The Pokemon leak has finally made Gen 4 interesting

Well, weren't those exciting weeks? Pokémon fans have soaked up every drop of lore that has passed through the high-security walls of Game Freak headquarters, even though none of it will ever be considered canon.

It's crazy that Pokemon developers ever thought it would be a good idea to implement lore about the relationships between Pokemon and humans, but the fabulous style and Yokai-inspired stories did more to create a well-rounded world , than games have managed to do in a long time .

Concept art has also been leaked for such massive games as Diamond & Pearl, Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire and Legends: Arceus. These images are incredible, the kind of things I've wanted to see in Pokémon games for years, and that we might have seen if Game Freak hadn't been so keen to bust things out so often to keep the Pokémon machine on to keep running.

The combination of these two factors ignited a passion that I didn't know existed within me: a passion for the fourth generation.

Gen 4 is the worst generation of Pokemon

Now, this is completely subjective and I understand that every Pokemon fan's favorite generation is the first one they played, but I never understood the love for generation 4. While a generation of children discovered the first Pokemon game on the Nintendo DS and did so, I have fond memories of Diamond & Pearl. The games came along at a time when I was discovering girls and pints as a teenager and Gen 4 didn't have enough to compel me to keep playing.

At this point I've taken a break from Pokemon, skipped Black & White and its sequels entirely, and only got into This doesn't change the fact that I find Gen 4 boring.

Legends: Arceus began Sinnoh's redemption arc. The Hisui region is a brilliantly realized proto-Sinnoh, and the subtle storytelling brought to life a region that I previously thought was devoid of inspiration. I like that Zorua fled the region after being hunted to extinction, that the Professor is constantly confused by the appearance of Porygon in a time long before the advent of computers, and that Snorlax is a serious problem for the grain farmers of old represents.

Exploring the open world sections is exciting and if the game looked even better the design philosophies would be absolutely wallpaper worthy.

The leaks make it even more exciting

However, I still wasn't sold on Gen 4. I tried to nuzlock every generation of Pokemon this year (in a system called Hatelocke) and stumbled at this point. After “Let's Go”, “SoulSilver” and “Emerald Kaizo”, I couldn't get through “Diamond” without feeling bored out of my mind. Maybe I should finally play Platinum to spice things up with some Giratina action, but time to reach my annual goal is quickly running out.

However, the leaks are drawing me to Sinnoh. Building on the foundations of Legends: Arceus, these darker takes on the mythology make the Pokémon world seem deeper and more interesting. Not every game requires Dark Souls levels of lore, but the mystery of Arceus in Diamond & Pearl is a lot less exciting than the story of the God Pokémon splitting in two to create Dialga and Palkia.

That's the kind of thing Pokémon excels at. I'm a big fan of N in Black & White, and his concerns about catching Pokémon and forcing them to fight each other is the only time the series has really made me think twice about what I'm doing. Hoenn's story of global environmental catastrophe is rooted in real-world issues, and climate change has since been addressed in Legends: Arceus and Sword & Shield.

If the 4th generation games had a little more of that grit, a little more depth, I'd be more inclined to play them again. I played through the games once, but I'm glad I'll never be able to play them again – I haven't even finished Shining Diamond yet, which is a rarity for me.

I hope Game Freak sees the response to this leaked story and works with it. Yes, it was probably the right decision to leave out the material about interspecies love, but there is room for a deeper mythology in the series based on Norse epics and cautionary tales from Japanese yokai. If Pokemon Diamond & Pearl had added even a toned-down semblance of that lore, if it had implemented more of the epic concept art into the final games, then my Hatelocke probably wouldn't have faltered and I would have had a lot more respect for Gen 4.

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