Email: Has Game Freak gone 3d crazy?

Hi! I read the e-mail you got. The one about Pokémon and how Game Freak understands how to sell a game.

Well I’m a bit disappointed. It seems to me that even Game Freak has got a taste of the good ol’ 3D-sickness. First off, the game has a different angle in Black and White. An angle that makes the game look more “3D” then what the “over-the-top”-angle did before.

The biggest proof of this is Hiun City (well that’s how long in to the game I’ve come). I was shocked to see what they had made.

Here are to clips of the city:

Note how the guy says “there’s so much to do!!!”, “Giant city”. Well that’s is not right. I did all there is to do in the city (i.e. beat the gym leader, Team Plasma, all trainers, etc.) in about 40-50 minutes. Sure it looks big but the truth is that there is less to do in the city then other smaller looking city’s.

The camera angles are automatic.

So that’s that. Game Freak has officially gone 3D-crazy!

Great way to sell a game, n’est-ce pas?

When Nintendo went 3d for their home consoles, they destroyed Mario (Mario stopped selling as well and the brand became lame) and I’d argue Zelda was destroyed as well (Nintendo redefined Zelda to be a ‘puzzle collection’ since they are unable to make Zelda games in 3d with the exception of Ocarina [which is why it is awesome while the Zelda games that followed became bitter disappointments]). Worse, moving to 3d made it much harder to continue to consistently supply the console with games since it takes more development time.

The big, big question with the 3DS is will Nintendo destroy Pokemon like they did with their other franchises? I keep getting unhappy emails from Pokemon players about the direction the series is going.