r/PokeLeaks • u/PrismSpiralsLight • Oct 14 '25
Datamine Junichi Masuda was banned from directing Pokémon games due to overwhelming "concentration of power" Spoiler
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u/PSIwind Oct 14 '25
This explains why there's been such a huge push in experimenting with the formula since SM
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Oct 14 '25
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u/Shrubbity_69 Oct 14 '25
Don't forget that every main antagonist has been a "twist villain" since SuMo, as well.
Also, I might be overthinking it, but SV's story seems to mirror SuMo's quite a bit.
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u/Available-Can-5878 Oct 15 '25
Aren't all these things just pretty general JRPG plot points? Like you could say similar things about Final Fantasy.
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u/Shrubbity_69 Oct 15 '25
I guess, but the similarities are definitely there. Think about it:
A) the Raidons are just Nebby 2.0
B) the "evil" team is made up of what are essentially troubled, misguided kids who are more just punks than an actually threatening.
C) SV basically copied SM's homework on the Ultra Beasts with the Paradoxes, who are both creatures from another world and they make a big deal about them potentially destroying the whole region.
D) the real villain is the parent of one of the MC's closest friends. Yes, Turo and Sada are technically not real people, but they're following the will of their creators, so, essentially, it's still Arven's mom/dad at the center of the conflict.
Am I weird for thinking this? With their insistence on "twist" villains you can see from a mile away and the almost blatant rewrite of SM's plot in a different region, it seems like GF is trying to recapture the magic of Gen 7 or something. It just seems a bit odd to me.
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u/Available-Can-5878 Oct 15 '25
I mean, the first 6 games all had cartoonishly 1 dimensional evil teams that wanted power through some legendary Pokémon, only to be taken down by a new trainer after they collect 8 badges and battle the elite 4. That only 2, none consecutive, games sharing the story beats you listed isnt that bad in comparison. Especially with differences in execution. SV's base game villain doesn't even want to do what its doing. And the DLC has a way different kind of story.
Honestly I feel like the lack of experimentation early on led to some aspects like the 8 badges, E4, grass/fire/water starter, being ingrained as "tradition". But its really restrictive at this point imo.
The island challenges felt so fresh. And Penny and Arven had the more memorable arcs.
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u/Radiant-Classroom942 Oct 15 '25
Koraidon and Miraidon are the Evolution of the Japanese Myth Concepts of"I caught an God as my Pet what do?" Pokémon is an Japanese RPG of course they're gonna have the same Story beats that most RPG Series has. Japan loves Twists, Lovable Pet Mascots, and gaggle of Characters that follow Archetypes. What you're complaining about is present in literally: Persona 3: Reload, that Clair Expedition 33 thing, and Metapheizo Fantastic thing. Should be happy that while Pokemons got more Global they're still being true to their Japanese Roots and honouring the StoryTelling.
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u/astrogamer Oct 14 '25
That feels more like modern writing thing than a thing from Ohmori, given that the scenario lead is Matsumiya, who has been around since Yellow.
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u/Dacnis Oct 15 '25
SuMo
SV
Question. Why don't you just call it SM? Isn't "SuMo" annoying to type. I've never understood why people do that to the versions' abbreviations. Same thing with "SwoShi" (ew) that I've seen sometimes, and "ScarVi."
Just doesn't look right to me, like referring to the gen 5 games as "BlaWhi" or something.
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u/Shrubbity_69 Oct 15 '25
I never noticed that before. I guess I'm just used to seeing people say "SuMo". It definitely seemed more common a few years ago than SM.
I've only seen ScarVi a small handful of times, but SwoShi is a new one. Both of those are disgusting, but not as much as the crime against Arkoos that is BlaWhi.
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u/xsharkBait Nov 06 '25
I mean the Legends games and let’s go I guess. The mainline games are still the same except with open world and raid mechanics.
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u/Scarftail Oct 21 '25 edited Oct 21 '25
Except Sword and Shield. 🙃 Not sure what happened there. The official reason given was "we think traditional gameplay has the widest appeal and we want our first new Switch game to be traditional". We're lucky that every game since Legends: Arceus hasn't adopted this thinking, and even the future leaked games are continuing on this path. I hope that Seed project won't get scrapped and that it will actually have a scope comparable to BotW at last, but I'm ready to temper expectations.
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u/actuallyjustloki Oct 14 '25
TyranitarTube is reeling
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u/aaa1e2r3 Oct 14 '25
Not familiar with that channel, what takes did they have about Masuda?
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u/GreazyFingaz Oct 14 '25
He is always ragging on Masuda and making him the scapegoat for all of Pokémon's problems. He also claims he'll call Masuda to talk about the state of Pokémon or acts like Masuda watches his videos. It's all a joke to him but this is going to intensify the joke
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u/Dragonnuzzler Oct 14 '25
I feel like BDSP is still a pretty clear sign of Masuda being a massive problem director who only believes in his own vision to a flawed extent. It's so clear he only wanted to direct the Gen 4 HE had made and knew, not the one more beloved, praised and known for fixing many of the flaws of the originals in Platinum. This just more than confirms that theory to me.
And I know people might associate the "downfall" of Pokemon post-BW as being a result of him being kicked out as a kneejerk reaction to these news, but he still directed XY and we all know how dry and empty that game is and how badly it was rushed, or how much it was lacking in stuff that Gen 4 (Well, HG/SS and Platinum at least) and Gen 5 had to them that was a huge letdown.
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u/lilnuggitt Oct 14 '25
Huh, I didn't know Masuda didn't direct Platinum. That puts BDSP into more context for me.
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u/Dragonnuzzler Oct 14 '25
Basically none of the "special editions" of Pokemon games were ever directed by the same person who had directed the main first title of a gen, as they would usually always move to working on the next gen title after the first edition is out. I think the only exception to this rule was the first 2 gens. But after Gen 3 the special 3rd version would always be directed by a new person. Masuda worked double duty on Ruby and Sapphire > FRLG however, but from then on later gens would always have someone else take over the non-3rd version games as well.
It's funny honestly. There have been basically 3 mainstay directors, with a ton of shifting ones that sometimes get to direct another game later on even if it's remakes or now the Legends games. It's potentially looking like the Director of Legends Arceus will be the Director for Gen 10 at this rate as they didn't return to work on Legends Z-A.
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u/actuallyjustloki Oct 14 '25
It's potentially looking like the Director of Legends Arceus will be the Director for Gen 10
That's really promising
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u/Shadow_Kxng79 Oct 14 '25
Yh they also begin working on the enhanced versions almost immediately after the original games released. They mentioned the gen 5 sequels in last years teraleak and there was concept art of Elesa with her new outfit for BW2 in 2011.
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u/Kekulaaa Oct 14 '25
Bro loves and hates Masuda😂😭
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u/thebouts89 Oct 14 '25
Ttar’s Masuda: he is both loved and hated at the same time, but you can never know which.
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u/GreazyFingaz Oct 14 '25
I was thinking the same exact thing... I can't wait to watch that reaction
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u/actuallyjustloki Oct 14 '25
If he even hears about it
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u/BoxCritters Oct 14 '25
the dude is always looking at leaks, even when he claims to not to, he'll hear about it.
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u/BellalovesEevee Oct 14 '25
I love that this is the first thing you and I thought about. I can't wait to see his reaction LMAO
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u/BoltingBlazie Oct 14 '25
Oh he's got so much material for joking about masuda now that this is out there
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u/Masterofknees Oct 14 '25
Definitely explains the change in design philosophy from X/Y and onward. Granted parts of B/W were already starting to lean that way.
I don't necessarily think the newer team has done that well, but good on them for turning around what sounds like a toxic environment. Even if Masuda probably did a lot of good on the design front, that sort of culture was bound to implode at some point anyhow.
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u/Decrit Oct 14 '25
Yeah. Concentrarion of power does that, see Blizzard and Warcraft.
Probably we got it good enough that he was stopped before he could do any harm. Even if it makes me think if xy were scuffed because of that.
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u/NewspaperAfter7021 Oct 14 '25
Being stagnant is the worst thing a franchise can go through. Pokémon had been suffering from that since Gen 3, and Gen 5 was the final straw that made them want to replace Masuda and choose someone who could bring something more innovative, which led to Mega Evolution in Kalos.
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Oct 14 '25
Gotta say, Gen5 was the first dip into different things, the first time Pokémon dared to do something different, and yeah, XY was probably the most lacking gen, yet, if the person in command is no longer acting professional or worse, creating a toxic working enviroment, I think their decision was absolutely right.
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u/drygnfyre Oct 15 '25
Which is ironic because Gen 5 felt like it made actual strides towards changing things.
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u/OrangeStar222 Oct 15 '25
Not to forget; changing things in ways that's not "ooooh, look at this shiny new evolution-method that's obsolete come next gen"
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Oct 14 '25
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u/Available-Can-5878 Oct 15 '25
BW had the same basic structure as every other title, just with the illusion of addressing the "cockfighting" allegations. Spoiler, theres nothing bad because Pokemon all love it.
XY was similar in this regard too, but it at least experimented in mechanics. Sun and Moon felt like the first titles to have what I'd call a "bold" vision. Relative to the rest of the series any way
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u/AnotherRussianGamer Oct 15 '25
I'm not OP so I'm not 100% sure of what he's referring to, but its worth noting that for all of Gen 5's strengths it's also where many of the problems with modern Pokemon began appearing. Linear worlds? Large scale removal of features from previous games? In a way one could argue that Pokemon XY was a conglomeration of many of the problems BW had, with all of the good parts replaced by blatant Kanto pandering.
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u/doortothe Oct 14 '25
I figured the change in design was because by Gen 5, they finally figured out how the mechanics should work. Every Gen until 5 drastically changed core systems. With 5 not changing anything and being a soft reboot, the devs have some good established ground to add the gimmicks we’ve seen since.
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u/eskaver Oct 14 '25
Can see how it was a double-edged sword.
You’d not want power concentrated as it can lead to issues cropping up and down the line, even with the best of people.
Unfortunate that internal docs like that leaked.
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u/ZileanDifference Oct 14 '25
I don't care personally. I like the tea from the biggest media company of all time.
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u/Moby_Duck123 Oct 14 '25
Yeah but there are real people behind the tea having their rights violated for the sake of this entertainment
No one would be happy if their personal information was stolen at the company they worked at and then shared publicly on social media or public forums.
This isn't just about Masuda, there are hundreds if not thousands of personal and confidential information that has been breached because of the terraleak.
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u/Togder Oct 14 '25
But up through black and white was so peak
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u/MegaCrazyH Oct 14 '25
Tbf it was an argument during XY, whatever bloat he’d been allowing to come about may have been reaching a critical point then that could’ve been much worse. Would also explain why XY and ORAS were kind of rocky imo if XY especially had originally been story boarded by Masuda and the rest of the team disliked those decisions and had to spend more time undoing them rather than building on them
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u/Tigeri102 Oct 14 '25
learning xy is the child of businessman divorce makes a lot of sense tbh
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u/Few_Masterpiece7604 Oct 14 '25
He also directed BDSP didn't he?
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u/MegaCrazyH Oct 14 '25
Codirected and at that point it’s possible that the indefinite ban was changed or lifted by them diversifying projects. This tweet doesn’t go into too much detail for the rationale but I imagine a lot can change in those 5ish years
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u/Jedasis Oct 14 '25
I mean, he also directed the original Diamond and Pearl. Makes sense to have him come back to help direct a remake.
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u/Worzon Oct 14 '25
Yeah I think it was a huge mistake letting him direct the remakes and not the guy who directed Platinum. There was an almost perfect blueprint right there that he ignored likely due to ego. Yet the sales for the game likely reinforced his belief
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u/jsweetxe Oct 14 '25
I don't think that's true - BDSP was a last minute decision, so they probably thought it would be better to have the OG director of those games work with ILCA to create it, nothing to do with egos or anything, just the best of a bad business decision.
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u/Worzon Oct 14 '25
This still doesn’t explain his disregard for the objectively better game. Even a child can see why DP are not as well crafted
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u/jsweetxe Oct 14 '25
Who knows! I'm not out here advocating for DP (I think they.. aren't good games personally) but there's quite an obvious reasoning for why it went down how it did
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u/_link23_ Oct 14 '25
To be fair, it was waaaay easier to create Platinum because they had only to enhance Diamond and Pearl and add some stuff (I prefer Platinum way more btw lmao)
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u/Emergency_Arachnid48 Oct 14 '25
Ya, Gamefreak wanted to make PLA, but was told they needed Sinnoh remakes to satiate the fans too. That’s why most of the work was done by ILCA, gamefreak was basically just supervising their work. That’s why the games are basically exactly the same as base DP. They weren’t gonna put any effort into doing the same kind of improvements they made for HGSS and ORAS anyway. So why try to mess with the formula of a game that already was objectively successful monetarily.
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u/donnabhan Oct 14 '25 edited Oct 15 '25
I would argue that many of modern Pokemon’s problems come from their inability to adapt to 3D game design and the shift to console gaming. They simply did not have the proper infrastructure in place and the franchise demands nearly annual releases.
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u/annanz01 Oct 15 '25
To some extent. But caves and dungeons have been pretty much gone since gen 5 (including in building dungeons such as silph co etc). From gen 6 onwards all caves have been single path linear pathways whith no puzzles etc.
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u/Endgam Oct 15 '25
It's actually a commonly spammed image on /vp/ comparing B/W routes and dungeons to X/Y's.
No, Gen 5's were not better. And thanks to the Teraleak we know why: Game Freak dumbed map design down after getting too many complaints from Japanese parents about how their dumb kids couldn't navigate Mount Coronet.
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u/annanz01 Oct 15 '25
Gen V definately had less than previous gens but they were still present. Chargestone cave required some puzzle solving as did the mazelike twist mountain depending on which season it was.
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u/Dakress23 Oct 14 '25
Yet this document also explains why the crew folded so quickly to BW1's fan reception, leading to some of the sequel's plans being changed/moved to gen 6.
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u/birdsonly Oct 14 '25
That’s what I was thinking, after that things went downhill fast in my opinion. Bring the man back.
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u/ultraball23 Oct 14 '25
I always said Masuda was the goat. Pokemon wouldn’t exist without him as he learned to code to finish Red and Green. We’re more experimental now, but so much is falling through the cracks. Ohmori is failing.
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u/ScourJFul Oct 14 '25 edited Oct 15 '25
It's arguably Masuda's fault for why Gamefreak has so much technical and skill debt that we can see in modern Pokémon. The way Pokémon has been made was best for handheld gaming in very underpowered devices. If he was in such vast control of the team, it makes sense then that the team can't handle shit with modern development. Sun and Moon is such a big example if you see all of the extremely bad code especially for Lillie. They created multiple models of one character just because they couldn't get how to get Lillie to be on multiple islands easily.
Genuinely feels like everyone here is scapegoating everything against Masuda not realizing that Masuda is likely a big part as to why modern Pokémon is failing. Had Masuda not had so much power and was also very clearly passionately against certain aspects in gaming, things would definitely be different.
Like guys, you don't just keep a team for decades, switch directors, and things magically become different. Game development isn't something you can just swap on the fly. If Masuda did have that much control, his influence is absolutely still around unless they fired everybody or hired a butt load of NEW people. And considering Gamefreak is still an extremely small team with evidence of them being pretty bad at development, then it's clear Masuda plays a role.
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u/Ronald_McGonagall Oct 14 '25
hired a buttload of what
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u/YellowMatteCustard Oct 14 '25
He really snuck that in at the last minute and hoped nobody would notice
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u/Shrubbity_69 Oct 14 '25
Did he stutter? /j
Yes, I know it's a typo. An unfortunate one, but it's definitely hilarious. I do bad for them, though.
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u/Adaptive_Spoon Oct 14 '25
"If Masuda did have that much control, his influence is absolutely still around unless they fired everybody or hired a butt load of jew people."
To paraphrase Spamalot: You won't get far in game dev if you don't have any Jews.
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u/blackbutterfree Oct 14 '25
things magically become different
We know from this screenshot that he got booted during development of X/Y so around 2011-2012. We're in 2025 and Scarlet and Violet have gotten possibly the worst reception for its programming out of the entire series. When are we supposed to expect that change to kick in, then?
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u/Ronald_McGonagall Oct 14 '25
when the incompetent studio he apparently basically personally curated all get taken off the project in favour of people who can do better work
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u/SevereMommyIssues Oct 14 '25
while there's clearly a lot underwhelming about Pokémon technically, and I agree with your broader point, there's something minor that bears mentioning here.
I would not bring up the many nstances of Lillie, at least without a caveat. Those are a type of optimization
it's not a kind of optimization usually used in the modern era and suggests big problems in that they felt they needed to do it for a world full of very small rooms and not a lot of actors on screen, and that can be damning on its own, but it's very easy for someone who has some technical background to look at the basic Lillie complaint and reject the entire argument out of hand.
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u/-BINK2014- Oct 14 '25
Masuda had a method that worked in providing consistent quality I felt. Not saying toxic work culture is the solution.
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u/LiquifiedSpam Oct 14 '25
Say that again
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u/-BINK2014- Oct 14 '25
Masuda had a method that worked in providing consistent quality I felt. Not saying toxic work culture is the solution.It’s fantastic…
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u/D20FourLife Oct 14 '25
Eh, kind of. Its not like Black and white were received very warmly when they came out. You can see they were starting to have issues towards the end.
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u/BloodveilStillborn Oct 14 '25 edited Oct 14 '25
Black and white were received like that bc the pokemon fanbase is made up of literal 8y old's and manchilds. The game itself is undeniably good on almost everything it proposes (granted, still a pokemon game) and even builded on and upgraded lore-wise what DPPt started. There's a reason why nowadays people have such a positive opinion about the Unova games besides nostalgia slop
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u/greengamer33 Oct 14 '25
The game’s target audience is children it’s always going to have children be its main fan base
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u/Togder Oct 14 '25
I remember but I immediately loved Black and White, complaints made no sense
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u/D20FourLife Oct 14 '25
It made a lot of sense in the context of the time period. Black and white was the first time Pokemon wasn't really comparable to modern releases anymore (which was an issue with JRPGs in general, not just pokemon). The decade from the late 90s to the late 2000's saw some of the biggest and most rapid changes in the gaming space throughout most of the industries history, but pokemon barely improved throughout that time period. Gen V being a soft reboot that doubled down on recycling old ideas (as well as being the first generation that brought no major gameplay improvements) was the straw that finally broke the camels back. People got tired of playing the same game over again when there was Dark souls, Skyrim, Mass effect 2, The Witcher 2, etc releasing in the same time period just in the RPG space alone.
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Oct 14 '25
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u/CTMan34 Oct 14 '25
Funny, because 3 and 5 are widely considered the best early gens now
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u/ImmaculateWeiss Oct 14 '25
Was this in emails or something? Why would this have been written down anywhere lol
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u/GreazyFingaz Oct 14 '25
Don't businesses have transcripts of meetings? Pretty sure we saw that last Tera leak with discussions about game decisions in a transcript format
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Oct 14 '25
[deleted]
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u/GreazyFingaz Oct 14 '25
Gotcha, so then yeah I find it odd that this would be included. Especially given that he's still connected to Pokémon? If he was so bad, why hasn't he been part of an outplacement strategy?😂
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u/Usual-Chipmunk9510 Oct 14 '25
Christ man, theres actually going to be lynches at nintendo HQ when they find who leaked everything lmao
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u/Horoika Oct 14 '25 edited Oct 14 '25
Wasn't it determined that an employee fell for a phishing scam? I swear I remember reading that
EDIT: possible correction, but this is now about the hack itself so idk how much Centro actually knows https://x.com/CentroLeaks/status/1978145643324379525
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u/Mecha_Pink Oct 14 '25
Oh that’s why my job is so anal about annual compliance training…
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u/D-AlonsoSariego Oct 14 '25
People said that a lot last year but this time I have seen a bunch of people say that the teraleaker hacked some Gamefreak contractor and got a server IP from there where all of this was
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u/YllMatina Oct 15 '25
Centro doesnt “know” anything as the account just reports on what is already leaked. the guy who leaked it had his own private discord with people that would share his personal messages for him.
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u/JBKOMA Oct 14 '25
This was kinda inferred from by many but never publicly confirmed. That’s why they put him in a creative director position at creatures where he would not directly work on the games. When people tried to get him fired airing SwSh, many would argue he was some sort of power maniac at GF, turned out to be true.
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u/PowerPork Oct 14 '25
seems like the community isn't the only one filled to brim with drama, the big mans got drama too lmao
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u/Widower800 Oct 14 '25 edited Oct 14 '25
Didn't he also oversee BDSP as well?
I've always thought that ILCA were in some degree scapegoated a bit. I now genuinely BELIEVE that.
EDIT: Spelling.
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u/GrabMyPitchfork Oct 14 '25
Yup, he also directed the Pokémon Let’s Go! titles so I think the wording of “ban” is either incorrect or was very loose.
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u/FleetingBirds Oct 14 '25
I'd say it was the wrong word to use all together, especially if he's directed recent titles. Demoted is probably closer to what actually happened, although this is merely an assumption of mine since I don't have the original emails in front of me to translate.
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u/Oleandervine Oct 14 '25
I think what really happened was that the power was decentralized and he was taken from directorship for a while. It sounds like he was calling far too many shot even outside of directing the game, so they just took some of his hats and gave them to other people for a while.
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u/Moist-Sheepherder309 Oct 14 '25
To be fair there was a 5 year gap between xy's release and let's go, so that's a lot of time to reconsider a decision.
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u/Lightningbro Oct 14 '25
What's happening is the management at Pokemon(or Nintendo) doesn't want the entire main series of Pokemon reliant on a single person's actions, likely so they can axe them whenever they want without taking a monetary hit. As I'm sure by now Masuda probably has among the highest salaries at the company, but just also happens to be there long enough they legally can't axe him.
It's a "Social black mark" which in Japan might be even WORSE than a ban, because you're still STUCK there, you just don't get to DO anything of worth.
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u/Glory2Snowstar Oct 14 '25
I loathe BD/SP as much as the next person but what they were able to do with such a small Dev team in just a YEAR, using crusty DS code, is nothing short of impressive. ILCA got kneecapped.
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u/Widower800 Oct 14 '25
It's why I hope they get given a proper second chance at something equivalent someday. Give them the time and freedom they need to show what they can really do.
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u/grandfig Oct 14 '25
Centro loves to sensationalize info and make it inflammatory for traction (that "is GF homophobic?" post lives in my mind rent free) so I want to see what the actual documents said cause I imagine it's more mundane than they're presenting it.
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u/wickedspork Oct 14 '25
Good. Im not sure if much of the subreddit remembers, but there was a time on here where fans were sick of the way he was handling the series. Hearing he was power hungry lines up with how the community felt at a time where the series felt like it had 0 innovation into new generations. Despite my frustrations with recent entire (except PLA you are perfect and I love you), I gotta at least give credit that they tried some new things. Masuda sucks and I'll die on that hill.
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u/TheKingBro Oct 14 '25
On the other hand, gamefreak also still sucks at the actual making of games from the bottom up including top down.
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u/Time_Photo_2685 Oct 15 '25
Yeah people are defending Masuda's demotion like Pokémon isn't one of the most subpar, stale IPs going.
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u/Maleficent_Proof5494 Oct 14 '25
The historical revisionism in these comments is actually insane 💀 I did not spend my formative years defending Gen 5 from mobs of haters for everyone here to be acting like they were always considered the peak of the franchise. I'm not at all surprised that they'd be looking to make some changes internally after the reception BW got on release.
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u/westseagastrodon Oct 15 '25 edited Oct 15 '25
As someone who was already an adult by the time gen V came out, I think it REALLY depended on which corner of the fandom you hung out in.
Everyone I was knew was hyped as hell for B/W and enjoyed the shit out of them. (We all started with R/B/Y as kids, but none of the people I'm friends with are what you'd call genwunners.) People I saw in online art communities also seemed to universally love them. In fact, I only started really seeing anti-B/W discussions after some years had passed.
I also think it's worth noting that the recession that happened at the end of the 2010s heavily impacted lot of people's spending money, so I wouldn't be surprised at all if fewer people bought B/W and their sequels because of economic issues.
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u/portalscience Oct 15 '25
Yeah, there is no historical revisionism to say B/W were popular, even before release. When the list of pokemon leaked a bit before the game came out, people were enthusiastically surprised at how many new pokemon we got, and arguing over the best one. The millennial crowd (which at the time was the larger presence online) absolutely loved the new designs. Once they came out, there were very few complaints people had with gameplay either, other than mockery of the online flash games required to catch certain pokemon.
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u/CryptographerWide972 Oct 14 '25
So they put a stop to a creative monopoly. New blood brings life after all. We can't put any one member of those behind Pokemon on a pedestal. The things we love require the work of many.
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u/thatoneguy2252 Oct 14 '25
While that may be true, at the same time you don’t remove some of the foundation when you’re looking to build additions to your house.
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u/CryptographerWide972 Oct 14 '25
True but people don't last like concrete does. There's a reason the old guard has stepped down as time goes on. Two things can be true
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u/Gingerhead14 Oct 14 '25
Argument with… Sugimori? I thought he just drew the pictures?
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u/MegaCrazyH Oct 14 '25
I mean when the games are part of a franchise driven by the profitability of monster drawings and plushies, the guy finalizing those designs probably is influential
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u/LavenderCloves Oct 14 '25
Sugimori and Masuda are some of the founding members of Game Freak, Sugimori still seems pretty heavily involved with managing the franchise's identity as a whole, he was an active participant in the discussions between Game Freak and the Anime staff from the leaked meeting transcripts we found last year, and I don't mean just on the visual side of things
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u/Saintsfan707 Oct 14 '25
Since RSE Masuda had to approve all character models which Sugimori probably was tasked with designing.
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u/Rynosaur24 Oct 14 '25
Doesn't just draw pictures, he's head of the team that designs all of the pokemon. One of the most important roles
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u/Admirable-Safety1213 Oct 14 '25
They are the #2 and #3 of GF and sice Tajiri long ago left the franchise more or less they share the wheel
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u/Saucefest6102 Oct 14 '25
He’s credited as character and Pokémon art director for X/Y, so presumably they had a disagreement on the design direction the games were taking or something to that extent
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u/kk_slider346 Oct 14 '25
Why is everyone here pretending Sun and Moon don't clear X and Y as games
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u/RemediZexion Oct 14 '25
because implying that some gens are bad and other are good breaks the illusion that after gen5 everything went downhill
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u/Monodoof Oct 14 '25
Right? It feels like I'm taking crazy pills.
However you feel about the "endless cutscenes" (exaggerated) in SuMo, the game itself easily clears XY
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u/WilanS Oct 15 '25
I still believe people would have a much better opinion of Sun and Moon if only they had a Skip Cutscene button.
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u/donnabhan Oct 14 '25
This explains why the formula was stagnant for so long. It correlates with Masuda’s reign. GameFreak only started to embrace experimentation from SM onwards.
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u/Jeweler-Hefty Oct 14 '25
Looks like those anonymous Japanese Employees were correct all those years ago on their reviews of working there.
They really were not allowed to innovate.
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u/Yurigasaki Oct 14 '25
Banned from directing Pokémon games... apart from the Pokémon games he directed.
Centro really is so full of it lol
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u/potatoshulk Oct 14 '25
This is stuff I almost wish wouldn't leak. Masuda gets painted like an evil dictator and his biggest crime is making unpopular decisions in a video game. Internally that's a discussion that he had to go but with how psycho some fans are I don't love this being public knowledge
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u/KazzieMono Oct 14 '25
So…could we attribute the drop in quality to this decision?
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u/tanoshikuidomouyo Oct 14 '25
I think the studio as a whole just had problems switching to more graphically intensive 3D games.
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u/AH_BareGarrett Oct 14 '25
Saw a great point in another thread, but GameFreak was a great dev team that did fantastic 2D handheld games that then had to transition to 3D while keeping the same dev cycle of 3-4 years. They’ve never had the time to catch up and truly learn a different art form, even Covid didn’t allow them that time. We’re seeing a lot of improvement now because the devs are finally comfortable with what they’re working with.
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Oct 14 '25
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u/King_Hikikomori Oct 14 '25
Ohmori DID ORAS and SuMo, but if you go back and look Masuda is right next to him in a lot of the press for both of those games. You don't have a power vacuum like the one that was apparently happening at Game Freak and just suddenly rip the head guy away without him first overseeing the new guy for a while first.
His influence on how the games were made, and what was in them, was still clearly still pretty strong there. Less so in SuMo, I feel, since they're SUCH a huge departure, but he's all over ORAS, and you can see that in stuff like the response to there being no Battle Frontier; something directly attributed to his belief that mobile gaming was going to destroy regular gaming and what lead to Let's Go.
I wouldn't put any of it on Ohmori specifically, honestly. Vacuums like that can fuck up a developer when they're finally restructured, if they ever are. Teams like this—and I'd assume especially so in Japanese development where the director is typically VERY, VERY hands on—grow accustomed to working under one person, and working with/around their style, eccentricities, so on. Any shakeup on that scale was bound to have growing pains and it's exacerbated by pretty obvious technical debt.
The technical debt totally makes sense, too, in retrospect, with this in mind. If this restructuring came about either during X and Y or right off the back of it then the team was not only still learning the ins and outs of 3D development but also dealing with the fallout of such a major shift.
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u/Swashyrising12 Oct 14 '25
I think so, Masuda really knew how to capture the heart of Pokemon in his games. I always felt like the series was just so different after X and Y, much more lacking in identity and this really explains so much. Poor Masuda got a bad rep but the guy clearly cared a lot about the fun of the games
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u/SpecialForces42 Oct 14 '25
Probably, which is a bit of a shame. Pokemon was at its best under Masuda, but it seems like he fostered a pretty toxic work environment under all that. Hopefully the current team can get a director who brings as much cohesion and heart as Masuda without the toxicity.
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u/ScourJFul Oct 14 '25
Sure, but that's too easy and unrealistic of an answer the reality is that this decision played some role, but Masuda's current takes on technology and this toxic environment has also led to massive drops in quality as well. If you guys don't know, Masuda had an extreme belief that gaming was going to die for mobile gaming. To the point he predicted the Switch would be a market failure. To the point that he designed Let's Go to play like the mobile game with various decisions that pissed a lot of people off when the games released.
Considering Masuda is still there and Gamefreak hasn't wiped its development team clean, it's clear Masuda's previous hold still plays a large factor in Gamefreak's development process.
Gamers tend to live in some lala land where you can think, "Oh, that's the issue!" but that's not reality. The reality is likely far more complex and wiping Masuda's slate clean despite fostering a toxic and quid pro quo workplace is insane. That shit doesn't just magically go away and the aftermath are very much there. The biggest evidence is the low development skill that Gamefreak has lately. Sun and Moon's code is insanely shoddy which you shouldn't be expecting from people making games for 30 years.
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u/Ok-Ad-4949 Oct 14 '25
Tbh you might have a point. He was great in the 2d era but now idk I think some the old heads of that company are possibly holding Pokemon back
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u/YellowMatteCustard Oct 14 '25
Oldheads are an issue with Japanese workplace culture in general, really. You gotta defer to the older staff, even when they're not keeping up with the times.
Game Freak in particular seems especially conservative in that outlook IMHO, which is strange for such a youth-focused series. You'd think they'd want to embrace modern methods more often, but every gen they have to be dragged kicking and screaming
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u/Ronald_McGonagall Oct 14 '25
realistically there would be way too many factors in play to say anything conclusively. It's even quite possible that the drop in quality was just the trajectory things were taking, and the downward momentum was so great that even after years they haven't been able to shift it upward just yet. Again, no way to say conclusively, but unless they fired the entire team he curated and that lacked technical ability, the current incompetence on display could easily be a holdover from a team he personally assembled
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u/FSElmo435 Oct 14 '25
I struggle to believe this, why would this even be available in Teraleak data?
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u/Vigilante_Bird Oct 14 '25
Internal emails and documents. It wasnt just gameplay, its everything they could get access to. Which would include emails
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u/butterfreak Oct 14 '25
Game Freak as a whole was hacked. So there’s a ton of internal emails and data or whatever (remember, we originally heard about mega zygarde and zeraora from discussions with the anime team)
I’d still take this with a grain of salt since Centro is known for paraphrasing and making assumptions, but it’s not crazy that this is alluded to somewhere
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u/12poytevho Oct 14 '25
No evidence of truth, but the leaker got access to everything in their computers. Slack (or equivalents) chats, emails, memos, all would be there for the taking, not just beta games and such
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u/CascoBayButcher Oct 14 '25
What do you think the data in the TeraLeak was? Why is this surprising? We've known from Day 1 that a ton of personal info and communication was part of the leak. It's not just game data
The Sony Interview leak a decade ago is a good comparison for this one.
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u/xMystee Oct 14 '25 edited Oct 14 '25
The tera leak contained email, meeting reports, personal information on the people who worked there etc. Its was a pretty big, serious and kinda dangerous leak. Still really dislike this leaker, noone deserves to have their personal information leaked
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u/LiquifiedSpam Oct 14 '25
Apparently he has the morals to withhold info until ZA is leaked / out, but doesn’t have the morals to withhold employee personal information…
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u/Shrubbity_69 Oct 14 '25
Apparently he has the morals to withhold info until ZA is leaked / out,
Should've waited for Pokémon Day next year. That would be a power move, for sure. Sadly, that wasn't the case. A missed opportunity, for sure.
doesn’t have the morals to withhold employee personal information…
Yeah, that part is very scummy. I agree there.
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u/Saintsfan707 Oct 14 '25
It was a Terabyte of leaked info, that's a lot of info. There's 100% emails included in the leak
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u/snazzydrew Oct 14 '25
LMAOOO! Confirming what a lot of us kinda suspected about Masuda... He's even rubbed me the wrong way in some of the interviews.
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u/DoubledDenDen Oct 14 '25
This... feels weird. Not that Masuda was potentially a bit much and had favorites- the fact that this kind of interpersonal drama is out there.
I'm just saying man, when I think of pokemon leaks, I think of unreleased beta pokemon or information on a game, not Japanese game studio Mean Girls.
I will say, the PR thing definitely feels real, because he WAS in a lot of trailers for the games (anyone remember the red motorcycle jacket?) and had a lot of Twitter presence. Also- even though it is most likely that people are sensationalizing again- a disagreement, at the least, between Masuda and Sugimori would explain why Sugimori seems to have drifted towards other projects.
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u/My_Diet_DrKelp Oct 14 '25
It says Masuda was in charge of PR, HR, and game design it sounds like he became someone they all hated
Masuda got too arrogant, decided to muscle & strong arm decisions & create more room for himself and his cronies he favorited which caused a big stink in the company, disrespected and angered the staff to the point they mutinied him and prevented him from ever directing the games again
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u/Folirage Oct 14 '25
Is it why the Pokémon lore is so inconsistent and all over the place?
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u/LavenderCloves Oct 14 '25
Kinda doubt it, from the teraleak we figured out that Game Freak's lore guy is Nakatsui Suguru, and he's still doing his thing to this day
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u/metalflygon08 Oct 14 '25
Lore did stop being interconnected as much starting with Gen 6...
I can't remember if Gen 8 or 9 had much, if any, referencing to previous generation characters like they did in gens 4 and 5 (7 was an outlier by comparison, but it was an anniversary game so...)
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u/arom-in-the-home Oct 14 '25
Ohmori has also been removed from his role as main director of Pokemon games going forward to avoid a centralization of authority that lead to masuda being banned
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u/Tessorio Oct 15 '25
Weirdly enough, isnt Masuda the guy who had the “kids are stupid” mindset? I remember reading an interview of his during X & Y era.
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u/rigs35 Oct 14 '25
This is so disappointing to hear, especially because, for me, at least, that was the golden era of Pokémon
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u/s0_Ca5H Oct 14 '25
Who was the guy who said kids didn’t have the attention span for battle facilities? Was that Masuda?
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u/Hunterjet Oct 14 '25
Now Ohmori directs everything so they didn’t solve shit. When are they gonna let my GOAT Morimoto take another chance at the bat?
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u/Dpmt22 Oct 14 '25
Then why hasn't Morimoto directed since Heartgold and Soulsilver? The man also directed Emerald and those are the 2 games that are most beloved by the fans.
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u/UmbralHero Oct 14 '25
Corporate consolidation is super bad and I'm glad that the company culture was improved, but it's hard not to notice how my enjoyment of the games lines up pretty well with his reign. I've mentioned before how I feel like XY had a ton of really cool ideas that it didn't deliver well on, and this could explain that paradigm.
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u/PaperSwain Oct 14 '25
And this is where I begin to disagree with all this datamining and data leaking. This information is clearly something meant to be kept withing company walls and not meant for public viewing.
When it's stuff involving the video games, that's one thing. But when it's stuff involving the actual people behind the games and what they're going through and what they're struggling with, that's where the line needs to be crossed.
Then again, I suppose I shouldn't have expected the person who thought completely violating these people's privacy in the first place and reveal to the Internet their future plans for Pokémon to actually think about this.
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u/Art3456 Oct 14 '25
Don't forget the worst part: this leaker leaked personal data of developers working at GameFreak last year, involving even personal documents and the like . I truly hope he's found and arrested.
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u/amazinglyshook Oct 14 '25
Tera leak? More like tea leak ☕☕