The last game I purchased for full price was Pokemon Moon for the Nintendo 3DS, and like most of the monster-battling installments before it, I've been thoroughly enjoying my time spent with it. The new mechanics and species designs are some of my favorites yet, and the story is surprisingly captivating despite falling to most of the same tropes that are rife within its predecessors. Admittedly, as well, there were some longstanding aggravations, such as having to rely on HM slaves to get around the world, that were rectified with the two recent titles. With a series that has spanned the course of seven generations of new Pokemon, however, each being updated more and more with visual and interface overhauls, not to mention the recent switch to entirely 3D graphics... it really boggles the mind how some of the core problems the series has had since the very start are still pertinent.

So what are they, exactly? From what I've experienced so far, here's a few:

Lack of Multiple Save Files

Since the very beginning, or at least as long as I can tell, Pokemon has only allowed users to create one save file per game cart. Back then, I could easily understand why. While the entire first game may technically take up only 11 MB of space in total, the Game Boy was old-school software, one of the first handheld systems on the market, and it didn't have internal memory like most systems do today, so the data actually had to be stored on the cart it came in. In fact, internalized memory didn't end up seeing the light of day until the Nintendo DS hit store shelves.

Interestingly enough, though... this is still happening. The save data is still stored on the game itself. I picked up a copy of Pokemon X used about a year back and the old owner's save file was still on it, despite being read on my system. Hell, even Pokemon Moon's save data is stored directly on the cart, and this is a large-ass 3D title. This is cool technology, granted, but it has little utility nowadays. The only event I could even see this being helpful in is if you needed to replace systems altogether, and with today's prices, it's not as ergonomic as it would be back then. You don't have to trash cart-based save games altogether, but giving us the option to save our data onto a microSD cart could be a useful approach, making room for data on the cart and allowing households with multiple players to share the same system.

Lack of a Toggle-able Auto-save Feature

Yeah, this entire blog post isn't going to be me just complaining about how saving in the Pokemon franchise is terrible, don't worry. This, however, needs to be made clear.

Pokemon takes a long-ass time to get through for someone who isn't a super genius. It isn't as particularly grind-heavy as it was back when it originated on the Game Boy, but building up your team and advancing through the story is most certainly not a cakewalk that can be done in a few hours. Most RPGs are naturally like this, but Pokemon can drag out even further, especially with the additions of several new mechanics over the course of the series. Abilities that are hidden from battle until they suddenly arise, more status and environmental changes, flashier battle animations (that can admittedly be turned off, but still), the introductions of Mega Evolutions and Z-Moves that also have their own incredibly drawn-out animations... Even if you were to play this game without battle animations, you would still spend a lot of time grinding up your team's levels and, with the introduction of more complex cutscenes, witnessing the unnecessarily biblical amount of storytelling.

So when the game randomly crashes or your system runs out of battery before you can properly save all your progress, it really fucking hurts. That's hours down the toilet as opposed to most other games and even RPGs, many of which automatically save after fights or are programmed to have predetermined encounters in the case of games like Fire Emblem. Games nowadays are not as simple as they were back then; evidently, there is so much crap crammed into a lot of them that developers are opening the floodgates to a cascade of glitches and technical issues that can often result in the program terminating on itself. This can and very well has happened to many players of the most recent iterations, including myself, who just lost about two hours of grinding and quest advancement because the game broke when I attempted to pick up a small fucking item lying on the ground.

At the very least, I'd like the option to toggle it on and off after a few Pokemon battles every now and then, or after major ones such as Totem/Kahuna/Gym Leader battles.

The Railroading is the Worst It's Ever Been

How the 3D iterations of the franchise are some of the most egregious offenders of this trope in the series, I will never know, but Pokemon Moon is incredibly stuffy when it comes to doing things in its predetermined order. Even after you get your starter Pokemon, it feels like a lot of the Routes and Trials are blatantly blocked off until you complete certain plot flags. I get why they did this - Pokemon Moon is a large enough game on its own without having to account for total player agency - but the game does this even when you have to trigger menial cutscenes where almost nothing happens.

In any other RPG, if you wandered too far off into dangerous lands, you'd know it pretty quick, because you'd get your shit kicked in. That's not a good way to rectify this cliche, but the way Xenoblade did things, by limiting your access to certain areas by placing impossibly-strong monsters in the distance that you could easily distinguish as an impassable threat, was an effective solution. You don't have to go that far with Pokemon, I guess, but, honestly, did we really need to make the Trainer's School mandatory this time?

The Side Games and Activities are either Slightly Broken, Awkward, or Both

I started off playing Pokemon in the fourth generation, which contained what I still believe to be the best side activity in any Pokemon game: exploring the Sinnoh Underground. Man, it was such a blast! You could mine for rare stones and minerals that you could use to upgrade your Pokemon, sell them for money and even add new special Pokemon to your party. You could chase your friends around via local wireless and decorate your bases with various knick-knacks and play Capture the Flag for bonuses... It was very simple in concept, yet so much fun in execution. I think I spent as much time playing that side activity as I did playing through the main game.

Where's the modern version of that? It may just be my nostalgia kicking in here, but none of the newer minigames have done anything to impress me. Hyper Training from Pokemon X and Y was incredibly monotonous after a while, and while the Pokemon-Amie and Pokemon Refresh features are cute to mess around with, they are also very dull after a bit and actively give you passive bonuses during battle that allow you to survive one-hit-KO moves and land more critical hits, which makes them super cheap and feels like pandering towards the younger audience. Festival Plaza, introduced in this generation, is kind of lame and the mechanics are not entirely straightforward as to how it works, and Poke Pelago is literally just a modern iPhone Pokemon game, complete with obtuse wait times and the ability to lure in Wild Pokemon without even having to catch them, filling in your PokeDex. So much for catching them all, we can't even be arsed to go to the damn Pokemon anymore, we have to get them to come to us. Lordy lord...

I'm gonna end it on that note for now. Like I said, I enjoy the game as a whole, but those are just some examples of gripes I have with it. I could probably drum up a couple more ongoing complaints I have about the series in general, but I'll open that up to some discussion. What else do you guys think still needs some attention in the series?