Before I get into things, I want to clarify how I'm defining "tutorial". I'm using it to refer to anything intended to teach you about a game mechanic. So for example, the random NPC outside of Olivine who tells you that using Defense Curl first boosts the damage of Rollout is a tutorial, but Urbain/Taunie wanting to see what's going on at Wild Zone 3 isn't a tutorial.
And my general thesis / the tl;dr is that the tutorials haven't gotten longer. They're just taking longer to set up the plot.
Looking at GSC as an example, a list of everything I can remember that I would call a tutorial. As you leave your room at the beginning of the game, your mom explains the Pokégear. There's an NPC on route 29 who tells you how to save the game. There's the NPC in Cherrygrove who gives you a tour and gives you the map card. There's an NPC on route 30 who gives you a berry and explains held items as a new mechanic. After you leave New Bark Town with the Pokédex, there's an NPC who offers to show you how to catch a pokémon. When you get to Violet City, there's obviously the Trainer School. When you get the Flash HM, Sage Li directly tells you that you need to beat Falkner to use it. When you get the Togepi egg, Elm's aid tells you that you need to walk with it in your party to hatch it. The NPC in the National Park who gives you the Quick Claw starts the grand tradition of NPCs explaining what the item they just gave you does… You hopefully see my point. There's actually a decent amount of tutorial.
However, starting with RSE, when the games became more plot-focused, some of this tutorial is integrated into the plot. Instead of a random NPC giving you a catching tutorial, gen 3 uses it to kick off the Wally subplot. Or instead of a random NPC giving you a tour, DPPt has Lucas/Dawn show you around Sandpoint as part of sending you off on your journey. However, there are also more arbitrary tutorials, like the clowns. They randomly force you to get the Pokétch before you can leave Jubilife, which requires talking to clowns who introduce concepts like held items or STAB. Or my favorite example, which almost crosses the line into an antepiece (or really the broader trope of instructive level design) is the Striaton Gym in BW1. The gym puzzle is about type matchups, the gym leader always has a pokémon that's strong against your starter, and they even give you a free elemental monkey in the Dreamyard that's strong against the gym leader's pokémon. So while it never directly says you should train multiple pokémon, it definitely strongly encourages you to do so.
Gen 5 was also when you really started getting a larger cast of characters, like how you infamously can't walk more than 5 feet in Unova without Cheren and/or Bianca wanting to tell you something. In XY, you're part of an entire group of friends, so there's usually someone to interact with, like watching the fireworks with Shauna. In SM / USUM, Hau basically just starts his journey at the same time as you, so you wind up traveling Melemele Island together. In SwSh, you and Hop head to Motostoke to kick off the gym challenge together, where you also meet characters like Bene and Marnie. In SV, you head up to Mesagoza with Nemona, where you also meet Penny and Arven. It genuinely just takes longer to set up plot and introduce all the characters now. And this is probably felt most acutely in the Legends games. In SV, you probably didn't notice how they used the terrain to funnel you toward Mesagoza, but it's a lot more noticeable in ZA, when Urbain/Taunie prevents you from running a few feet over to grab that item. But because a lot of the tutorial is worked into the setup, like how Nemona still just gives you a catching tutorial as part of sending you on your way, the way Lucas/Dawn does in DPPt, I feel like people are misidentifying that as an increase in the amount of tutorial.
And personally, I like how ZA handles tutorials. A lot of it is worked into the sidequests, like the series where NPCs show off battle tactics, or how they have sidequests where someone wants brambles/sludge cleared (even if the sludge one comes weirdly late). It feels a lot more natural than something like the Jubilife clowns, where they just arbitrarily forced you to learn about game mechanics. But that's also a different concept from how the game probably could use a "Skip Cutscene" button in more cutscenes for when you already know the story and just want to get back to free roam.
by RazarTuk
12 Comments
I can’t fully agree, because the ‘Tutorials’ are still functionally 1-2 hours long these days while the older games are much shorter or in smaller chunks that let you breathe a little.
Like comparing ZA vs Gen 4. ZA you cannot deviate at all from the path even to grab an item that’s just out of reach. Meanwhile in DPPt you do the catching tutorial and you can have fun in the next route fighting trainers and catching some mons because doing the Poketch quest and then moving on again to the game.
But the game definitely does need a cutscene skip button, and not just for the three big cinematic cutscenes across the entire game.
The more common complaint is handholding.
Not letting you explore in a series about exploration.
I think my issue with the ZA tutorial (granted, this is me being very nitpicky) isn’t necessarily its length but rather that it feels overly limiting in terms of exploration. For the first few hours of the game you have to stick so close to Taunie/Urbain’s side that oftentimes you can’t even run to the sidewalk to grab a glowing Pokéball without being prompted with a dialogue box to stick to your task. In many cases you aren’t able to backtrack into a wild zone once you’ve progressed the tutorial past the point where you’re told to explore it.
It feels a lot more cagey and linear than previous open-world titles that, aside from maybe a single forced tutorial or two at the beginning, generally let you explore wherever right from the get-go *as* you work your way through the early story—provided you have the means to travel there. Even 2D Pokémon games will pretty much let you go anywhere and do anything within your means (unless there’s a story-related obstacle that you have to progress the story to clear) until you’re ready to move on to the next part of the game.
Really cant disagree more lol GSC wasnt stopping you every 5 seconds. You got your starter and after returning the mystery egg you’re set out on your own to build your team.
Yeah theres a trainer school in Violet, but you dont ever need to step foot in it. You technically dont even need to finish the Sprout Tower.
All “tutorial” is random npcs giving hints or random signs. Not a tutorial, just early game. And they were pretty good about getting you out into the world until like gen 5. BW is when early game started to DRAG
I dont even mind the longer tutorial in ZA bc it is a different game with new features, but it needs a skip tutorial option.
I don’t think the semantic argument you’re making, where you include optional content as ‘tutorials’, is relevant to the criticisms people have.
The problem is the amount of tutorial content that *isn’t* optional has been increasing, and makes up large sections of the setup for the plot. And, for god knows what reason, gamefreak is incapable of wrapping their heads around a skip button.
It was already bad enough when you had to sit through an uninteractive catching tutorial or the clowns in Jubilife, but at least those only took a couple minutes. In Gen 7, it took *hours* of unskippable cutscenes and dialogue before the games let you have even the slightest amount of real freedom (which still wasn’t much).
It’s genuinely unforgivable to not be able to skip dialogue or cutscenes in the current year.
I don’t think it’s really only about having tutorials. it’s how you can’t even walk 5 meters away from the path the game wants you to take, even if you just want to break some crystals over there. I couldn’t break some crystals I wanted to collect because an NPC told me to turn back. That breaks immersion and is unnecessary. I think most people are fine with tutorials. It’s the level of restriction one has to endure during lengthy parts of the early game where it feels like one could go and do some stuff here and there but you just can’t for some reason.
People need to realise that this is first and foremost a kids game and quite possibly an entry level video game for many people.
Every time a new Pokémon game releases there is a fresh batch of 7-8 year olds waiting to play.
People need to accept this fact.
It’s not that the tutorials have gotten longer, because functionally you are given free reign around the same point of progress in all games. The difference is that the amount of player time it takes to get to that point is growing increasingly longer.
I recently replayed Fire Red and beat Brock after about 2hr of play. Comparatively, it took 12hr of play for me to battle the first kahuna in Sun. Those are effectively the same point of progress, but the latter took 6x longer to achieve. That’s what people are most likely referencing when they mention it being “too much” nowadays. The amount of words that stand between you and your progress is multiplying exponentially in modern Pokemon to accomplish the same exact goal.
You are completely right btw. And the people arguing are just nostalgia blind and or hate jrpgs
While the hate for ZA’s is a bit overblown relative to how long it actually is, I don’t think this is true. Gen 2 gives you a catching tutorial and then you’re pretty much immediately on your way.
The people complaining about the tutorials better be willing to complain about every JRPG then, because the vast majority have lengthy tutorials and it only gets worse the closer to present day you get because more complicated gameplay requires more time to explain and teach the player.
“So anyways I hate when people critique any aspect of the game, this is why you are wrong for not liking 3 hours of blocks of text with minimal animation and zero voice acting”