Pokemon is undoubtedly one of the most famous and well-loved franchise for video games, but just like all other games, the mainline series of Pokemon games have one glaring issue which its linear story telling and lack of branching paths, which they can learn a thing or two from Fire Emblem.

Branching Out

To further elaborate, the mainline of Pokemon games have always followed the trend of separating their games into two different version exclusives, and sometimes even three in some scenario with Gen 3 of Pokemon Ruby, Sapphire and Emerald along with Gen 4 with Pokemon Diamond, Pearl and Platinum.

But all of these version exclusive versions doesn’t offer any differences between the games other than just different Pokemon exclusives. Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire at least had some differences in terms of content with dealing with the game’s respective villain organisation in Team Magma and Team Aqua, which the trend unfortunately didn’t continue on forward with future Pokemon titles.

Which brings up the question of why bother with selling two different version exclusive if the story for both would be exactly the same and minus extra points if you’re going to sell a sequel to a game that pretty much has the same exact story plot but sprinkled in with a bit of new content.

Sure you can bring up the argument saying that the version exclusives exists because it allows players to connect with one another by trading their version exclusive Pokemon with each other but nowadays trading is done through wireless-ly. So instead, why not have the version exclusives offer different story paths, or at least have the players choose from the different stories, something like how Fire Emblem Fate or Fire Emblem Three Houses did.

Invisible Ties

In Fire Emblem Fates, we get to experience the story branching out to three different routes after Chapter 6 with Birthright, Conquest and Revelations where different we got different story lines that featured the peace-loving country of Hoshido, the glory-seeking country of Nohr and the hidden kingdom of Valla. Meanwhile, with Fire Emblem Three Houses, they pretty much did the same thing with Fates where we were given three different routes or four if you include the Church Route – Silver Snow, but instead of separating them into different versions of the game, Fire Emblem Three Houses lets you experience it all in one game.

It’s not to say that the branching stories that Fire Emblem offers are flawless, heck I can go on about how repetitive it was to play through the academy arc in Three Houses where they story was pretty much the same for all of the three routes but just with different characters. But it would be greatly appreciated if Pokemon were to put in some bits of varying story or content between the version exclusive games like in Fire Emblem.

Personally speaking, Pokemon could have the potential to be a lot more interesting if they were to follow in the concept of branching story paths. Like maybe for one example of a cool concept if they would allow the players to join in with the evil organisation, they even teased us in Pokemon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon with this dialogue option:

Tying the branching stories in relation with the cover Legendaries along with different locations for the version exclusive Pokemon games could be a way to go too. Once again, I’d like to bring up Pokemon Ruby and Pokemon Sapphire and how we were tasked with dealing with Team Magma and Team Aqua in their respective hideouts, which admittedly isn’t much but hey, it was a step in the right direction.

Theory crafting here but Pokemon Diamond and Pearl could’ve done something with the concept of time and space where the game could’ve tasked us with dealing with the abnormalities that Dialga and Palkia had cause. Imagine in Pokemon Diamond where you had to travel to places where time had stopped and you can see living creatures and environment being trapped in time or with Pokemon Pearl where you have to travel to a plane where the concept of space just doesn’t exist.

It’s not even out of the realm of possibilities given how large the scope of some of the side content for the mainline Pokemon games with like the Ultra wormhole quests in Pokemon Ultra Sun and Pokemon Ultra Moon where you travel between different wormholes or with the Delta Episode in Pokemon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire where you literally go into space.

All in all, I really just wish that Pokemon would be like Fire Emblem do something different for the version exclusives instead of just throwing in different Pokemon variants and leads up to fighting the Legendary Pokemon from the box cover and call it a day.