My Complaints on Pokemon Fan Games

Fan content is always interesting to see and consume. Seeing what people make and how it differs really says a lot about how the community views the original work. And as someone who consumes a lot of Pokemon fan content, I really have to disagree with how most people view this series. Or well, I disagree with the direction most people take their fan games in, or at least the direction that the small sample of fan games I have played have gone in. So I wanna talk about some trends I’ve noticed.

On one hand, you have the people who are really into battling. And there is nothing wrong with this. Battling in Pokemon is fun! There is a lot of strategy and decision making, both during the battle and before it during team building. However, my issue comes in with these purely battle focused fan games. Think about games like Radical Red. To me, these function as an inferior version of something like Pokemon Showdown. They aim to offer a competitive battling experience, but end up failing. For example, Radical Red has updated battling mechanics and features, leading to some incredibly complex strategies and combinations you have to go up against. But whats the point when it seems most battles are overcome not through strategy but exploiting flaws in the enemy trainer AI? Its less about constructing a general team to get through the game and more about making something to best handle whatever team you’re up against next. Sure, there is enjoyment to treating each battle like a puzzle and trying to overcome it with the tools given, but from a more casual standpoint its frustrating. And even then, the game still requires work and effort like a normal game would. If you look at Showdown, it makes it incredibly trivial to build and test teams because it cuts the fat one would expect to see in a normal game. These difficulty hacks just simply fall victim to the fact that raw battling doesn’t necessarily play the best in a normal game, but rather it plays much better in a dedicated simulation environment.

Another thing I’ve noticed is how so many mods just try to “improve” the game in more dubious ways. Don’t get me wrong, updating the battle engine and adding QOL improvements is something I won’t disagree with, but often times these have less tangible costs associated with them. One thing I despise are the full dex modifications. They often feel lazy as they just fill routes to the brim with different Pokemon, often with only a semblance of rhyme or reason. Its nice having the options, but its overwhelming when a third of the dex is available before the first gym. Its just pure choice paralysis, and it certainly doesn’t allow for any better battles. Because these types of game offer a large set of potential options for team building, it doesn’t allow creators to better fine tune battles to encourage or punish certain strategies based on available Pokemon. Take a locked puzzle box for example. Say it comes with hints or instructions on how to open it. Maybe there is some mechanism to fiddle with or a combination lock to solve, regardless, the puzzle box has everything you need to solve it. So is it any fun to go grab a hammer and smash it open? No, of course not, and thats what so many fan games do when they allow too large a selection of Pokemon. Its sloppy game design disguised as a pro for player choice.

But on the other hand, you have the story mods. The ones that focus on taking the universe of Pokemon and telling their own stories within it. I enjoy these much more, mostly because I’ve played through the official games countless times, but they almost always suck. And it wasn’t until recently I was able to put my finger on why, and its not the overly edgy plots they always seem to have. Rather, its the fact they have the habit of making the player character the center of the story.

Now, what the heck do I mean by that? Isn’t the player character always the center of the story? To an extent, yes, but I want to take a look at the more story centric Pokemon games and discuss why they’re so much more beloved for their stories. Black and White are much more a story about N rather than the player. N was raised in a way where he was only exposed to one opinion, that Pokemon should be free. And we see throughout the story this belief is challenged several times, each time changing and shaping his perception as he is exposed to more views of the world. By the end, he has gotten to the point where he is able to form his own opinions based on his own experiences. There is more to it than my rather simple summary (especially given the game gives no player agency to respond to the morality of Pokemon battling), but the key thing is its not about the player. In BW, the player exists as a blank canvas to be projected on and to advance the plot, while the actual focus of the story happens around them. The same thing happens in Sun and Moon with Lillie. Those games are much more about Lillie and her relationship with her mother and brother than anything that happens to the player. Even the latest games, Scarlet and Violet, the core focus is on the companions that accompany the player instead of the player themselves.

So many fan games fail at this. So many. Most of the ones I have played, actually. I know a lot of older fan games get a bad rap for being overly “dark” and “edgy”. Basically they would intentionally mention surface level things that would be considered that to address Pokemon being too “child friendly”. And while this is bad and cringe, more modern fan games try to approach it in a more nuanced way by having more coherent and ambitious stories. Stories that fall into the pitfall of having the player character be the main character. Which doesn’t work because in basically all Pokemon games, the player character acts as a blank slate. This is even reflected in the gameplay, given how much freedom the game gives to team building and customization by design. To put it literally, if me and a friend both play though a Pokemon game, the characters we play as are inherently different characters because the game allows us to express that character in how they build their team, what Pokemon they catch and don’t catch, how they choose to battle and what strategies they use. All these gameplay decisions done by the player impact the perception of the player character. Fan games make the mistake of ignoring this completely. So many fan games have an idea of what the player character should be and bake that into their story, but they still allow the player to give them a different characterization though how they play the game. It creates this clash that makes the story not work at all. When I expect the character to behave one way, and the game forces them to behave another, it creates a disconnect thats frustrating and takes me out of the game. Pokemon is a role playing game, and that role playing is part of the experience. If you take it away, it completely ruins the story, especially in a fan game where the main appeal is the new story.

So honestly, just based on these complaints alone, you’d think I pretty much hate all fan games out there. And I will admit, I haven’t really liked most of what I have played. But I would still like to highlight a few games that I think manage to avoid these pitfalls. Pokemon Gaia is a phenomenal mod thats best feature is how generic it is. Its generic, not because it lacks anything interesting, but rather because it sticks to what is tried and true. It delivers a well curated experience while bringing plenty of improvements that don’t drag down the overall experience. Another is Pokemon Prism, it was so good Nintendo had to shut it down. Its seriously impressive, with tons of content to enjoy without any of it feeling overdone or over exaggerated.