boring, but also spiteful, Misako can berate him for being boring without feeling like a jerk herself. (Note: Unlike Hasebe and Mami, he's an original character, so it's fine to make him a jerk to make the heroine look better.)

I want to be fair and stress that this is not a final game; for all I know, that is not going to be the first scene in the actual game, which in turn, may well add more depth to Misako, and Kyoko to a lesser extent (since she's nicer and needs it less).  Even if that is the first scene, the characters could be salvageable with others establishing that they're sympathetic and their relationships has value. But I'm wondering if the writers are up to it, or care, and there's probably no reversing the derailment Hasebe and Mami got.

Make no mistake; this game will likely be great.  I trust the developers to make a game that plays and looks great, and clearly it is at least going to be funny.  Precisely because of those factors, though, I think this game is going to have a big impact; it's the most grandiose and talked-about game in the series.  It saddens me that this impact might entail transforming once venerable characters into walking punchlines.

H.P. Lovecraft Vs the Modern World

I'm occasionally characterized by others as having very strong opinions on various things in popular culture.  Some of this charactization is accurate--if it wasn't accurate, I probably wouldn't write these blogs, after all--but I don't think I hate as many things as people think I do; this being mostly an illusion caused by my devoting more time to talking about what I find negative.  Positive things, in my opinion, simply don't need to be discussed as much; they should just be experienced.  Overall, my opinion of most popular things is best characterized as ambivalent.  The vast majority of cultural things I don't care enough about one way or the other to say or write much.  However there is one writer, well-known as the creator of one very popular fictional universe, on whom and which I've said little because my feelings on them were not dispassionate, but rather conflicted.  That writer is the late (and during his life, barely recognized) Howard Phillips Lovecraft, and after my most recent encounter with his work, I've decided that now is the time to organize my thoughts and share them.
People reading this likely assumed, when they got to the part about my conflicted feelings, that I was about to say something like "He was a wonderful writer, but a horrible racist, so I feel bad enjoying his great stories."  In actuality, my opinions on both aspects of the man and his work are more nuanced.

First, the controversial parts of Lovecraft's mentality run deeper than racism.  Racism back then was part of culture, and it was easy for someone to get away with being casually racist--at least among readers of the same race!  However, Lovecraft's work reflected a deeper psychological factor, which he self-identified as "Fear of the Unkown".  It's this fear that his work ran on, and would have still run on if prohibited from discussing race, but even absent that most controversial manifestation, I'm not convinced many people actually share this phobia--particularly to as great an extent.  So this calls into question whether Lovecraft's ideas are really as scary as his most passionate promoters allege.  Second, the claim that Lovecraft was a wonderful writer is a hard one to quantify by most metrics available.  The most likely validation people would give for his writing quality is that his work is still celebrated today, despite its problematic content.  However, as argued in my last point, the "problematic content" runs deeper into his writing than just outdated racial opinions and into a controversial opinion of what is actually pleasant or unpleasant; leading to potential creator and audience dissonance.

That is not to say that none of Lovecraft's sentiments have aged well.  On the contrary, growing up in an era of rapidly advancing science regarding the nature of the cosmos and prehistory had a big effect on Lovecraft's fiction.  His stories often star curious explorers and researchers delving into the unknown, and discovering that humanity and its values are unimportant in the grand scheme of things.  Many find this revelation maddening, if they even survive the journey.  Lovecraft's constant assertions the geocentric (and as a result, human-centric) views that animated much of history were in fact, naive, have since become widespread scientific consensus.  At the same time, there is something of a moral component to his stories, albeit subtly.  The notion that scientific progress could undermine values and spell disaster for humanity was not a new one even in his day, but while many reactionaries like the Christian Apologetics proposed the retention of values out of a belief that their underlying historical sources were to at least some degree true, Lovecraft offered arguably a more flexible, nuanced argument: Even if you can prove that the underlying historical sources of those values aren't true, perhaps you should hold onto them anyway.  A lot of culture, careers, and related things have been built upon them, and even if the collapse of them all is ultimately inevitable, it could behoove you not to do things that hasten that collapse. (Note that for a time, Lovecraft considered himself both an atheist and a conservative; a combination of traits many modern Americans would find odd--though he abandoned the latter attitude toward the end of his life.) This message, much like the haunting cosmic philosophy Lovecraft framed it in, remains tremendously valuable to many people writing many stories (as illustrated by the future statement of Dr Zaius in Planet of the Apes, "I'd advise you not to look for answers; you might not like what you find"), though of course there will also be many who hold that scientific progress has helped far more than it has hurt.

Yet if the worrisome philosophy Lovecraft espoused towards delving deeply into things remains pertinent even now, likewise even during his time it must have seemed odd for a man to draw on inherently unpleasant notions to write stories meant to bring readers pleasure. I observed last post that stories get awkward when awkward contradictions underly their narrative; particularly when the show must go on despite the intended message.  Such an issue arguably runs deep in Lovecraft's work; the message is that people shouldn't go looking for the truth about the world and beyond, such as defined in his canon, but for anything interesting to happen, they must, with contradictions alternately constraining what can happen and sending mixed messages about what can happen.  When putting humans up against overwhelming odds to inspire fear, there's a bit of a balancing act writers have to figure out.  If humans can just defeat, or at least escape (sometimes a bit of both) the cosmic horrors, they really aren't too scary.  If humans stand no chance against these horrors, then there is no real suspense either, since people will know how it ends, which also lessens the incentive to become invested in a story.  In practice, on occasion a hero in Lovecraft's stories will beat the odds and survive a daunting encounter with the cosmos, but more often the inevitability of an unhappy outcome constrains the plot to a character simply finding out about the cosmos, either ending before it's too late or ending just as it becomes too late.  Whether the story in the process contained much or any action or intense, quickly escalating scares, seemed less important to Lovecraft than to most other horror writers.

As to the actual prose by which Lovecraft advanced his alien-themed horror stories, it can certainly be said to display his erudition, but how well this lends itself to horror stories is quite up for debate.  Lovecraft's penchant for long-winded descriptions, not just of that which was alien but also of any familiar things he found picturesque, adds tremendous artificial length to his stories.  This can be particularly galling in the aforementioned stories that deal more with revelation more than resolution, as they then come off as killing time and ending abruptly just as they're getting good; almost as though Lovecraft ran out of time.  Worse still, to returning readers whose appetites have been whetted by the promise of fascinating alien entities beyond the threshold of what we regularly perceive, it can be irritating just how many stories spend an unnecessary amount of time bringing a whole new protagonist to that threshold.

All things considered, then, speaking as someone who read a lot of his work back around 2004-2008, I am going to express the possibly controversial opinion that HP Lovecraft was not a particularly good writer; frequently falling prey to his own ego and putting his stories in a bind with a cosmology whose scope made it hard to wield well, but somehow despite all this, he managed to create a few great things that saved his legacy.  Every time I attempt to revisit his work, I find much of it tedious, but reaffirm that The Call of Cthulhu and The Shadow Over Innsmouth are great stories.  Actually, as I'll go on to explain, there's some evidence that this opinion isn't controversial.

It's no secret that the most famous thing Lovecraft created is Cthulhu, the giant, octopus-faced, bat-winged humanoid monster imprisoned under the ocean but always preparing for his apocalyptic return with the help of his sociopathic cultists. His name has, since the death of Lovecraft, become the name for the mythos in which Lovecraft's stories were set, and even is featured prominently in works that actually have little to nothing to do with him.  It should be noted, for example, that The Call of Cthulhu is the only story Lovecraft wrote in which Cthulhu personally appears, though he is referenced in many of Lovecraft's other stories.  Why, then, is Cthulhu such an enduring--and at times, even endearing--icon of his work?

I would argue, and I am not alone, that Cthulhu's appeal, rather unique among Lovecraft's entities, owes to being highly and rapidly conceivable upon description.  A tremendous advantage The Call of Cthulhu has over many of Lovecraft's stories is that its titular monster is described near to the beginning of its narrative; in the form of a statue.  Moreover, he has fewer features than many Lovecraft monsters, which allows readers to visualize him easily based on the description--an especial bonus considering how long it takes Lovecraft to describe details!  Too many other Lovecraft stories feature a protagonist moving towards the revelation of an otherworldly entity, inevitably at a pace that at least seems slow given Lovecraft's tendency to over-articulate everything.  Then the entity can underwhelm when it finally appears, due to the same over-articulation crawling over such a mess of features that it takes a great attention span to visualize.  However, The Call of Cthulhu's namesake is teased early on, and kept constantly on the readers' minds from the start, building suspense up for when he appears live.  While the murderous occultists that also feature in the story can be scary on their own, it's the epic creature that holds it all together.  Also, the story has multiple action scenes, with police trudging into the woods to confront Cthulhu's cult, a pirate battle, and finally the harrowing encounter with Cthulhu himself.  The framing device of the first-person narrator piecing this all together also comprises something of a story arc; while the theme of a character coming to regret his curiosity is common to Lovecraft, here it feels like actual character development.

In sum, The Call of Cthulhu is a great story, but its greatness often feels in-spite, not because, of Lovecraft's infamous tendencies. (Though it does have a lot of racism, but more on that in a moment.)  Lovecraft was afraid of alien and incomprehensible things and fond of longwinded prose, thus he conceived many overly-detailed monsters based on both.  Yet it's his rare monster who hits close to home by drawing on a few things most humans recognize and not much else, that has been his biggest success.  Lovecraft's penchant for longwinded prose is present, but Cthulhu's a classic design that even his longwinded prose can't render dull to many readers.  Cthulhu has a long, complicated occult history attached to him, but he can work just fine as a standard, rampaging kaiju, and does get the chance in the climax of the story.  There is an arc, with a setup and a resolution.  Lovecraft often rebelled against standard expectations of what makes a good story, and when his most-loved story is an anomaly that conforms more closely to said expectations, for whatever reason, it doesn't feel quite right to see it as a mark of true brilliance.

The second most famous thing Lovecraft created, I would argue, is his dark and under-explored version of New England, dubbed "Lovecraft Country" by his successors, and featuring dilapidated, creepy and broadly shunned towns such as Innsmouth and Dunwich.  There is an autobiographical component to this setting, as it is where Lovecraft spent most of his life.  The other notable place he lived for a time was New York City, whose multi-ethnic population constantly triggered and intensified Lovecraft's xenophobia, ultimately inspiring him to move back to his hometown of Providence, Rhode Island.  While his unpleasant time in New York City inspired him to write the stories, He and The Horror Of Red Hook, ironically it was the rural New England setting, which he found more comforting, where he set most of his horror stories.  It was dark at night, the extensive tree cover made it easy to get lost there, made the few outposts of humanity seem remote from one another, and provided potential cover for places where bad things could happen without outsiders knowing.  This, blended with old Puritan worries about evil supernatural forces, made the region a good microcosm for Lovecraft's worries about the whole world, and beyond, where civilized people--which to him meant those of Northern European descent--were outliers against savage peers.

Such underlying xenophobia has aged terribly, yet Lovecraft Country has survived its demise.  The aforementioned story, The Call of Cthulhu, was not set primarily in Lovecraft Country.  Instead, in more ready reflection of Lovecraft's fears of the foreign and exotic, it visited many more locations, Louisiana, Scandinavia, Australia, and the Oceanic Pole, where Lovecraft set Cthulhu's home of R'lyeh.  However, despite the ensuing popularity of Cthulhu himself, he tends to get folded back into Lovecraft Country, or at least gets his name applied to it for publicity's sake.  For example, the video game The Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, is in fact based mostly on The Shadow Over Innsmouth, set in and around that haunted town.  There is also called a movie called Cthulhu, also based on The Shadow Over Innsmouth.  Cthulhu himself doesn't actually appear in either!  We've read why Lovecraft himself saw Innsmouth and similar thinly-populated New England locales as good places to set horror stories, but why has this setting endured so much for modern audiences?

Once again, I would argue that it is in spite of Lovecraft's propensities rather than because of them.  Modern popular sentiments do not consider foreign countries necessarily scary, nor cosmopolitan cities with people from those foreign countries; many find these places romantic, instead.  What can scare people of these sentiments, then, are essentially the alternatives.  If foreign countries and big, (multi-)cultured cities are romantic, then logically more rural, less-traveled, less (multi-)cultured regions of the United States, passed over by progress, commonly (though not exclusively) referred to as redneck, are places to be shunned.  Ironically, while Lovecraft was afraid of race-mixing, he was also afraid of inbreeding, which he called out in the Lovecraft Country story, The Dunwich Horror.  The association he observed between inbreeding and rural America is one that has lasted to this day, and unlike race mixing, the unhealthiness of inbreeding has been scientifically validated.  Lovecraft's observation of these sorts of places being less conventionally educated, overall, also holds true in the modern cultural perception.  Thus, for modern audiences with "politically correct" views on race, it is still entirely possible to write an effective story of evil afoot in antiquated, remote places that most Americans have the good sense to avoid.

It is partially for this reason that The Shadow Over Innsmouth remains such a compelling story; easily my favorite of the Lovecraft stories I have read.  The other big reason is it possesses narrative qualities akin to the aforementioned The Call of Cthulhu; there is a character arc, with the narrator-protagonist going on a harrowing journey, his attitudes and goals changing as he learns more.  Also like The Call of Cthulhu, there is action, although in The Shadow Over Innsmouth, the narrator is the one who experiences it.  The story is not just about his discovery of the shunned town, but also his adventures within it--and they do have a substantive ending.  Lovecraft's xenophobia is manifest in the particular nature of the evil afoot in Innsmouth; a fish-based religion imported from Asia, but the events it sets up, wherein the hostile locals hunt the protagonist through the dark, aging town, can be scary for anyone of any background.  Indeed, while they may be practicing a foreign religion, within their own town the Innsmouth folk themselves are effectively the xenophobes, determined to ensure that a visitor from the outside world never leaves alive to tell their secrets.  So the story may feel particularly relevant to anyone who has ever been a noticeable minority in a town that dislikes said minority, in a way many other Lovecraft stories obviously would not.  Granted, the Innsmouth folk are also scary for another important reason that I won't spoil here.  As with Cthulhu, then, Innsmouth, and the surrounding region reminiscent thereof, has an appeal so much more universal than many other Lovecraft creations that it almost feels like an accident.

Some would say this isn't being fair to Lovecraft, and it is only fair to acknowledge that he, like many people, was complex.  He considered himself a cultured intellectual, undoubtedly a self-designation shared by many modern readers who deplore his racial views, and as if in preview of that irony, his writing was full of notable contradictions.  Lovecraft was a curious researcher who saw a great risk to curious research.  The alien was frightening to him but this fright was compelling to him.  He was constantly unafraid to write about his dated values that have since died but also constantly writing about being afraid that his dated values would soon die.  He often depicted non-European people as scary in his stories, but paradoxically in his brand of horror that also meant depicting them as being more correct about the true nature of Earth and the cosmos.  Perhaps these contradictions, born as they are of a mind that considered moral values illusory, help Lovecraft's canon resonate with people whose moral values differ from his.

Nevertheless, I find myself cringing whenever I read modern Lovecraft aficionados denigrating other writers' takes on his creations, with such criticisms as they aren't hopeless enough. (As if there was any objective logic to the idea of entertaining people with thoughts of hopelessness!)  For me, the contradictions in Lovecraft's psyche and work are manifest in some stories being much better than others, and while I admit to not having read the vast majority, of the ones I have read I hold only the two I praised here in any major esteem.  I may change my opinion upon reading more of his work, and I intend to, but suffice it to say I do not find his work easy to read, so I can't say when.

PS: Some readers will argue that I write a lot like HP Lovecraft; particularly after reading that last sentence.  To these people, feel free to suggest a shorter way to convey all of the ideas in this post, which I trust you have read in its entirety!

The Big Problem with Superhero Ethics...and plots

Recently on a forum, I brought up my ire at the many, many superhero stories that preach Kantian ethics despite depicting events that imply that they just don't work.  I was asked to clarify what about this contradiction annoys me.

Another day, another politically-oriented post on my supposedly apolitical blog!  It seems like only yesterday I was blogging about what the message of The Incredibles was...or was not.  Here, as with there, I'm going to blog about something that touches a bit on politics, but I'm not going to express any specific opinion on the related controversy.  Rather, I'm going to explain why there's a big contradiction in these stories, explain why I think it's a problem for their expressed purposes, state my theory of why these stories keep doing this, and finally provide a number of alternative ideas.  First, though, a video from PBS explaining superhero ethics and a common alternative:

This video uses Batman as an example, but in fact, it applies to most superheroes.  They refuse to kill people, even villains, even when killing a villain appears the only way to prevent the killing of innocents, heroes who take a more utilitarian view of morality are set up just to be strawmen declared wrong, and then come the next time the unkilled villain escapes and kills more innocents, the strawman arguably seems proven right.  Lather, rinse, repeat.

Expressing a comprehensible opinion on who is actually right is beyond the scope of this blog, but let's address one big elephant in the room: There are a lot of people who operate like the strawmen these stories frequently disparage, and aren't seen as monstrous for it.  I won't begrudge anyone for personally having a Kantian policy against killing, but it has been the case throughout history that military and often even police forces operate on the idea that if you don't kill some people, they're going to kill you or some other people you care about, which often means your civilians.  That is a consistent part of civil service, and again, many people see these civil servants as heroes.  Certainly, there are times when one's own police and the military go too far, but very few Americans would actually accuse their troops of being no better than the Nazis just because the US troops took up arms and were willing to shoot the Nazis dead.  American cops slip up at times, but they've shot dead a whole lot less civilians than other civilians have.  They try to find other solutions, but they're open to killing criminals if it seems the only way to stop a greater loss from occurring.

Expanding on the above, it is important to recall that cops are also present in many superhero stories.  Batman himself deals plenty with Commissioner Gordon.  These cops aren't exactly effective on their own, but as usual, they are willing to kill to halt criminals.  Batman almost always chews out his allies who don't share his ethics, but somehow he has no problem with the cops not sharing them! (I know what you're probably going to say to explain it, and keep reading; we'll get there.)

This contradiction is extended even further in the TV show, The Flash.  I used to like the show, but the more I watched, the more I was convinced that its writing process consisted largely of coming up with a new excuse to have Grant Gustin get emo, or failing that, picking out an old one they hoped enough time had passed for people to have forgotten it.  That, however, was not what made me drop the show; rather it was the aforementioned Kantian preaching despite a huge contradiction.  Barry "The Flash" Allen is one of the most preachy Kantian superheroes in recent memory, and yet he doesn't just work with the cops.  His stepfather is a cop, his wife is the daughter of that stepfather, and finally, he's a cop!  True; he only works in the forensics department, but it still is him working with an organization that sanctions the use of lethal force.  In real life, people who have a moral opposition to all killing, such as various religious sects, abstain from working in such organizations, and can obtain exemptions from military service; Barry's dual-role, meanwhile, makes him seem like a big hypocrite demanding of his fellow heroes a sort of morality that his own line of work doesn't abide by.  Thus, the show is full of all sorts of weird contradictory events like the Season 3 finale, where he sticks quiverlingly to his refusal to kill a villain, who then tries to kill him, only for his wife Iris to grab a gun and kill the villain.  Come Season 4, Flash still hasn't abandoned his policy--but he doesn't ever take his wife to task for that, either.  He'll shove his morality down other heroes' throats, but not his own wife's, for whatever reason.  I can name several reasons, but none really lessen my view that Barry is a hypocrite.

Now to get to the most likely explanation people would give for why superheroes can abide by Kantian morality, demand it of potential superhero allies, yet be fine with working with police forces who don't: As vigilantes, superheroes feel like they're on legal thin ice as it is, and thus need to exercise some restraint, deferring to the law to make the final judgement on the fate of the villains they help the law to apprehend.  This is a decent justification, but it's not usually the one superheroes give; instead going into a predictable speech about falling to the level of villains, without much quantification of what determines the level of villains and how, and of course, with no criticism of the police for being willing to kill.  Still, I have an answer to that legal explanation, but first let's talk a bit more about police.

As noted, many police have the right to kill in order to halt a crime, when there seems no other way to incapacitate the criminal.  This is quite different, however, from being allowed to kill someone who has been incapacitated and detained non-lethally.  After a criminal has already been stopped, the legal question is what can be done to punish the criminal for the crime.  The death penalty--often euphemistically referred to as capital punishment--is still around in much of the world, but is rather uncommon in democracies.  As is true with any real-world political controversies, I'm not going to take a side here, save for noting that states that don't have capital punishment haven't seen a collapse of law and order, as confinement is effective in those states.  Also, even in states that have capital punishment, it's still for the judicial part of law-enforcement to decide on it, not the people carrying guns in the field.

However, here we find the final issue plaguing superhero ethics: The legal system in their world does not work.  This holds true whether you favor the death penalty or incarceration; thanks to a combination of corruption and incompetence, police in these worlds fail to do either.  Villains keep escaping and keep killing innocents.  It would be possible for me to admire a superhero with a code against killing villains, if only the canon that hero was placed in didn't constantly imply that nothing else will really solve the problem, but since it's not, the heroes come off, at best, as not fully comprehending their situation, and at worst, as sanctimonious hypocrites who care more about their own self-esteem than the public good.  Quite an awkward position for writers to put their supposed moral exemplars in, but I think I know why, and it's possibly the most common one-word explanation for odd things ever: Money.

Before going on here, a characteristic personal disclaimer: I hate that the words "comic books" or "comics" are commonly used to describe any and all stories that are advanced by illustrated panels.  I hate it because it misrepresents every story done by that medium as akin to the humor-centric strips associated with newspapers, for which when the word "comic" was applied, had nothing to do with their pictorial medium and everything to do with their humorous genre.  Medium and genre are not the same thing and claiming such understates the variety of stories a medium can tell.  It would be one thing to use this term if, much like "villain", its original (quite politically-incorrect) meaning was now extinct, but as "comic" still implies humor in most other modern uses, such as with a person who performs humorous monologues on a stage, the ambiguity still troubles pictorial stories.  While "graphic novel" is commonly used as a substitute for longer stories of other genres, it seems more fitting for those works released in their entirety at once, such as V For Vendetta; therefor, for the purposes of this essay and the works specific to it, I will call them "Serial Epics", or SEs for short.

Why this obsessive drive to define a subset of literature?  It pertains much more to the financial problem plaguing these stories than any other term previously available.  The "epic" part simply refers to the superhero aspect, but it's the term "serial" that deserves a closer look; it implies that a story is told in a series of installments.  You may notice that the pictorial medium wasn't referenced in my new term for this genre, since as the aforementioned The Flash TV show attests, such is not the only medium to tell superhero stories; nevertheless, originating in the pictorial medium certainly helped establish tropes common to it.  These superheroes got their start in magazines that typically began episodic but eventually turned to telling ongoing stories, building up a cast of memorable characters and utilizing cliffhangers to prompt people to buy the next issue, or even subscribe to the series and get each new issue mailed to them.  When people kept reading and buying in order to learn what would happen next, presumably the creators of these things soon realized a dirty little secret: If the story never ends, then neither will the profits!  Thus the worst possible combination of superhero operations and legal operations to keep villains down and out once they're defeated, because so they suppose, we will never get tired of seeing Batman fight the Joker.

Lest people think I'm being presumptuous, blaming one trope on a devious business policy, rest assured there are many more tropes to blame on this, such as Comic Book [sic] Time, wherein many characters cannot age.  In order to facilitate this, among other things, their origin story will constantly be retconned to a more and more recent date; it is particularly noticeable with Iron Man, since this requires setting his origin story in a new war each time.  Then there's the pesky issue of death; while most superheroes don't kill, plenty of other people in their worlds do!  This should mean that soon enough, fan favorites will end up dead and mourned--not!  Myriad contrivances will instead be used to bring them back!

 Except when they can't be.  All of those people the Joker slaughters because nobody can manage to stop him permanently; they stay dead, but readers don't care about their lives, so to the crows with them!  Really, there's no apparent low these writers won't sink to in order to preserve their precious status quo; don't get daring and make a character step out of his iconic loserdom to marry his crush, become successful and reveal his identity, or soon by some contrivance a tragedy will happen and he'll make a deal with the devil to revert him back to formula!

If it isn't clear yet, I'm irritated by far more than just the codes of ethics these heroes abide by, which as noted above, wouldn't be a problem in other cases.  The formula running these sorts of stories, and the cliches it has spawned, are all obnoxious.  In a cruel twist of fate, these cliches are perfectly positioned to irritate the very audiences their cliffhangers are manufactured to keep on board.  Sleazy business produces low-quality literature, and I could tolerate this if only they limited their stories to entertaining pow-wham-kazow fluff, but all of the vacuous moral grandstanding makes it utterly intolerable to me.  If you're going to lecture us, expect some of us to raise our hands for questions or comments!

However, I don't want to make it sound as if I demand these stories become a specific thing; just that I want them to stop being the same thing they've been for far too long.  There's plenty wiggle-room to get us out of this rut in the realm of ethics alone, and here are just a few possibilities:
1) Superheroes resolve to kill villains in some cases.  Not just people like Deadpool and the Punisher, who get a rush out of doing it; people who greatly regret it but come to the unhappy conclusion that it's the only option, and that sleeping less soundly at night is their burden to bare for the sake of the innocents they saved by killing a killer.
2) Superheroes still don't kill villains, but instead the law enforcement becomes effective at keeping them permanently neutralized.  New villains arise if the plot needs to keep going.
3) Superheroes still don't kill villains, but they stop preaching about it.  No more strawmen to set up and attack with non-arguments, while events imply the strawmen right.
4) Superheroes still don't kill villains, but they come to the realization that incapacitating them and passing them on to the police isn't enough.  Maybe have Batman start to make an active effort to improve Gotham Police Department, or maybe he and his closer allies, of which he now has many, can start their own jail.  Superheroes, with their prodigious talents and abilities, should be able to make a good, permanent difference in the world, even if the devious status-quo-defending writers don't let them yet.

Of course, by now the "side" effect of such innovative writing should be obvious: The stories would probably have an ending.  This might sound depressing to people who still want experience more stories from these characters--every once in a while, they manage to turn out something mostly new!  However, don't forget that continuity itself is constantly changing, starting and stopping in these franchises.  Retcons get introduced all the time; effectively and sometimes officially swapping out an old canon for a new one.  Alternate universes are legion, both within the original magazine format of SEs and in the many other media that carry adaptations.  So here's a thought; if continuities aren't going to last anyway, why not give them a good ending before they go out?  The ending doesn't have to be Batman killing the Joker, but maybe it could be some other thing happening to finally neutralize the Joker, which lets Batman move on to other things.  Why not give the current Iron Man the chance to invent something great and world-changing before he's thrown out in favor of a new Iron Man who starts in whatever war is going on now?

I think I've made my case here: I like endings.  Maybe not final endings, but definitive places wherein at least one of a hero's stated goals is unambiguously accomplished.  How it's accomplished is a matter of great flexibility, but it should be accomplished, and I am confident superhero media can be better at that than it has been.  If I'm to support these characters, they have to have realistic mindsets about how to take up the cause of justice.

Meanwhile, there are other prominent bits of literature I can also attack for never reaching they tease, and those who know me well can guess what's next on that chopping block...

Debunking the Notion that The Incredibles is Right-Wing Propaganda

Not too long ago, I wrote a blog post explaining that although I also have a political blog, I felt I could put it here on Entertainment Examiner because it could address the intersection of politics and culture without taking a specific stand on any contentious issues.  I have decided that I can do the same with this post.  The movie The Incredibles has inspired some political discussion as to whether it sends a message that is, at best, controversial.  I am going to weigh in on that in this blog, but I'm not going to say whether I agree or disagree with that supposed message; simply whether I agree or disagree that it's even in this movie: Spoiler: I largely disagree.

Back when I first saw this movie, I didn't perceive any political undertones whatsoever.  I wasn't the most insightful person at the time, but I still noticed them in other films, such as Osmosis Jones and X-Men. With The Incredibles, it just felt like the whimsical story of a world where some humans have superpowers (such people will from here on be called "metahumans"; a common and more basically accurate term than "superheroes" since the latter also implies a moral position), have been banned from using them for vigilantism after one too many scandals, and must covertly come out of retirement to stop a mad scientist.  It was only upon reading some allegations online that I started to think about this movie having an unapologetically conservative message.  The super-powered individuals this film focuses on, said such allegations, were really metaphors for talented capitalists whose abilities enabled them to climb higher in society than anyone else, while the laws against them and the mad scientist who hated them were analogous to government regulations based on the resentment and suspicion of less talented people.  I forget where online I first encountered such an interpretation, but at some point a floodgate had burst and this film's alleged anti-egalitarian moral was being touted far and wide; both critically by left-leaning sites like Cracked and favorably by right-leaning sites like National Review.

Though one might conclude that when people on opposite political sides agree on something, it's probably true, I remained skeptical that this movie was, in essence, an homage to the ideals of Ayn Rand and similar champions of morally unrestrained capitalist ubermenschen.  Then last week, I finally got the chance to watch the movie again, and came away from it more convinced than ever that the common political analysis of it is indeed quite cherry-picked.  With The Incredibles now fresh in my memory, I am prepared to write a longer analysis that calls into question the common political claim about it, but spoiler alert, because I will be pointing at many key plot points chronologically--therefore I recommend you see the movie yourself first.

Assuming you have done so, you will know that this movie's conflict is primarily between the super-powered Mr. Incredible (real name Bob Parr), and the unpowered but resourceful Syndrome (real name Buddy Pine).  It starts fifteen-years before the rest of movie, back when Buddy is still a child and actually a fan of Mr. Incredible--and almost immediately, the theory of Mr. Incredible being analogous to the skilled capitalist who dominates others starts falling apart.  Initially, Bob is doing his thing, ready to save the world, with Buddy insisting he join in; styling himself as "Incrediboy".  Bob is hesitant, shunning Buddy out of fears that he will not fare well due to lack of powers, but also youthful naivete.  Undeterred, Buddy dawns a pair of flight-enabling skates and rushes back to his hero's side, not noticing that a villain has strapped him with a bomb, forcing Mr Incredible to let the villain escape while saving his over-eager fan; after which he rebukes Buddy the most sternly yet, and this leads to Buddy seeking revenge in the future.

Is there a message about capitalism yet?  It's true; Bob having superpowers can be likened to normal people having skills--but Buddy actually is a normal person with skills.  As an inventor of machines that enable people to do things they ordinarily can't, he may well have more ability to profit from his skills than do metahumans who can't sell their powers--we'll come back to that later.  Moreover, capitalism is characterized, even by its proponents, as entailing people using their skills for personal gain; on the theory that it will ultimately help everyone.  Whether this theory is true or not, Mr Incredible cannot be construed as seeking personal gain as his overriding concern in these backstory scenes is to help other people.  It's quite obviously the reason he rejects Buddy's assistance; he fears Buddy will die, or cause the death of others, and both of these things very nearly happen.  Buddy, meanwhile, doesn't show any concern for such hazards; seemingly valuing nothing more than the adrenaline rush of being powerful--again, more on this later.  These scenes also show Mr Incredible saving a man from committing suicide by jumping off a building, segueing into a montage of people beginning to resent the help of superheroes, laws being passed against them, and a flash-forward to fifteen-years later.

The next segment of the movie shows the metahumans, including Bob, his wife Helen, and their three children, dealing the best they can in the new superhero-free world.  Metahumans are forced to hide their powers, to the chagrin of the aptly named Dash Parr; Bob and Helen's super-fast son.  Helen insists he not compete in sports for fear of blowing his cover, while Bob disagrees.  Here is where we get introduced to a particular line of dialogue commonly cited as proof of this film's Randian agenda.  Dash points out that his father says he's special, Helen says everyone is special, and Dash retorts "Which is another way of saying no one is".  It's an interesting point to consider, for certain, but when considering what else is going on in this movie, its most obvious implications are far more canonical than allegorical.  Everyone involved has a valid point; simply in an argument they can't really win due to less-than-ideal circumstances.  Helen's "everyone is special" advice is really just a post-hoc rationalization of policies that help to hide what her son is; she isn't wrong to want to protect her children in a culture that hates people like them, while meanwhile Bob and Dash aren't wrong to hate having to hide.  True; Dash has an unfair advantage over other athletes, but it isn't his fault he was born with that advantage, nor that he was born in a world that gave him no useful legal ways to utilize his gift.

The aforementioned less-than-ideal circumstances that lead to such family squabbles (not to mention other troubles), may also be cited as a parable to Randian objectivism; after all, they result from a legal ban on these people using their powers to do extraordinary things.  The details revealed, however, show a more nuanced view of the government than such ideology portends.  The government didn't spontaneously crack down on metahumans; rather it was in response to overwhelming public backlash and majority rule.  Moreover, the said response was actually conciliatory towards metahumans; they got banned from being superheroes but the government assisted them in settling into everyday life and hiding them from those who hated them. (To a point; more on that later.) Again, it wasn't ideal, but it was a sincere and mostly successful attempt at keeping the peace.  The government's representative in the film, Agent Rick Dicker, is always very sympathetic towards Bob and his family, even when shocking events trouble his job of keeping them hidden.

So this movie doesn't really seem to vilify the government; contrary to what would be expected from its supposed Randian philosophy.  However, what about the sorts of people such philosophy actually venerates?  How does the movie regard entrepreneurs following their selfish interests and rising above others because, as such philosophy holds, they're just better and thus deserve it?  A series of scenes involving Bob Parr's job for the fictional company, Insuricare, provides some idea.  The hulking former Mr. Incredible is reduced to being a sedentary bureaucrat serving the diminutive Gilbert Huph. 

Probably the most punchable character Pixar has ever modeled.

Despite his small stature, Huph is a merciless businessman with a host of unfair insurance policies, but Mr. Parr does his best to help needy customers find loopholes.  Seeing his business model threatened, Mr. Huph calls Mr. Parr to his office, chewing him out for daring to have a conscience, and demanding he act more like a cog in a machine.  Meanwhile, Bop Parr notices a man outside the window getting mugged, and begs to intervene, but Mr. Huff demands he stays put, belittling the victim as the mugger runs off.  Bob snaps at that, and even though he's supposed to be hiding his powers, grabs Huff by the neck and throws him through several walls!  If this movie was supposed to be an allusion to ideology that holds selfishness to be a virtue, and Mr Incredible a metaphor for businessmen who most fully embody that virtue, then why would it show that he despises such selfish business policies and cares about the meek?

Needless to say, Bob loses his job, but is luckily recruited by Mirage, an agent from a shadowy organization promising to make use of his superpowers.  Facing poverty and alienation from his family, he accepts the offer and boards a plane to a mysterious island.  Various return trips to do various tasks prove lucrative, and the reborn Mr. Incredible gets back in the groove, mending his old costume and getting back into shape. Things are looking up for him, up until his new boss shows up.  It's his disenchanted former fan, Buddy Pine; now a wealthy arms dealer calling himself Syndrome, and he's on a quest for revenge, murdering metahumans, researching their powers, and planning a massive endgame.  Fortunately, Helen has gotten suspicious of what's going on with her husband, so she and the children suit up to go save him.

Their many battles against Syndrome and his minions don't require detailing in this post, and textual recap can't do them justice, but it is necessary to mention Syndrome's gloating speech to the Parr Family, as this is the last (and probably biggest) key point cited by those who allege this film to have a right-wing, anti-egalitarian bias.  Syndrome boasts of giving other people powers so they can be super too, and in an echo of Dash's line earlier in the film, adds that when everybody is super, nobody will be.  To some (the sort who dislike this movie), his cause actually seems just.  However, the quote has been taken out of context to quite an extreme degree, and a better look at more of his speech shows his true character and motives.

The face of a psychopath.

Syndrome has spent the last fifteen years selling weapons to fund his conspiracy, murdering people who did nothing wrong to him, and attempting to murder children.  During a showdown with Mr. Incredible threatening Mirage's life to blackmail Syndrome, Syndrome declares Mr. Incredible is bluffing and couldn't bring himself to kill her; when Syndrome proves correct, he calls Mr. Incredible weak, prompting Mirage to retort that valuing life isn't weakness (and ultimately, to switch sides).  His full plan, after eliminating the current metahumans, is to send a robot to attack a city, show up armed with advanced weapons to stop it and be hailed as a new superhero, and only later, upon getting too old to do it anymore, will he sell his inventions to people who can pay.

The connection of the two statements makes it clear that Syndrome has no more sincere commitment to equalizing society than he does to being a hero.  Far from a concerned socialist, he is in fact a brutally selfish capitalist whose actions bring immense suffering.  Those who deem Syndrome's goal a parable for welfare, and thus read the scene as an attempt to discredit welfare, would do well to remember that welfare normally consists of handouts of things that are unambiguously beneficial, such as housing, food, and healthcare.  Syndrome intends to sell what are, in essence, more weapons.  Certainly, more people would gain the equivalent of superpowers than had them before, but the effects wouldn't be egalitarian, as the richer people would be able to buy a dangerous edge against the poorer people--the effects of which could be understandably disastrous.  Syndrome, though, either doesn't understand or doesn't care.  As was the case fifteen years ago, Syndrome's motives entail no real aversion to the mere existence of superpowers; in fact he loves the rush of being powerful but has no regard for the dangers it brings.  So no; he should not be an admirable figure to anyone who values egalitarianism and worries about the privileged harming others, and is instead far more akin to the sorts of people that far too many accuse this film of lionizing.  Fortunately, The Incredibles defeat Syndrome, though it takes a while, and the movie ends with their type still illegal, but newly appealing to many onlookers. (Note, at the time of writing this, a sequel has come out and I have seen it, but I won't mention it yet.)

So if this movie isn't actually glorifying--and in fact, is villifying--the sorts of people who use their power to step over others, then what is its real message; assuming it has any?  I believe it's more about learning how to be a decent person in an inherently unfair world.  A constant theme in this movie is that power is multifaceted and inevitable; it may be a man who is genetically stronger than anyone else, it may be an unjust law, it may be a greedy businessman, it may be a mad scientist, or many other things, many of them not featured in this movie.  The good news, though, is that contrary to popular belief, power doesn't have to corrupt.  It can corrupt; the movie never claims otherwise, and there is thus ample reason for it to be externally checked, but the same suspicion of power can also lead to the powerful checking themselves, and this is important because as the film also establishes through the figure of Gilbert Huff, even people who seem meek and pathetic may well find themselves in positions of power over others.

On that last note, I will concede that I see a few problems with this film.  First, every character who abuses power in this film is a normal human, utilizing economic and scientific means to oppress others; normal and metahuman alike.  Meanwhile, no metahumans in the film use their powers to oppress normal people, which might send the unpleasant message that the more mighty ought also to be presumed more moral.  Then again, the metahumans do cause collateral damage, so the film doesn't pretend the law against them is totally unwarranted, and for as sympathetic as its metahuman protagonists are, it doesn't ultimately arrive at the conclusion that this law causes more problems than it solves.  When all of the villains are normal people, there's no real reason to believe that other normal people aren't able to stop them, so the film ends with the law still in place and the Parrs still in hiding.

Maybe that was intentional; people aren't supposed to learn an unambiguously correct lesson in a world full of injustice.  Even so, the film's sequel, which involves the family working to revoke the law, doesn't really correct that course; I'm not going to give it away, but the villains are still all normal people.  This franchise's world could really benefit from the existence of at least one villainous metahuman, as this would allow it more definitely to argue that laws against all metahumans aren't a good idea.  Villainous ones probably wouldn't follow such laws anyway; instead it might just make them more mendacious towards society, and if they prove too powerful for normal people to stop, it would benefit them to get on better terms with the more benign metahumans.  As of the second movie, this franchise still has that glaring hole in its ethics.

Still, that leaves me wanting more rather than wanting less.  A flawed epic isn't the same as an irreparable one, Director Brad Bird denies that he intended to deliver any right-wing message with these movies, and with so much more commendable than deplorable about them, I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.  Hopefully, a third film can take the series further in that logical direction, and I invite them to try.

Pokemon Should Take a Page from Mario and Innovate More

Forward

Lately I have become a bit infamous as a detractor of Nintendo's and Gamefreak's Pokemon series.

This wouldn't have been too big a deal if I had expressed such negative opinions back when the series was at its peak of popularity in the 1990s, since hype-aversion will always be in fashion among some; nor afterward when that hype aversion won out for a time, as it usually does in a trend's lifestyle.  Yet I didn't have a low opinion of the series at either of those points in time.  If I was going to turn my back on that sort of thing out of a fragile sense of maturity/machismo, I'd have done so in High School, the time in many people's lives when such an attitude is most severe, but no; I held defiantly onto my Pokemon fandom then even as many of my peers moved on.

Ironically, it wasn't until I noticed Pokemon becoming really popular and publicized again that I started to sour on it, and the reason is perfectly clear to me: For all that I had been a loyal customer for over a decade, willing to stand by it and see where it went, it never went anywhere.  Speaking as someone who has been with it since the very first games debuted in the USA, Pokemon is the most unapologetically repetitive, stale game series I have ever encountered. Every main game delivers the same scenario: You're a young boy (or possibly a girl, beginning in Generation 2) who lives in a tiny, mostly ill-equipped town that nonetheless also has a laboratory staffed by a professor, this professor gives you your first Pokemon that is (with the exception of some spinoffs) either Fire, Water or Grass type, you go on a quest to become the region champion, generally challenging gyms (although the last Generation swapped those out for Trials), until you're eligible to challenge the Elite 4, and along the way, a terrorist group whose name starts with "Team" attacks.  Despite the new regions and new species added each generation, this degree of sameness was simply too much to keep me engrossed in the series, so I fell out with it.  However, I'm not writing it off as permanently irreparable.  What I am about to argue is that Pokemon can easily change up its experience, bringing myself and other former fans back in--without repelling anyone else from it in the process.

 The Mario Mindset

Some will say that when a series is as successful as this one is even when it's stale, it doesn't need to make any changes.  But lack of need aside, lots of other game series that are successful innovate more than this one, and while few have managed to be as successful as Pokemon, one of the few series that has managed to be more successful, Mario, provides a vastly more diverse set of experiences.  Part of this diversity is naturally that the Mario series is divided into several different "pillars" (sub-series), so noteworthy as examples of how to cater to a wide range of demographics that it has been suggested other series should follow it.  However, a look at those pillars individually reveals that even the core "Super Mario" series on its own outsells Pokemon...and that core series is extremely diverse in itself.

Beginning as a vague character in a variety of single-screen games, Mario found a winning formula in 1985 with the first Super Mario Bros.  For any who don't know, the game featured Mario running and jumping, able to defeat enemies by jumping on top of them and trigger blocks by jumping to hit them from beneath, collecting coins and sometimes mushrooms to make him grow larger and stronger, or if he was already large, flowers that let him shoot fireballs.  People loved it, and with one exception in the form of a non-Mario game rebranded as Super Mario Bros 2 in the US, that would be the base formula for Mario platformers up through 1992--but then things changed.  Running and jumping remained staples of games titled "Super Mario ____", but otherwise Nintendo began going wild with new ideas.  First came a prequel starring Yoshi, using his own unique abilities to help Mario as a baby reunite with his brother, and then their parents.  Then came Mario's entry into 3D, Super Mario 64, which dramatically changed Mario's abilities, power-ups, and level-structure to fit that.  The series continues to innovate to this day; occasionally revisiting elements from the old Super Mario Bros formula but straying back away just as quickly.  Nintendo is always concerned with making Super Mario games good, but it doesn't seem concerned with making good Super Mario games.  To do that would necessitate preconceptions of what exactly Super Mario games should be, and Nintendo doesn't care to have such preconceptions.

This lack of of orthodoxy has not hurt its profits.  On the contrary, I'd say it's a big part of why Mario has outsold not only Pokemon, but every other video game series.  It's not that everyone just likes Mario better; rather it's probably that Mario combines the comfort of assured high quality with the thrill of the unknown, and subsequently a collection of individually memorable experiences.  I sometimes get in the mood to play a Mega Man game, and when I do maybe I will, but I don't get in the mood to play a specific Mega Man game.  Likewise, when Capcom announces a new Mega Man game, maybe I'll buy it but maybe I won't, too.  The formula of the games is too solidified to make them all worth a look in order to get my Mega Man fix. (Note: The Mega Man series also has pillars; though many enter periods of dormancy and some stay there, but unlike Mario, none of these pillars has as much variety within itself.  For the sake of this essay, assume I'm talking about the Classic Mega Man series that started on the NES and has recently released its 11th main game.)  The Super Mario series, though, throws in so many new elements and markets games around them that its entries can still draw me in even after I have played a past entry, and even if I feel that past entry is so perfect it can't be topped.  I love Super Mario Bros 3 for its wide array of power-ups and environments, but it didn't take players into space and utilize virtual orbital gravity physics the way that Super Mario Galaxy did.  I love Super Mario 3D World for its catsuit, co-op and nostalgic level design, but it didn't allow players to take control of a wide variety of entities the way Super Mario Odyssey did.  That these games try different things makes players want to try them all out, while the fact that they star Mario ensures they'll get the publicity needed to make players aware those different things exist.

That is The Mario Mindset.  While reaching the top means you can settle into a routine, it doesn't mean you should.  Even when you can't seem to go any higher, you can still go sideways.  The people in charge of Mario have the money to afford that investment and the loyal fanbase to help them earn it back.  We're getting towards an argument of how such an approach can be applied to Pokemon. First, though, we should look at where.

Where and What Can Wiggle and Wander?

Before getting into how the Pokemon series should follow Mario's example, I want to address a possible objection to it doing so.  The first objection would probably be that not every game series can be like Mario, which has an ability to explore diverse ideas that other game series don't, since its character has such a vague design, not indicative of any particular function.  This isn't as relevant as one might think, though.  

Kirby has arguably an even more vague design; in its default state representative of almost nothing besides a character of some sort.  Such a character could theoretically be used to deliver all different sorts of game scenarios, but while there do exist Kirby spin-offs, they haven't become "pillars" and the main series always consists of side-scrolling platformers involving Kirby flying, inhaling enemies, and possibly swallowing them to copy their powers.  Mario is at least a bit more defined than that; with overalls and a rotund profile that give the impression of being a blue-collar worker, but it hasn't stopped his game developers from thinking outside the box.

Having said that, it can't be denied that Pokemon games have a broader "core" than Mario games, which arguably is more important to retain.  Mario's core mechanics of running and jumping were established in a time when limited technology couldn't allow many more per-game.  Being created over a decade later, Pokemon was able to have more gameplay mechanics in its first game(s) than Mario had, and being a success, these became its core.  It's a turn-based role-playing game that utilizes an expanded "rock, paper scissors" system of type weaknesses and advantages assigned to Pokemon and their attacks.  The Pokemon fight using these mechanics.  Other things happen in the series, but the RPG battles are the core around which they orbit.

However, being anchored to these core mechanics doesn't mean that Pokemon can't innovate elsewhere.  Let's go back to the Mario series for this explanation, because it's not just its gameplay that changes from game to game.  Also, varying from game to game are the plots and settings, and this is true even in the pillars of the Mario series that tend to be less diverse than the "Super Mario" branch.

Take the "Mario & Luigi" set of roleplaying games, for example.  The first is about a witch cursing the princess, prompting the plumbers to travel to her land of sentient beings to stop that witch.  In the second game, aliens invade, and to stop them Mario and Luigi must travel back in time to team up with their baby selves.  These plots aren't just amusingly weird in themselves; even if you've experienced one the next will still feel that way, since they're so different...and different is good.

Likewise the Mario series' approach to settings is so different from Pokemon's as to warrant a mention.  Pokemon introduces a new region every generation, and they're overall distinct from one another, but the towns players start in largely rememble each other; a few houses, a laboratory, and not much else.  For those of us who have played Pokemon games before, this is a dull repetitive hump to get over, and even for newcomers, it's a less interesting and almost mis-representative take on the adventure that comes after.  By contrast, many (though not all) Mario games take place in the Mushroom Kingdom, but the starting levels always have diverse designs.  Though forgiving of failure, the first levels of Mario games give people the ability to explore more (though not all) of the game's mechanics.  Even the surroundings of Princess Peach's castle, a common location in the series, change from game to game; they might be sparse one game, have a race course adjacent in another, a town adjacent in still another, or maybe even a race course and a town.  That sort of change might be a problem if the games prioritized world-building, but they don't, which in turn brings us to a very important point.

As has been established, things in game series can be divided between "core mechanics"; those which are important to the series' identity, and essentially everything else.  The latter category of things is less important by default, of course, but here's a neat secret: Precisely because of their lesser importance, the games have more leeway to experiment with them!  Let's say this new Mario game's plot about teaming up with a gang of naked molerats that have elemental powers arguably isn't as good as last game's plot about Mario battling an evil ringmaster who has a toaster for a face--oh well; plot isn't really important to Mario games.  But let's say it's better!  Then the game has succeeded at creating something memorable!  It didn't have to try, but it did, and it didn't have to succeed, but it also did.  Every once in a while, moreover, something Mario games didn't have to try, like the character Fawful, succeed so well that it goes on to be reused.

The Mario series seems to look at everything that isn't essential to it and conclude it can get away with doing almost anything with it. (Though not quite; more on this next section.)  It creates all manner of wonderful things by doing so.  The Pokemon series seems to look at everything that isn't essential to it and conclude it can get away with doing almost nothing with it.  It thus continues to display gameplay mechanics that stand the test of time and new species of Pokemon, but little else of value to retain and expand upon come next game.  However, while I'm certainly not saying Pokemon should transform into Mario, I am adamant that at least on its periphery, Pokemon could benefit from adapting its mindset, because a rare time it has already done so has given it perhaps its biggest crown jewel: Pikachu.

It was fatter back then.

Think about it: Pikcahu is absolutely inessential to the core Pokemon mechanics.  It's one species out of originally 150, it can potentially evolve into another species, and its Electric type isn't the most convenient to teach the effectiveness mechanics to newcomers; hence why it wasn't originally one of the starters in the games.  You would need to capture it to complete the Pokedex, but you could easily play through all of the game without ever using it in battle.  If Pikachu wasn't in the game, the game would be almost identical.  So the creators Pokemon certainly didn't need to play up Pikachu as its mascot, but back then, for once, they understood what should be obvious: Just because you do not need to do a thing doesn't mean that you need to not do that thing.  By doing that thing they did not need to do, in turn, they created a phenomenon within the phenomenon.

Seriously; would this exist if the series was only about turn-based Rock-Paper-Scissors RPG battles?

Because Pikachu has become an icon unto itself, attaching it to things can get fans to follow.  If you want a noteworthy event in a game, it can be about Pikachu in some way.  If you want to do a game based on the anime, Pikachu can play a bigger role as one of the key mechanics.  It can help sell spinoff games , and allow the creators to try out uncharacteristically zany ideas.  Most recently, it was even used to make a detective spinoff game, playing on how Pikachu doesn't usually solve mysteries, and this game has inspired an upcoming live-action/CGI movie.  It's coming out this May, and is the first Pokemon product I've been excited for in years.  So if thinking outside the box has already led to one big success for Pokemon, how can it do more of that?

Pokemon's Potential for Progress

Bringing more innovation to Pokemon should start with the main series of RPGs, so among proposed innovations, how ought the series to dinstinguish between "Things it does not need to do" and "Things it needs to not do"?  The best way would be to determine if it's "safe"; via two principles:

1) As noted above, it shouldn't compromise its core gameplay mechanics, which are turn-based RPG battles using a rock-paper-scissors sort of effectiveness system, many different possible moves to learn, and a few more subtle systems.  Remember that this refers to the main series of RPGs; spin-offs can deviate further.
2) It shouldn't do things that would alienate its current audience, which largely consists of children.  Ideas that bring in other audiences would be great, but only in addition to the existing audience; not instead.

So the following would fall under "Need to not do":
* Real-time battles.
*Battles that don't use type-effectiveness.
*A scene of Pokemon engaging in lewd acts.

Meanwhile, he following would fall under "Do not need to do":
*A new move called "Taxation"
*A new Pokemon type called "Mechanical"
*A scene of Pokemon dancing jigs.

Those are humorously random suggestions of "safe" ideas that wouldn't pose any threat to what they need to maintain, but won't necessarily bring new success, either.  Meanwhile, here are safe ideas that I would argue the series actually should do:

*A different start to the story than a professor giving the protagonists their first Pokemon again.  This is a safe idea because professors are actually a pretty small part of Pokemon games; generally not interacting with the player much after that scene.  There would need to be some sort of replacement to explain mechanics, provide a PokeDex to players, and whatever new excuse is for getting a Pokemon should still allow for a choice between multiple.  However, requesting that the writers do something different could give them an incentive to come up with something better.  Maybe fun supporting characters throughout the story, maybe more possible starter Pokemon; who knows?!  If it ends up worse than the same old scenario of getting a Pokemon from a professor, then as explained above, oh well; these plot elements aren't super-important to the game.

*Villains whose name doesn't start with "Team".  I shouldn't have to explain why this is a totally safe idea.  It may seem trivial either way, but once again, breaking that mold gives a chance to be more creative; employing more words and literary devices to form interesting titles like "The Brotherhood of Bullheaded Battlers".  Of course many other things could be done besides that, but it's a good lead to next point.

*Be funnier.  So long as the bit about staying child-friendly is heeded, this is a safe idea, and an excellent source of inspiration for comedy could be the aforementioned Mario RPGs.  While some types of comedy, such as slapstick, could be difficult to convey in a game with such abstract graphics, verbal humor utilizing a script could do very well, as there is generally a fair amount of text already in the games.

*A different focus to the game than just becoming the region's champion.  This is a safe idea because there are already other things going on in the games.  There's the aforementioned villainous team, there are legendary Pokemon to catch, there's often a pivotal battle to save the region.  Making a new Pokemon game's plot center around something that is more interesting than just another tournament--which ultimately, can really only end one way--would be a good way to lure back in those of us who aren't as compelled by tournaments.  Pokemon Black/White already took some steps toward this by having the villains invade the Pokemon League, so in many regards it doesn't matter whether the people you're battling at the end of the story mode are League members or not.

*Mostly a removal of lock-and-key map progression.  That is, don't limit progress through the region based on gaining access to needed Pokemon abilities unlocked at specific points in the story.  While this had a point in maintaining the order of plot points in past Pokemon games, technological advancement has allowed such a sequence to tied to events instead.  A common recommendation of what to do instead is impede people's progress through some places with wild Pokemon who have higher levels.  While it might seem like a major shift, I would argue it's a shift that's still in line with Pokemon's core mechanic; the battles.  Since the whole quest is ultimately an excuse to meet, battle, catch and train Pokemon, and "HM slavery" has many detractors even among big Pokemon fans, I'd argue that this would just put a greater emphasis on the series' better elements.  Making the toughest battles the player faces be against wild Pokemon rather than trained ones also might help the game feel more like an adventure.

They don't need to try all of those to make the main series feel fresh again, and they could even try some different things entirely, but above all else, the point is to add something new to a Pokemon game, peripheral to the battles, besides the usual new creatures and region.  Make a Pokemon game that truly feels new to those of us who have already played many Pokemon games!

Further Afield

While the above ideas could be great ways to add things to this series that, much like Pikachu's creation, could be used to promote spin-offs if they become popular, in truth the Pokemon series already is well-equipped to do a great deal of spin-offs.  I'm just surprised it doesn't seem to milk the potential as much as it could.  The sad thing is that while Pokemon has had plenty of spin-offs, with the exception of the Mystery Dungeon games they don't seem to have launched active pillars, but I think the potential is there for a lot more.  Why not have a third Poke Park game with more playable Pokemon than the last one on the Wii?  Or maybe a game like that but with more at stake in its story and not simply a glorified carnival?  Why not have another map-based strategy game like Pokemon Conquest?  Really, I'm only scratching the surface.  I could describe my ideal Pokemon game here, but it would pose the risk of preventing it from being made, because most companies don't risk utilizing fan ideas.

In Closing

There seems to be a wide belief that I don't like Pokemon.  In fact, I do like Pokemon...the creatures themselves, that is.  What's not to like about (usually) good-looking animals with all sorts of interesting powers?  It just saddens me that after two decades, there's still been relatively little exploration of the many possible places this series could go.  I continue to argue that it should go to these places, because the company has made more than enough money to try.  As Mario's healthy, multi-pillared series proves, they may very well arrive at something amazing.