Advanced Thoughts & Opinions: Pocket Edition
Pokemon Tabletop Adventures
For some reason it's D&D-ish in that it has Not-Feats and the exact same Attributes used in D&D, but other than that it's fairly original. There are classes in the game, but they don't work like in D&D because you get to pick multiple ones and all this really amounst to is unlocking skill trees like in Titan Quest / Grim Dawn, though unlike those games there's the annoying feature of some Classes being locked behind achievements (a bit like how becoming a 3.X Assassin requires you to murder a guy, except more annoying).
Pokemon go up to level 100 just like in the video game, and their stats are directly derived from the source material. I guess if you have to fill your bestiary with hundreds of critters, it's better to make it as quick as possible.
Classes are pretty much based on the types of other underaged kids whose pets you physically abuse, so you have Ace Trainers, Botanists and Cooks. Shit like Martial Artists and Psychics can also try to beat the shit out of Pokemon, but the balance is a bit wonky. Pokemon pretty much live in a different world. They have more levels (trainers only go up to level 50), they level up as a different rate (Pokemon get typical combat XP, trainers level up by getting medals 'n' shit, as well as catching shit and filling up their Pokedex), plus trainers and Pokemon using completely different stats means anytime the two worlds interact the game has to make some conversion rules, which is pretty fucking weird.
Also really low level fights are lethal af because of the extremely low HP at that point.
Had some weird back-and-forth with the community, as the writers kept removing the Medic class from every update because they thought allt his class did was prolong combat, while the community actually like that class.
The final downfall however was the massive bloat. They perhaps went a bit too far with customization. You see, Pokemon gain "Tutor Points" every couple levels, which you can cash in to teach them moves (Pokemon here can have a lot more moves than in the video games, btw) or slap some passive abilities on them.
Basically players where expected to customize their trainer and at least 6 Pokemon, which is a bit like managing an oversized D&D all by yourself and without the conveniences of a video game. Yeah...
One notable thing about this game is that it tries to be based on the anime instead of the game, which sometimes backfires like when it comes to Hit Points. The writers decided to base that off of the Pokemon's size, instead of just converting the actual Hit Point stats from the games. Guess this has more versimilitude.
Yeah, it's basically Pokemon in 3.5. Do you wanna manage Pokemon using the 3.X stat blocks, one of the ugliest ever devised my human hand? I don't think so.
And it certainly wasn't Nintendo's fault 'cause Nintendo doesn't seem to mind all those other Pokemon homebrew RPGs using official Pokemon art (though they admittedly also make heavy use of fan art). Weird.
Uses some odd magic-mumbo-jumbo to make it impossible for humans to even try and fight the Not-Pokemon themselves, which would actually make the typical Pokemon setting make a bit more sense.