2D Is Key to Pokemon Success

Pokemon games are incredibly successful on the Nintendo DS. Until now, there have been more than 186 million units sold in the series and the recent release of Platinum is set make that number even bigger. Junichi Masuda, who has for a long time worked on the Nintendo Pokemon series, believes that the main reason behind its appeal is the accessibility and the flavor present in 2D game experiences.

Junichi Masuda, artistic director, told Gamasutra that “The basic concept of Pokemon is that we want to attract the beginner, so that when the beginner comes and plays, if it's 3D, it's three dimensions instead of two, so it's much more information for you to take in. We don't know if that's what they want. We want the game to be approachable and easy to understand. Also, there is a balance that we have to make. By balance, I mean, do we want to make the scenario deeper, so we have a deeper, more complicated storyline, or do we want players to collect, catch, and trade Pokemon?”.

The only reason for Pokemon to go full 3D would be if the addition of another dimension allowed the player a chance to have an enhanced experience in catching and collecting the various Pokemon characters. Also, the entire franchise is built around a specific way of drawing Pokemon characters, which at the moment works best in 2D. There's a character present there that might be lost in the transition to more dimensions.

Recently, the developers of the Pokemon franchise have stated that, at the moment, Nintendo has no plans of bringing the characters to the Nintendo Wii and that a Pokemon MMO is also out of the question mainly because the experience of collecting Pokemons might be lost if the competition involved a big number of players.