It’s difficult to talk about maturity in media, because people use it to refer to wildly different things, sometimes without even realizing it. Many would say 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Pokemon Sun & Moon is by far the most mature Pokemon game as it tackles themes of emotional abuse and parental grooming through Lillie’s entire character arc. There’s also a subtler form of maturity at play in 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Scarlet & Violet through how characters cope with expectations and loss. Then there’s Pokemon Colosseum, an entire game about taking Pokemon from abusive trainers and slowly “reopening the door to the heart” of these Pokemon. All that before you even address Pokemon Black & White 2 or 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Legends Arceus.
By this point, it’s become a meme that folks who want a mature Pokemon game “don’t e✃ven know what they wa꧟nt”. But maybe that’s understandable. Media has trained us to believe ‘maturity’ is two-dimensional, with signifiers abused constantly in the most superficial ways for marketability. Sticking a random sex scene in what coul🌳d otherwise have been a T rated movie just to entice edgy teens with the big letter M on the posters to trenchcoat their way into theaters was once common practice. ‘Maturity’ is so often used for shock value without substance that the term has become useless.
For those still looking for a mature Pokemon game though, Monster Hunter Stories might hold the key. Stories is a spin-off from Monster Hunter’s main series, introducing the idea of befriending the monsters typically only hunted in the mainline games. The fit is seamless - how cool is it that you can ride a saddled Velociraptor, your own sword bigger than you strapped to your back, ⛄into battle?
True to the Monster Hunter series, themes of survivalism and the high-stakes battles are ric🌠h, reminiscent of Legends Arceus yet taken a few steps 𝓀further. Monster Hunter is not tied down to Pokemon’s branding, so it has zero hangups about allowing humans to join the fight directly, this one simple detail has a profound impact on the overall tone of the game. This might be exactly the feeling you’ve been searching for as you’ve begged for a mature Pokemon game.
There’s something special about fighting alongside your beloved Monsties, tooth-and-na🧔il for survival against other monsters trying to kill you both. Protecting your village and purifying especially hostile corrupted monsters to save the world - it still allows itself to be silly and grand, but there is maturity there.
It’s a metal yet it’s not especially edgy game, as there’s an element of optimism and cheerfulness through it all. Not only does this set it apart from many of the infamous dark Pokemon fan games b🙈ut also from Pokemon Colosseum (Colosseum has an element of goofiness to it as well, but it doesn’t dominate the overall atmosphere in a form other than dark humor). A talking cat befriends you early on and has the gall to call himself Navi (full name Navirou, but I kid you not he first calls himself Navi), and the localization for the chief’s poetic antics is jaw-droppingly good. There’s much levity to give tasteful balance to the metal.
As such, not only does Monster Hunter Stories fill a vo♔id, it themaౠtically and aesthetically serves as a remarkably smooth gateway for Pokemon fans into the larger world of monster taming role-playing games, an entire genre in its own right often underexplored by the English-speaking audience.
Mechanically, the segue is there too. It deftly avoids many of the hangups Pokemon fans tend to have when switching to new type-matchups to memorize. There are no elements, just speed type, power type, and technical type attacks. Especially helpful is how the effectiveness chart is shown on screen during battles at all times. Things are spiced up by the fact that a ke๊y part of the gameplay is anticipating which kind of move your opponent will use based on the kind of monster they are and their patterns. It’s an accessible yet very fresh experience for long-time Pokemon fans.
We Pokemon fans have a bad habit of seeing any other monster taming game as a Pokemon rip-off, underestimating the value of variety as much as Pokemon’s unique branding itself. Pokemon has its own ways of tackling mature themes, but there’s nothing wron🍰g with wanting something different.
