we forgot the point of Pokemon...

Excellent video! I'm so glad I watched all of it. Very relatable. I am 31 and have said several times that Pokémon is THE most definitive franchise of my childhood. And most beloved. What a gift it has been for so many.

"why did we stop exploring?" because game freak stopped giving us things to explore. every route is a hallway

It is pretty insane how a series that started out trying to preserve the raw feeling of bug catching in your neighborhood and getting away from an overindustrialized world is getting obscured in an even more industrialized world

I feel like, to an extent, recent pokemon games wants people to explore, but then also heavily disincentivises doing so mechanically. To explain: The game that had the greatest potential for exploration is Scarlet and Violet, but the game does things to make exploration negatively impact your journey: The always-on experience share means if you want to use a specific team, you'll always be overleveled. Yeah you can use more pokemon than just a single team of six, but I like having a single team that isn't switched out, and I know other people do the same. Despite the game wanting you to explore, you have a very tight budget for exp because of the gyms having set levels and an intended order. Sure, you could just overlevel for gyms and team star and the titans, but that removes any challenge from the game. They allow you to fast-travel from anywhere to any pokemon center in the game, and even some other spots too. Yeah I know fly has always worked like that, but Sword/Shield made it something you can do from the start of the game with the flying taxi system, and it frames travel and exploration as wastes of time. Why walk all the way from Levincia to Cascarrafa for the intended gym order, being forced to take a new path to get there across the top of the map, when you can just warp back to Cortondo and walk from there? The actual important events are marked on your map before you even leave for the first gym. All 18 events. There's no mystery of where the Titans, or Team Star could be. There's no question of "Oh I wonder if the next town has a gym" because it's a waypoint on your map. Now, this isn't to say that everything about exploring in S/V is bad. The game's take on the TM system encourages using the autobattle feature to collect materials, and the various items, some quite useful or valuable, encourage searching every nook and cranny of an area. On top of that there are the Treasures of Ruin, definitely one of the best sets of secondary-legendary pokemon as far as method to obtain goes, and it can be genuinely fun to find all the stakes hidden around the map to free them so you can catch them. I think there are some fantastic incentives to explore, but the game's structure mostly encourages not exploring until the postgame due to the fact that all the badge events are meant to be at specific levels, and if you just go from event to event, badge to badge, you'll get almost all the experience you need without exploring. I say all this as someone who has played through Scarlet twice, and I've even made a full living dex in the game. The exploration and the incentives for it are there, but I found myself constantly putting it off so that my team wasn't overleveled to the point that there's no challenge left. I couldn't excuse actually exploring until I was already in the postgame. In past pokemon games, especially gens 1-4, the game encouraged exploring by having enough experience between all the things you can do between gyms that you'll be just the right level by the next one. If you had a good route through the game, you'd be able to both have you exploration, and also your team should still be around the level of the next gym when you're done. As a little side note to end this section on: I honestly think the mechanic that disencourages exploration the most isn't the EXP-share, but the fact that you gain experience from catching pokemon. Yeah it makes sense that you'd get some experience from it, but it makes catching pokemon for the dex something you might choose not to do because of levels you'd gain. Like many other issues, the game becomes too easy if you let it. Looking back though, older pokemon games just had more to explore in the first place. I'm not referring to the main story, but optional content that you had to go out of your way to do. Kanto routes 13-15 are a redundant set of routes that you never have to visit in any version of the region. It also consistently has the highest density of rewards and trainers to battle in the game. You can choose to use 13-15 as your way to reach Fuschia City, but most people use Cycling Road, also known as routes 16-18. Many players never even touch 13-15. There's also optional dungeons you never have to touch in the Powerplant and the Seafoam Islands. In Johto, there's the whole "you can fight three of the gyms in any order" thing. Granted it's not the best executed, but it's exploration that encourages creativity. In that section of the game there are also multiple (mandatory) dungeons relating to the Team Rocket part of the plot. Then there's the fact that Johto's postgame is getting to explore Kanto again but with new developments and changes to the region. In Hoenn there's multiple sets of routes you never have to go to, the desert, and multiple optional dungeons again in New Mauville, the Abandoned Ship, and the back half of Meteor Falls. There's also the three Regis and having to learn to read braille in real life to know what the carvings are saying without just looking it up. Practically half of Sinnoh's map is hidden optional areas to explore, even if you don't count the postgame areas that exist only for that. For a short list there's the Fuego Ironworks, Iron Island, the Old Chateau, Snowpoint Temple, and Fullmoon and Newmoon Islands. There are other areas as well, but my point is that there is so much optional content that's out of the way in Sinnoh it's kind of insane. I kind of can't speak for Gen V much, as I haven't played a ton of it, but I do know that other than one use of cut all the HMs are used only to reach optional content. I don't know what it is because I don't want to spoil my own exploration, but I do know that much. Oh and the map changes each season, with how some areas are navigated changing in drastic ways, and there's the hidden grotto mechanic in B2/W2, which has you paying closer attention to the environment. From what I've heard, those mechanics make the Unova region have a surprising depth of exploration, despite the region being a circle. Kalos was the first place where I felt the exploration starting to slip. There weren't really any optional dungeons. Even the postgame where you work with Looker was kind of on rails the whole time. Kalso is a circle, but without the mechanics that gave exploration depth in Unova. Sword and Shield... Was mostly a series of Hallways leading from one stadium to another. Other than the wild area stuff, you were on rails the whole way through.... And the wild area was just for catching pokemon and grinding watts. Pokemon had great exploration back in the day, but in recent years what you CAN explore has dropped off significantly. Scarlet and Violet are a good step back in the direction of better exploration, but the game's design habits make exploration come at the cost of game balance.

I lived in a house with a VERY heavy metal ladder that lead up to an attic which I was allowed to turn into a cozy little room all for my own. I'd hide away there, playing Pokémon Stadium, the Gameboy games and sometimes invite friends over. It was awesome. I wasn't hiding FROM anything mind you, I just enjoyed having my own hideout. (which made me LOVE ruby/sapphires secret base feature lol) That beginning clip reminded me of that little place, thank you. Very cozy nostalgia.

My grandma bought me my first Pokémon game when gen 1 dropped in the US. 1999 I think? I was 7. Just lost her to cancer two months ago and hearing you talk about your grandma brought back a lot of warm memories. Thank you for sharing man, that made my day.

God that Pallet Town theme could be weaponized against me I'd die smiling

I always feel punished for exploring because I end up way over leveled from random encounters and trainer battles

You've done something special. This video resonated with me so strongly. Amazingly, we have a lot of similar experiences, as do many others judging by the comments, I had tears in my eyes at one point. Even if you never become a big YouTube, keep in mind that this video you created caused so many strong feelings in hundreds, maybe thousands of people all over the globe. Very few can say that. You should be proud, very proud Ps. My first game was Emerald, emulated on the PC. All the best from a 26-year-old Pokemon fan from Serbia.

That sacred box does not belong in the attic. Blasphemy and Heresy!

I've never had a video strike such a chord with me. Totally embarrassed myself by crying on the bus home from work while watching this. But I'd be lying if I said it wasn't one of those watches that will stick with me forever. It's reignited a flame in me that I hadn't realized had long since died out, and I'm ready to look at the world through a relearned viewpoint of wonder and curiosity. I want to explore again. (also yes, you have earned my sub. thank you for making this.)

I know people always complain about Unova and it being a literal "circle" and very linear, but at least 95% of all their routes had off the path areas you can freely explore and aren't just hallways

I honestly didn't expect what to think when I clicked on this video but I certainly didn't expect a heartfelt and existential journey on the joy if childhood, the nature of growibg up and rediscovering happiness through nostalgia. While I didn't grow with the Pokemon games, while I was still a kid when Sword and Shield released and while I am not even 20 yet...I can say that I really empathized with this video especially with me turning 20 soon and adult life may seem scary even if I already know what I want to do with my life and the bit with the nostalgia and the part where your talked about the loss of your grandma...I really felt them on a personal level, as I myself lost my grandma(albeit when I was still a kid) and also rediscovered the childhood joy of nostalgia after feeling out of the loop after finishing high school. Even though I only played the first 5 generations of Pokemon games for the first time back during the pandemic and I got that feel of childhood joy of exploring a game through the likes of Genshin Impact or Battle for Bikini Bottom Rehydrated...this video still deeply resonated with me even though you and me had vastly different lives and childhoods. So...what I want to say is. Thank you for making this wonderful video and for making adulthood feel less of a scary thought. Because as long as I keep in touch with the kid in me and I don't lose my way...I know everything will be alright. And I got all that from what I initially thought of as a silly video on Pokemon and its exploration, good job with that and you got my applauses and deep thanks for creating a deeply inspiring video.🎉👏 I apologize if this came off as a long-winded way of telling you that I deeply resonated with your video.

Wow. I came across your video randomly and thought it was going to be an examination of Pokémon game design. I never expected such a raw and heartfelt examination of your own relationship to the franchise. I ended up sitting on my couch just speechless for a few minutes. Thank you for this video. I hope it felt as cathartic to make as it was for me to watch. Subscribed.

I haven’t got teary eyed to any YouTube video in my life, hearing your nan was sick really hit me hard. My grandma was the same way always feeding into me and my cousins joy of Pokémon. Often buying us pokemon cards and watched the show with us. She too, passed away, before I got to graduate high school but still in that in between stage as a teenager/young adult going through those dark times with Pokémon also at my side. People who don’t play pokemon don’t truly understand why most of its OG fans stick around. It’s a comfort thing, a nostalgia thing. I am 25 years old and I can say that I haven’t bought the dlc for s/v but i did enjoy the main game. I’m not as hardcore of a fan as I use to be when it comes to completing the games 100% but I can say I still hold pokemon close to my heart. Thanks for the video and thanks for sharing your story.

From the modern games, i find Pokemon Legends the best game to explore. Being able to enter areas you werent supposed to that early in the game is possible sometimes if put enough time (and a bit of deer jumping) and you get to see all these mysterious areas that you may unlock in the future (similar to Mewtwo Cave or the 3 spirit caves from DP/P). Although it will never triumph my curiosity as a kid when I played Emerald, diving in every deep water, digging every secret base possible, trying to figure out the Regi puzzles (looked up Braille language but still couldn't understand lol). Not to mention, so many rumours about the game were being made in that era, like how you can go to Kanto if you get all the gold medals in Frontier or how you can get Celebi by following a pattern of dumb movements (which many of us fell for, an example being the Mew Truck video). Still, i have hope for Legends Z-A. Seeing X&Y in a new light could grow my curiousity again.

Nah, I never stopped exploring. The games just felt emptier than the last title. Break a rock and it's one single path to a dead end for a berry. The berry is not the problem here, it's the single path that doesn't branch out to anything.

I wasn't expecting to cry during this video but the moment the Eterna Forest theme started playing I choked up, PLA gets a lot of hate but I loved every second of it, I grew up on Gen 4 and it felt like a love letter to my childhood. Easily one of my favorite Pokémon games despite its flaws. Edit: SO happy to hear it's in your top 3, so many people disagree 😭

This video is so beautiful. The past several days I've immersed myself into reliving my love of Pokemon, and I've had a bunch of these thoughts in passing. This video has really encapsulated that. Thank you for this.

I've grown to hate the forced exp share and the pc being accessible at all times. It takes away any challenge or sense of danger the game had. I LOVE exploring in video games because I am endlessly curious.