Hey guys,
It's been a while but I honestly have been dying. Like legitimately. The burnout and depression have hit me like a freight train this semester and it's honestly been kinda hard just to function. Like I put out work earlier this semester (surprise surprise) but it was a story that I was gonna go nuts holding in my head so I just kinda had to expel it. That story is Dark Side of the Moon, by the way. I was really proud of it, especially because I finally managed to write something decent about Sinnoh (since Linkage just doesn't cut it in my opinion) and I've been experimenting with trying to make my characters more complex so I think it came out pretty well.
But this post isn't about that. This post about the new diamond and peal remakes that came out. Those things have been so, so enjoyable to play and have honestly kind of restored my sanity after I kinda lost it. Enough so that even just seeing some of my favorite locations has made me kinda cry with nostalgia.
Nostalgia aside though, for purposes of improving my writing skills I tried to take a good, earnest look to see if there was any merit to why I love Sinnoh so much. And for some reason, while I was kinda reflecting on it and thinking about my fascination in the first place, I found myself comparing the game to sword and shield. My mind would be like "well SWSH definitely did this where Sinnoh didn't" or "SWSH didn't do this while Sinnoh did". Which then caused me to ask myself — why? Why have I been comparing these two so vigorously? More on that later.
In addition to all of that a recent visit to an anime convention has had me kinda reinvigorating some of the flames I feel towards the Avatar the Last Airbender franchise. I've been trying to plan and write a redemption arc and it just so happens Zuko is one of the most well mentioned redemption arcs out there. I've spent a while analyzing the franchise as a whole to get an understanding of what works, what doesn't work which has essentially taken me to the topic of worldbuilding. More too on this later.
Lastly, I recently happened to stumble upon a great video about Mauville/Sea Mauville/New Mauville in ORAS. I honestly was kinda hooked and fascinated and went down a small rabbit hole into the lore behind these things which is really, really cool. If you haven't — you should either visit these locations and look around and talk to the NPCs or watch some videos. ORAS in general was a very well done game.
So, then, what do these three things have to do with each other?
After watching all that stuff about the Mauville stuff for ORAS and playing BDSP I realized — SWSH has bad worldbuilding. And because it has bad worldbuilding, it kind of sucks as a game, especially a Pokémon game.
Now, at the end of this I'll give you some other reasons about things that don't help SWSH's case, but honestly I think (at least for me) this a big reason that SWSH was bad. Yes, Alola and Kalos had scaled down difficulty, but they were still semi-enjoyable because of the worldbuilding within. More on this later.
So why is worldbuilding so important?
At its core, Pokémon is a game about exploration and mystery.
I mean, it might seem counterintuitive at first, considering the point of the game is to go get your 8 badges and win the league, but if you look beneath the surface you'll understand. The 8 badges are a mechanic to get you to travel, and the league is really kind of a means to an end and a way to show you that you've grown throughout it all. But really, Pokémon is all about the pokedex, because you've gotta catch em all, right? And, in order to catch em all you have to travel, talk to people, and clear the obstacles in your way. It's about a journey. Not the destination. Because remember, each and every Pokémon you've ever seen or caught was brand new to you at one point. And I'm sure there are memories you have where you were fascinated with the Pokémon you caught and raised and wanted to know more about them.
And, to that point, when Pokémon was originally developed it actually came out in an era of Japan called the Lost Decade where Japan was in a huge economic recession and people were isolated. Because of the isolation franchises like Yu Gi Oh and things like that started coming out to get people to socialize and meet. The creator made the game with the intention that people had to actually go out and meet others to actually complete the pokedex because they would need to trade. (There's a really good article about this if you look it up)
Since the Pokémon franchise has started to evolve through time there's been more Pokémon to be had and more regions to discover. But pretty much every time you pick up the games you're eager to get to see the world around you. And there's lots to do — you can talk to NPCs who will say stuff about just life in general, NPCs that give you stuff, heck, there's even optional areas for you to explore if you want to get cool items or catch rare Pokémon. Even in gen I, when the story was a lot more linear, there were places like Mt. Moon to explore.
And some of these side locations — like Sea Mauville or the Old Chateau from Platinum, can be absolutely fascinating. Sometimes, these locations can be more interesting than the actual story itself. One of my favorite locations in all of Pokémon is Canalave library, because of the lore that's there. And it's because of these side locations like Mt. Moon, the Ruins of Alph, Sea Mauville, the Old Chateau, the Desert Resort or so many others that the world has depth, has mystery. They give you just enough information to invest you and give you hints about the location, but not enough to actually to tell you what the magic is about.
And that's what makes Pokémon incredible — the magic.
Or, put into writing terms, the soft world-building.
So what is soft versus hard world-building?
Well, hard world building is the hard facts that you have about a world that are given to your reader. Taken to an extreme, you'll see something like J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings with all the fully explained societies with customs and languages etc. Soft world-building is the opposite. These are the kind of mystical magic that you have to assume for yourself. Studio Ghibli movies are a great example of this. Those are the type of movies where you're just mystified by what you're watching, and your imagination helps fill in the blanks in the world you're looking at. The reason this works, is because as the audience to a story, you essentially are able to take the story and fill in most of those blanks yourself. Or, if not, you'll be thinking about it for a while.
Most stories tend to be a hybrid of these two. Just as Lord of the Rings is extreme hard world building, there are some moments where Tolkein doesn't flesh out everything. And, in the opposite respect, there are some things that have to be fleshed out even in Ghibli movies. A decent example of something that's soft worldbuilding but has pieces of hard worldbuilding is the Harry Potter franchise. A lot of the wizarding world is very mystical and unexplained, but J.K. Rowling couldn't leave everything unexplained.
I tend to think that Pokémon is much like Harry Potter in the sense that it is blended between soft and hard worldbuilding, with a strong focus in soft worldbuilding. The reason is, there's some things that are very clearly explained — e.g. Arceus is the Pokémon that created the Sinnoh region and the universe. But there are other things that aren't — e.g. what are the three figures in the celestic town ruins depicting. There are also things that can be heavily inferred — like the identities of the people involved in the Sea Mauville project and what that project was about.
I genuinely think this kind of world building and environmental storytelling is what has given Pokémon it's magic. It is because there are things you know and things that you don't that there is a mystery. After all, if there wasn't a mystery how many YouTube videos, Reddit posts, or fanfictions would you see about people trying to fill in the blanks of that world. How many times as a fanfic writer have you wanted to fill in those holes about your character?
I mean, it gives a lot more meaning to every detail that's in that world. How often do you find yourself taking dialogue and closely examining it? How much do you try to compare what's in the game to the real world? Do you have anything that's stuck out?
And that's not even to mention the hard world building aspects, like the pokedex entries.
Soft worldbuilding is at the core of what makes pokemon memorable because it encourages to expand our imaginations and wonder about things. It makes sightings of the legendary Pokémon magical encounters because it's fascinating to learn about those things. To this day I remember encountering Suicune in the burned tower and the eventually capturing it at Cerulean Cape. I also remember the soft sound of water when you go in the caverns to fight the lake pokemon. The chaos of what Kyogre can do.
It even makes locations memorable. I've always wondered what spear pillar is about and I've gone so far as to venture to the top of Mt. Coronet again just to see. For me, who got HGSS without having any of the games before that, the Cinnabar Volcano explosion was always so interesting because I wondered what was there before. And don't even get me started on the Old Chateau.
Frankly, this even translates to regions like Alola and Kalos, which were much less difficult in gameplay than say a Sinnoh or Johto. I wanted to see everything those regions had to offer. I spent hours trying to learn Lumoise City and perfect my roller skating.
So then why isn't this the case for Galar?
Without the DLC, there's practically nothing. So not only is there a few really shoddy locations that to be honest, look like a child's artwork, but you are almost completely removed from the story and the action. Honestly SWSH felt like you were being tunneled from place to place without anything on the side, many interesting NPCs to talk to, or anything deeper than who can I battle next or how can I get items. There was nothing to explore. Yes, there was the wild area. But the wild area doesn't have mystery. It has a landscape and roaming Pokémon. Which, can be fun for a bit, but it doesn't leave a lasting impression. I think the only non-DLC location that interested me was the hero's bath. But they really didn't add any depth to that.
Even with the DLC there was issues. Isle of Armor improved, and had a lot more to explore, which I actually did and was very happy to go run around and find diglett, but besides the dojo stuff what else was there to invest me in it? The one DLC I genuinely felt was worth it was the Crown Tundra. I loved Peony and I loved the Calyrex storyline. I even liked the landscape some, because there were interesting locations. But even there, with the game of thrones like castle at the top of the crown tundra, they didn't really give much into anything. They didn't really give much reason to invest in the mystery.
And to be honest, they didn't really give much to invest in the characters. Like yes, they have trainer cards but you don't see trainers doing things around the world too much. Its just kind of written for you. This is simultaneously a worldbuilding and show dont tell kind of issue, because really your character's interactions with the world are what fleshes it out.
So yeah, I think the thing that makes SWSH frustrating is the lack of fleshing out of the world, to the point where if you just level up your Pokémon in the wild area, you can just sweep your way through everything within a day. There's no incentive to be invested in the world, nothing really story wise to draw you in, and you're being funneled from place to place.
I don't know what gamefreak was thinking when they made this game but it's honestly kind of a disaster. And I'm sorry to anyone who genuinely enjoyed SWSH but I'll tell you, you can do much better. There's not much that mysterious, magical, or noteworthy about the game at all. It's honestly a husk of what could've been something incredible, without the attention to detail required to make it into something memorable.
So yeah, that's a little about worldbuilding and SWSH. Some of this stuff kind of overlaps but I think my two main qualms with the series both stemmed from the fact it was too short. Half of that is because they never bothered to flesh out the world or give it lore — which honestly is a shame because I've been to England and was excited to see what they would do. The other half is because of the difficulty and story issues, which are a whole other topic that aren't completely isolated to the worldbuilding issue.
Anyways, I hope you guys enjoyed/learned something.
Please let me know what you think!
Tschüssi
Blue