But, soft-resetting is not used only for Pokémon natures or avenging a battle against rivals. The loopholes can be quite disturbing for players such as:
- Feeding wrong curry, thus wrong EV distribution (if any/assumption).
- Money issues: Unlike other series, you can't farm money by catching/knocking out Pokémon.
- Accidental release of your own Pokémon.
- Accidental use of items that are hard to obtain (Bottle Caps) and so forth.
Whereas auto-save feature for Smash or Zelda is pretty much understandable, since you only progress one step each or the game allows you to farm/obtain the stuff you use in regular basis. Pokémon doesn't offer you that privilege, unfortunately.
A major thing is that Pokémon games are about accumulation of power through quantity and through chance. Even when speaking strictly of RPGs, most other games don't allow you to just recruit any non-unique character you want, JRPGs less so because they're more likely to have a fixed party. In those games, auto-saving is no big deal, because either you do the things the game wants you to do, or you either die or are sent back somewhere for you to try again. Only Mons games, like Pokémon, Shin Megami Tensei, Monster Rancher, and Yo-kai Watch have a high potential to be set back via auto-save.
Of course, everyone wants more money. Problem is, that they're just chasing a trend without really stopping to analyze whether or not it would really fit with the series core identity. You saw this issue a lot, for example, with mascot platformers in the early 2000s. The industry started losing interest in 3D mascot platformers and started making more gritty FPS games, so the developers of the mascot platformers started making their mascots edgier (prime example being Shadow the Hedgehog), and in most cases it failed spectacularly because gritty shooters simply didn't fit with the series core identity. Similarly, Game Freak is chasing after the mobile market because it's trendy, but the mobile market has no real interest in the main series games and all Game Freak's pandering towards that market is doing is pissing off existing fans.
Games like
Pokémon Trozei!,
Pokémon Channel,
Hey You, Pikachu!, and
Magikarp Splash don't really fit with the Pokémon core identity either. I don't think it's ever been that much of a concern, as long as the game has a particular look and remains family-friendly.
Again, what reviews are you looking at? Most reviewers I've seen tend to have some interest or familiarity in the game, and you really need that to accurately assess the game and especially how it stacks up compared to other games. That's not the reason they're rating it highly.
There's a reason I used
Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled as an example. It's a recent game that requires more than a rudimentary knowledge of the series to play competently. The game has a high learning curve, which it expects you to overcome pretty early on, namely the use of accumulated drifting and finding ways to launch yourself into the air to gain boost power. Boosting also, perhaps counterintuitively, allows you to perform better steering. All of the racetracks are designed such that once you're good enough at it, you can boost continuously, and this is the way the game was meant to be played.
What did the reviewers do? They didn't boost, they didn't even know how to drift, and they cruised through the racetracks rather slowly. They bumped into walls or fell off the tracks left and right. They used their items haphazardly and failed to use the shortcuts. It got so bad that GameSpot found someone who played the previous Crash Team Racing games and had them play, called "We Sent Our Best." The difference was like night and day. That player finished the race in half the time the other reviewers did, and he left in the dust the computer players everyone else was struggling with. No, he did not review the game. He was busy with other things.
That's the thing about professional reviewers. They've been assigned so many games that they can't really play any of them in much detail before deadlines force them to start another game.
For the record, here are some excerpts from reviews of
Pokémon Let's Go! Pikachu:
"It's true that
Pokemon GO's influence has had a profound impact on some of the franchise's core gameplay features in
Let's Go, but honestly, many of these changes are for the better....By streamlining many elements that made past
Pokemon games frustrating,
Pokemon Let's Go successfully delivers a faster-paced Pokemon adventure, even though it has some missteps here and there." - Dalton Cooper,
Game Rant
"No,
Let's Go is not the mainline entry that EV/IV min-maxers hoped for, but that's still on the way. If you happen to miss this return to Kanto, that's perfectly fine, but I was mostly delighted to go back." - Chris Carter,
Destructoid
"The mix feels just right and leaves plenty for long-term fans to get their teeth into without overcomplicating anything for new players. A balance which the game manages to maintain in all of its various features and mechanics." - Review at
Metro
"While we’d urge any seasoned fans of the series to think of the main story as a more chilled out version of games gone by, there are still plenty of things to get stuck into...The games cater to people of all experience levels nicely, and players can play the game at the level which they choose, ignoring aspects which don’t appeal to them...[A]s a result, these new titles really do offer something for everyone, which can't always be said of the mainline Pokémon entries." - Ryan Craddock,
Nintendo Life
"Pokémon: Let’s Go’s nostalgic charm and interactive gameplay will have both newcomers and returning trainers hooked as they explore the beloved Kanto region...If you’re looking for a refreshing take on the Pokémon RPG, then this one may keep you invested until you catch ’em all. It probably won’t take long though." - Jake Durasamy,
The Sixth Axis
"What is essentially a remake of Pokémon Red, Blue and Yellow is revitalised with some brave mechanical innovations that do away with series staples while remaining true to the core formula. Very little has been dumbed down in the process, and franchise veterans needn’t worry about the removal of features once thought integral to the experience...[T]his is the Pokémon RPG we’ve come to expect from the past two decades, albeit with a few welcome twists and turns along the way. The turn-based battle system is nothing new – and, arguably, a little stale at this point." - Jade King,
Trusted Reviews
"The new catching mechanics are a welcome change to the formula that breaks up the pace of traditional trainer and Gym battles. Although catching wild Pokemon doesn’t require as much strategy as it did before, the act of catching is far more engaging...[This game] makes a lot of smart improvements on the original Red, Blue and Yellow while holding on to what made them so special in the first place. Fans of the series might be let down by the lack of features they've come to expect, but Let's Go Pikachu and Let's Go Eevee take the Pokemon formula in some exciting new directions." - Jake Dekker,
GameSpot
"(I)f you thought this was somehow a neutered
Pokémon game to induct newbies then that couldn’t be farther from the truth...Overall,
Pokémon: Let’s Go is definitely something fans of Pokémon will have fun with and will also be familiar to newer players who have enjoyed
Pokémon GO." - Ollie Barder,
Forbes
"[O]verall the game is a pleasure to play, a breezy RPG packed with beauty and charm that will bring older players back to the series’ beginning while recruiting a new generation that will ensure Pokemon’s future. So much of my favorite childhood media just doesn’t hold up to my modern tastes and I have no real interest in using some form of emulator to relive the original
Pokemon Red/
Blue’s archaic gameplay.
Let’s Go brings back the warm memories and blends them with a satisfying new experience." - Samantha Nelson,
The Escapist
"The feeling of amassing a giant collection of monsters and customizing your team never gets old, and the timeless turn-based combat is still fun to this day...A fun stroll down memory lane for hardcore fans, and a strong entry point to the series for newcomers." - Brian Shea,
Game Informer
"Pokémon Let’s Go Pikachu and Eevee felt like a breath of fresh air. By going back to its humble beginnings and reinventing its wheel, Pokémon felt like a nostalgic blast to play, with so many new elements waiting to be explored." - Darryn Bonthuys,
Critical Hit
"Pokémon: Let’s Go Pikachu and Eevee has had dozens of small changes from the original generation, or the other mainline Pokémon games, but honestly, none of those changes feel negative. Nothing I’ve played in Pokémon: Let’s Go has made me wish for something the older games gave me. Everything here is, well, great. Built for a purpose. Enjoyable. And it hasn’t made me long for a more traditional style of Pokémon game at all...Pokémon on Nintendo Switch isn't just a Pokémon GO companion piece, it's a fantastic RPG in its own right, and with any luck, will spawn its own series of Pokémon games for the future. A great Pokémon game for veterans and newcomers." - Dave Aubrey,
WCCF Tech
"Pokemon: Let’s Go, Eevee! and Pokemon: Let’s Go, Pikachu! are an amazing glimpse into what a console version of the “core” Pokemon games will look like...There’s a part of me that prefers catching Pokemon like this, and there wasn’t a point that this game felt monotonous, which is more than I can say about the other games in the series, despite my love for them. Pokemon: Let’s Go, Eevee! is a powerful example of what Pokemon can and should be like on a console, and I’d love to see the best elements of this title get rolled into the next evolution of the series." - Benjamin Maltbie,
Cheat Code Central
Game Freak can't claim this kind of ignorance as an excuse. They established way back in 2017 when they first teased this game that they were doing research on message boards like this one to see what people wanted. Beyond that, they also work very closely with Nintendo, who has over 2 decades of experience with modern 3D console gaming and is much better at appealing to international audiences. Game Freak probably knows exactly what we want, they're just too lazy/incompetent/cash-grabby to bother giving it to us.
Oh, they definitely can. Capcom still does this all the time with its fighting games, releasing new editions physically while either not having digital versions at all or providing disadvantages to doing so. Namco-Bandai too, to an extent. Square still relentlessly puts out updated Kingdom Hearts re-releases without having some expansion be available. (Remember
Kingdom Hearts 2.8: A Fragmentary Passage, which came out not long before
Kingdom Hearts III?)
I get it though. You don't like
Pokémon GO, and you don't like
Pokémon Let's Go. I'm not too fond of them either, but I'm not going to hate on people who do genuinely like them, nor am I going to hate on Game Freak for making
Let's Go.
Not only that but it also means that if either of them are the regional bird that would mean that the regional bird isn't going to be Normal/Flying for the millionth time. Of course it is possible that we just haven't seen the regional bird yet. Also am I the only here that is surprised that we still haven't seen the regional rodent, bug, and bird(if Corviknight, or Cramorant aren't it) yet?
I don't think we've seen any early-game Pokémon besides the starters and likely Galarian Zigzagoon. Most of the known Pokémon come across to me as mid-game or late-game Pokémon, or at least evolved versions of early-game Pokémon.
Corviknight is probably something you'll see early on but can only catch later, like with the Gogoats in Lumiose City or getting Tauros Ride near the beginning of the Alola games despite Tauros only being catchable in the mid-game.
