A true warrior never dies

These games

were not bad.

They are not the “worst” the franchise has to offer, not even close.

While Gates to Infinity definitely suffered from its rushed production time—which was most obviously seen in how the staple ability to do multiple quests at once was cut in order to make the game feel artificially longer, in how there was very little postgame, and in how the most advertised and “thrilling” feature of the game was scanning circles—the story and the characters themselves were not lacking, as many like to claim.

Sure, it’s no Explorers of Time/Darkness/and Sky,

but frankly, I feel like everyone’s infatuation with that game (a game that rightfully deserves such high praise, I totally agree) has become a stifling kind of love. It has become a golden standard in which to judge other pmd games when it should really be more a soft guideline.

Gates to Infinity’s story of our player character and our hopeful but lonely partner Pokemon having to navigate in a world in which most Pokemon have become more suspicious with eachother, less trusting, less friendly, less willing to help anyone but themselves, and even going as far as adopting a “trick or be tricked” mentality

was something familiar, but also different. While this sense of loneliness was explored in Red and Blue rescue team and Explorers of Time/Darkness/and Sky, I don’t believe it was the main focus, like how it was in Gates to Infinity. It was a point repeated over and over again, not with just the villains, but with regular Pokemon as well. Gurdurr, a Pokemon you met near your first few moments of the game, scams you and your partner Pokemon out of a house and then tries to justify it by saying ‘that’s just the world is now.’ It takes effort to then try to connect with him, to try to understand him and get him to understand you too, and convince him to take up his passion for building and live an honest life again.

Gates to Infinity truly was a world in which most Pokemon simply couldn’t or, more accurately, refused to connect with or care for eachother, and had to be thoroughly convinced before doing so. (Which I believe is a commentary of how people act with one another in today’s society).

And those negative emotions gave form to something that no one, not even the player themselves, expected:

The first ever non-Pokemon final boss.

As much as Gates to Infinity was held back by a lot of things, I really do think the staff was trying its best to experiment with the pmd formula, and Bittercold was definitely something new for pmd. While some think Bittercold too weird, too ill-fitting for the series, I quite liked it. What better to represent the almagamation of bitterness, loneliness, resentment, hatred—of essenentially every negative emotion—than something cold, hard, and inhumane? (Or, in this case, inhu’mon. Get it? Ok, I’ll stop).

And Spike Chunsoft seems to agree, because they continued this trend in Super Mystery Dungeon with Dark Matter, the second non-Pokemon final boss who shared similar themes with Bittercold:

They shook things up in other areas, too, like with having your partner Pokemon be the one to return to “home” instead of you, the player Pokemon, which was insane and I loved it, making the player and partner Pokemon go to school of all things (meaning they’re definitely the youngest of the pmd protags), making the partner Pokemon be a fucking incarnation ??? of Mew ??? having every single Pokemon (in that time) available and playable, taking the time to include multiple references and callbacks to old games and characters as a big send off to the series (they did that for us)...

Not to mention that the music quality has not dipped at all (each Bittercold fight phase had such !! great themes !!! and SMD’s Tree of Life was simply amazing. There’s no room for argument here), and the updated graphics for the series are so cute !

Just look at them. They’re so squishy. I love it !

And dungeons and scenes have so much more dynamic details and cinematic flair to them now

Like seriously, just stop and think for a bit. We got to see Deoxys in space. In both the mainline Pokemon games and the PMD games. One right after the other, too (ORAS released in 2014, and SMD in 2015). That’s wild, y’all !!!

And this shot of the poor Pokemon player falling ? It’s smooth, pretty, and really enhances the enjoyment of the games. Like, yeah, we’re falling to our doom, but we’re gonna look good doing it (as opposed to past pmd games making use of black screens, funny dialogue, and sounds during these kinds of scenes, which is nothing bad, but I certainly appreciate the more “let’s show ‘em rather than tell ‘em” approach).

In short, my whole point in writing this post boils down to this:

Yeah Time and darkness had a few features that were improved compared to blue and red, I just hated the guild, I hated wigglytuff, and I just so wished I had the option to be an independent team instead joining that group. I game the brought when it first and it only months I could be bothered to go back and actually complete.

To the point that McDonalds were asked by the police to stop selling them, and it didn’t help at all.

Someone with a gourmet giant shake today just drenched Farage and he looks like a sad milky weasel. Blessed day.