There's A New Pokétoon Short, And It's Bloody Gorgeous

This children's YouTube video has better graphics than Pokémon Sword and Shield.

_{And is overall better.}

Stop it. This is Pokemon. On NintendoLife you're not allowed to like anything Pokemon! Come on, complain about tree textures or the lack of National Dex for the 2,379,476,009th time! Talk about how, because they are such a big media empire that this shouldn't be a short, it should be a whole series! In fact, demand it be a whole series dropped on streaming services with a complete season, worldwide release, dubbed in 37 languages! And then, if that happens, talk about how it's still not enough!

Remember: Pokemon = bad. But it's fine because we all "love" it and are totally fans. lol

I have to agree about Pokemon being awful, but we can at least hope against hope that Legends Arceus will be good.

@Heavyarms55 I mean a high-quality cartoon like this is why fans are dissappointed when the games are lower quality 🤷‍♀️. (not taking any sides here btw, i just wanted to say that people's complaints are not just always overblown, there's not just black and white - but maybe i'm missing your point anyway)

This is the first time I see an Arbok as a pretty terrifying foe. To bad, this Pokémon species is doomed to lose every battle in the anime.

@StefanN I made my comment mostly as a joke, because on NL the so-called Pokemon fans are especially harsh and vocal about all the things they viciously hate. I've seen people all but calling for the heads of Game Freak on a platter. But they will all but never talk about any of the positives, some go so far as to claim there are no positives. Which is a load of crap.

Jokes aside, something like this, is completely unrelated to the games at all. People will see this and complain about something in the games and it's like walking into a bakery, and complaining about the bottled soda-pop to the baker. Obviously the baker didn't make the soda!

But aside from that, people almost only complain about the Pokemon games. They only talk about the negatives. They refuse to acknowledge all the improvements we have gotten. And it's been this way for years.

You're right that it's not black and white. You're exactly right. But from the internet's perspective, there's ONLY black. Only negatives. I've been playing the games since gen 1. I know full well what Game Freak has done well and what they've done poorly and I know there's a lot of good with the bad.

But it's the internet and with each passing year, people dip further into the rabbit hole of only ever talking about the negatives. Pokemon is especially bad with this. But it's not alone.

@RareFan At least the anime is better than the manga in that regard, where the only time I remember them using it was when they chopped one in half for the shock value

It would be funny if this turns out to be a kinda teaser of the next main Pokémon game and they are keeping that detail a secret from the audience lol

@Heavyarms55 I thought so to, then I met a real pokémon. My life will never be the same!

The Nidoran lines are my favourite evolutionary families in Pokémon, with Nidoking being my favourite monster period. It is so validating to see them getting some much deserved attention!!

@Heavyarms55 Haha fair enough, i completely agree with you 😄. Just one thing i'd mention though, the angry people are always the loudest...which doesn't make it any better, just bad in a different way 😅. And of course that does reflect on the community as a whole, makes you think everybody is like that. Sometimes it just helps me preserve my faith in humanity to remind myself "No they're not >all< blind with anger, but the ones that are, are the most likely to voice it" haha.

Oh yeah and it also prevents me from going blindly mad at people myself. I feel like you might feel that same kind of anger. So many people obviously bought the game, but people just rarely express their happiness when everything is up to their expectations. Specifically saying it like that btw because Odyssey and BOTW got so much praise. Maybe that is because people didn't know what to expect from those games but everybody thinks they know what to expect from a Pokemon game. And maybe it's also just chasing that nostalgic high they had with the first games...like, i recently tried Pokemon Y on a very legal 3DS, not an emulator on my phone at all and i didn't really enjoy it. I think it was universally liked, right? That made me think, maybe my appreciation really is mostly nostalgia (but i also just don't like turn based strategy as much anymore nowadays, soo)...then again, let's wait a couple of generations and people will probably say Sword and Shield were the good ones and the new ones were bad 😅.

Phew, sorry, my reply was pretty all over the place, it just made think of so many things at once, haha.

Btw on topic - that cartoon is goooorgeous and really makes me feel the Pokemon hype again i had as a kid!

@Heavyarms55 I think you hit all the points on the usual NL pokemon/game freak comment bingo. But you forgot to demand someone get fired.

3 out of 5, not enough tears. -IGN

I may not know what anyone said but it was worth it to see that... #SPOILERS

she's the trainer sending a Nidorino to fight a Gengar at the beginning of Red and the Kanto remakes (FireRed/LeafGreen).

@RGB87 Oh whaaat? You speak japanese or how did you know that?

EDIT: wait, "Remakes". So you probably were able to tell from more than a just tiny bunch of pixels 😄

@DomGC well I guess I can't criticize a game based on my experience, I have to bow down to our Game Freak gods and goddesses.

@RGB87 I didn't even pick up on that, but you're totally right! What a lovely detail 😊

@StefanN Lol, you don't need to apologize to me about replies being all over or long. I do that kind of thing all the time. If anything, I should apologize to you.

But as to your comments about XY specifically, in my experience, most people have mixed feelings about it. It's actually my most played Pokemon game by play hours, but most of that was shiny breeding while watching YouTube, which I don't really count since it requires so little attention.

I'm actually shocked this came from the LooneyToons-esque PokeToons series. This is amazing!!

I love it when Pokemon features a seemingly unremarkable character, giving us a simple glimpse into the remarkable world of Pokemon.

@Heavyarms55

^ Logs on to complain about Pokemon fans with complaints about GameFreak and TPC, saying all these fans do is complain.

Derails half of the comment section in the process with this discussion and doesn't see the beautiful irony in the process.

Alright... I'm booting up my copy of Sword after watching this. Can't resist! Pokemon specials like this never fail to get me back into it. Also digging out my old copy of Ruby and red GBA SP.

I'm seriously kicking myself right now that I ever sold all of my other Pokemon games. Sometimes you think your'e just trying to get by in life... in hindsight I wish I kept all the things related to my absolute favorite franchises.

@Heavyarms55 while some people can take things a bit far, people being very critical of Pokémon doesn't make them not fans of it.

in terms of things like improvements i often see people talk about additions to the series people enjoyed. which is why they were disappointed when said features were missing from entries that came after. (such as dexnav)

looking at things like this short and the level of detail and personality in things such as new pokemon snap makes me feel like if they can capture that magic in the next mainline games then they could be something truly special,

@RGB87 I caught that too!! As soon as the unmistakeable intro tune played with Gengar swooping around the trees, I got goosebumps realizing what they were about to reference!!

@Mgalens Self proclaimed fans cling to the series even though they haven't liked it since like gen 2. They cling to it just to bash on it. It's actually rather sad and pathetic that they can't let go. It's not healthy behavior.

I used to be a fan of Call of Duty, I bought every game for years. But as the series changed and I stopped liking it, I just stopped buying it and moved on with my life. I didn't lurk around every article and thread waiting to spit on every aspect of it that I don't like. I don't go on forum and tell people how stupid I think X, Y or Z is about the newer games.

It's okay to stop liking something or to move on when the thing you like has changed in a way that you don't care for.

@burninmylight Wow, nice retort. I care not at all what you have to say. We shall never speak again. No loss for either of us.

@Heavyarms55

But you sure do care what you consider to be fake Pokemon fans have to say. You've spent a great deal of time and typing on it. I guess I'm not outraged enough and showing the requisite amount of clear opposition to your tastes to be considered an easy enough target to be worthy of your time.

Funny that you also speak of healthy behavior. I don't think turning a subgroup of a fanbase into strawmen just to bash them on the Internet from the safety of your keyboard is what I'd call healthy behavior either. You may not lurk around every CoD thread, but you sure did jump at your chance to spit on "self proclaimed" Pokemon fans the moment an article sprang up that wasn't even about Sword & Shield. Yep, really healthy behavior.

Now, to see if you stay true to your word of not caring what I have to say by refraining from a retort (a real retort, not what you think it means), or will you give in to your base tendencies and come back with something, preferably of substance this time? I'm thinking it's about 30/70.

@RareFan Arbok is terrifying in the manga, specifically Agatha's and Koga's... plus it's allowed to win there too.

@Heavyarms55 I've seen a lot of praise from these fans for games like omega ruby and alpha sapphire (which the aforementioned dex-nav came from) even quite a few who enjoyed ultra sun and ultra moon, i think the most common older game I see mentioned is B&W.

"You're right that it's not black and white. You're exactly right. But from the internet's perspective, there's ONLY black."

you said that things arent black and white but presented "the internet" as if it was a singular entity.
you claim that things are only black yet rather than bring positivity you dedicated a large post into a strawman of the pokemon fanbase.

but in regards to the cartoon, yes this is gorgeous and i can see how people would want some of the shorts charm to make its way into the mainline games.

@Heavyarms55 Yeah but... Pokemon Sword and Shield is bad, people shouldn't shut up with that just because you're tired of hearing it.

It was pretty good, but aside from Pikachu none of the other Pokémon say their name which is weird. If one of them gets to use their voice, then of them should keep their voices from the og anime series. This especially annoys me in the new Snap game when they don’t do this, but the old one used their anime voices.

I loved it. I started self studying Japanese last year and I'm slowly realizing how much I know now. It was really easy to follow along. I've been so focused on reading Japanese that it's nice to see my brain is fast enough to process some spoken Japanese too.

Also, Fire Blast makes so much more sense now. I always wondered as a kid why it's shaped like that but once I heard the name of the move in Japanese, it just clicked. It's literally just called 大文字, "the character big", and the kanji for big is 大. It also seems to be based on a festival where they light up fires to form said character.

@Heavyarms55 fifa/Pokémon/cod. Same same....but different

@smolsauce whole heartedly agree, people have a right to complain. If you paid using your hard earned money for a half assed released game there is no wrong in that.

Oh my arceus, that reveal at the end, I loved it