Pokemon hasgrown stale. While the games are exciting when they dare to try new things, even if they don’t execute them well – see:Pokemon Legends: Arceus– the main series has been languishing in bug-laden mediocrity since it hit theSwitch. However, my inspiration for whatPokemoncould be has come from an unlikely place.
As you may have guessed from the title of this feature, I think Pokemon should be more likeYakuza: Like A Dragon. Hear me out.
An Imperfect Open World
I love exploring Yokohama, and it’s an open world that I think Pokemon can learn from. It’s busy with people going about their lives, events to encounter, and enemy Yakuza to fight. This all translates perfectly to Pokemon. The city is plenty big enough to be your entire region, the NPCs just need reskinning to look like Pokemon folks instead of modern-day people, and the Yakuza just get swapped for Pokemon. There’s your game.
This potential is even more exciting when you think that the next Pokemon game,Legends: Z-A, will be set entirely within Kalos’ capital, Lumiose City. If it canpush the boat out like the previous Legends game didand give us an interesting city filled with people and side quests like Yokohama, we’re in for a treat. Even the taxi service is the same!
Obviously we have to take the Switch’s (lack of) power into account here, but it’s worth noting that Yokohama doesn’t look perfect. This is not as pristinely rendered as Night City, the NPCs aren’t as detailed or lifelike as those inThe Last Of Us. Some things don’t look great, but it’s so easy to forgive when navigating the city feels so true to life. Side quests feel fun and earned, battles feel natural. The gameplay loop is interesting and exciting, so we forgive some less-than-perfect textures.
Realism isn’t everything, and Yakuza: Like A Dragon treads that ground perfectly. The textures are far better than those inPokemon Scarlet & Violet, but not up to the standard of Red Dead Redemption 2. There’s no pop-in of NPCs. The map functions great. Fast travel requires a little work to get to a cab, rather than being instantaneous. All of these things make Yokohama a perfectly crafted environment, somewhere that you enjoy exploring. Pokemon needs to take some inspiration from this, especially if theSwitch 2is more powerful than its predecessor, as is to be expected.
Big Battles
Turn-based combat is a big part of both Pokemon and Yakuza: Like A Dragon. Encounters in the latter are massive 4v5 street fights, whereas Pokemon leans smaller, towards single or double battles. However, the spectacle of Yakuza’s battle system blows Pokemon’s out of the water. The turn order system is remarkably similar to that of Legends: Arceus, so it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that Pokemon could make the leap to bigger fights.
However, even if a Pokemon game in the style of Like A Dragon kept to 1v1 or 2v2 battles, utilising a similar system would be perfect. You can keep PP instead of MP if you insist, but having the fights appear in the actual environment you’re fighting in would be a big step up from Pokemon’s generic battle backgrounds.
What’s more, it would be great to see monsters utilising their environments. In Like A Dragon, Ichiban will pick up a nearby bike to clock an opponent with, so why don’t we see Pikachu or Charizard do the same? I’m talking about electrifying nearby metal fences to catch multiple opponents with a Thunderbolt, burning the grass beneath a Venusaur’s feet to deal environmental damage every turn, that sort of thing.
The games could even reference Ash being electrocuted on his bike in the very first episode of the anime.
While Pokemon’s battle system is tried-and-tested, an upgrade to the environments and animations is sorely needed. If you’re worried about the competitive scene, then you could eliminate RNG by hosting multiplayer battles in a ‘stadium’ of sorts, similar to those in Sword & Shield, free from difficult terrain or environmental hazards.
Sujimon
I’ve not even mentioned the Sujidex yet, for good reason. I don’t care for the Pokemon/Dragon Quest homage in Yakuza: Like A Dragon, I’m not bothered about cataloguing the variety of weirdos who stalk the streets of Yokohama. I feel the same about the Pokedex until I finish the story of a Pokemon game.
Funnily enough, the least interesting comparison of Pokemon and Like A Dragon is the part where they’re most similar. Maybe I’d be more into collecting Sujimon if they joined my party, but I’m happy with Nanba, Saeko, and Adachi. Which brings me to another point.
Pokemon needs to work on its characters. Desperately. There hasn’t been an interesting character since N, and that needs to change. Take some inspiration from other JRPGs and recruit a bunch of misfits for the next Pokemon adventure. Level up friendship, grow closer as you battle together, the lot. Pokemon’s stories and characters are as dull as the gameplay in recent titles, so throwing interesting people into the mix would make everything feel fresher.
Any Problems?
There are a few hurdles to this premise. Obviously a Like A Dragon reskin would not work as a Pokemon game. The Switch’s performance is also worth noting – Like A Dragon holds a stable framerate largely thanks to the consoles it runs on. But, conceptually, I’m making a bigger point here.
Like A Dragon is by no means perfect. I’m really enjoying it, far more than any Pokemon game since, maybe, New Pokemon Snap? But I’m forgiving a lot of imperfections because of how enjoyable it is. Maybe I’d have forgiven Pokemon Scarlet & Violet for its atrocious framerate, terrible pop-in, and awful textures if the game had been more interesting to play. It’s all well and good making an open-world Pokemon game, but you need to make that open world interesting.
Like A Dragon nails this. From the absurd weapons you find lying around, to the vast array of NPCs offering baffling side quests, there’s always something to find in every area of Yokohama. In Paldea, there’s nothing. You have to find a bunch of tokens to unlock a mythical snail. That’s it.
While I’d love Pokemon Legends: Z-A to look like Like A Dragon and have a world as vibrant and lived-in as Yokohama, I’d settle for an interesting game. I don’t want an open world for the sake of it, I want Lumiose to come alive thanks to its interesting characters and intriguing side quests. I want to get lost in the alleyways searching for missing Litten, I want my starter to wallrun along the French facade before delivering a brutal Double Kick to my opponent. Most of all, I want a Pokemon game that’s fun again, and that’s something Like A Dragon has absolutely nailed.
