Epilogue : Series 1 - Remake


A man with short and vaguely green-tinted hair made his way forward, the sound of his footsteps clattering against metal ringing out. The man turned back to see his Crawdaunt following him down the metal catwalk, taking his time to gape about excitedly on his way down to the dock it led to. Even if he and his Pokémon were both older and more experienced now, from the way Bracket was reacting, he supposed some things really didn't change in life.

The man supposed that was to be expected. If the sight of his present surroundings still stirred up familiar feelings for him, of course it would do the same for his Pokémon. It'd been almost a decade since the two of them were last here, but it was still Lilycove City, alright. The sprawl along the seaside had grown a bit since then, both taller and further out, but some things remained the same. The air was still balmy and tropical with a tang of sea salt to it, and the beaches and sandbars were still flecked with the distant figures of visiting people and their Pokémon.

The process of going through the ferry terminal and over to the baggage claim to wait for his luggage went by much as the man remembered it. The terminal had gotten a fresh coat of paint, and the shops had changed around since he'd last seen it.

The technology inside the building had definitely come quite a ways in the span of a decade, too. Flat panels showed advertisements and departure schedules, and there were even a couple of holographic displays set up. Ones of the same sort that that 'Lysandre Labs' company in Kalos had been making a splash with in recent years…

But the people and Pokémon milling about inside the ferry terminal somehow seemed familiar, even if they were a bit different. As he waited for his baggage to come, the man let his eyes drift off toward the surrounding travelers. He noted the backpacker checking a flip phone as he rested against his Probopass companion, and also the Exploud a little ways off helping a white-haired old woman along—a pair that felt as if he'd seen them before. Keita snapped back to attention after feeling a sharp tug at the hem of his shirt and turned to see his Crawdaunt raising a claw and pointing over at a man with bluish-black hair with an Azumarill at his side approaching.

"I'm surprised you didn't just buy a plane ticket, Keita," the man chuckled. "Ferry tickets aren't that much cheaper than them these days."

The two were old colleagues of theirs: Satoshi and his Pokémon, even if she'd evolved since the last time he'd seen her. The Azumarill waved in greeting and drifted off to chatter with Keita's Crawdaunt, a treat that the two hadn't been able to enjoy together in some time. But as pleasant as it was to run into old faces again, Keita couldn't help but blink puzzledly at the blue-haired man.

What was he doing here of all places?

"... Huh? Satoshi? You're also working on the new project?"

"Well, I figured it was something different from those trading card artworks I'd been making lately," the blue-haired man explained. "Sounded like as good a reason as any to get out of those offices back in Celadon City, huh?"

Keita cocked a brow back in reply. He knew that the company had gotten into the practice of sending out teams to work on new Capsule Monsters games in the field ever since his first project with them, but…

"Wait, I thought the region for the new games was supposed to be based off of Kalos, and that a team went out there a full year ago," the programmer remarked. "Though why Hoenn anyways? The company was pretty tight-lipped about why they needed a team out here as well."

"Gotta keep up with the times, Keita. We're doing parallel development," Satoshi chuckled. "When you're working on a franchise as big as the one we are, you sometimes need to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time."

A chittering cry turned the pair's heads as they saw Bracket scuttling after a worn, red suitcase on the carousel with various stickers attached to it, nipping and tugging at it with his claws. Keita clicked his tongue and hurried over as the Crawdaunt began to pull it off, quickly steadying it as he helped his companion guide it to the ground and set its wheels on the floor of the ferry terminal.

Bracket gave a sheepish click of his claws and pat at the suitcase, which had a few scuffs and marks here or there from times in the past when the Water-type had handled it a bit too roughly handling. From the lack of any new blemishes, Keita supposed Bracket was getting more experienced at pulling it around, if only by degrees. The sound of approaching footsteps telegraphed Satoshi and his Azumarill's arrival. The blue-haired man gaped over the suitcase briefly and turned to Keita with a quizzical frown.

"Didn't you pack a bit light for a long stay, Keita?" Satoshi asked.

Keita grabbed at his suitcase and set it on its wheels, his Crawdaunt staring up at him with a tilt of his head. The green-haired man looked down at his bag and the worn stickers on it and let his eyes linger over them for a brief moment, before shaking his head in reply.

"Nah, after the last time I was here, I'm not too worried about that." Keita laughed. "I'm sure I'll be leaving with a lot more than I came with again when it's time to go."

"If you say so," the older man replied. "Though we should get going, the bus should be pulling in at the entrance any minute now."

The stickers on the bag spoke of many stories from the years since Keita had last been here, of one improbable place after another that his job had taken him to. There were the stickers from Sinnoh from when what was then called Capsule Monsters NTR was undergoing development, with large chunks of those games coming together in a seaside resort not far from Lake Valor. Many sleepless nights had passed there to get those games finalized, with hurdles like hundreds of gender-specific sprites had to be dummied out late in development and a save system that for much of development just stubbornly refused to work. Then there were the ones from Unova from when what was once Capsule Monsters TWL had been stitched together in repurposed workspaces from the Unovan localization offices, 22 floors above street level in Castelia City. Putting those games together had been a saga in its own right, especially since a good chunk of development coincided with an attempted regional takeover whose effects wound up scuttling plans for the franchise's first worldwide release.

And yet, somehow, things had all led back here. Where Keita's journey had initially begun. The programmer supposed it shouldn't have been that surprising to him. After all, his and Satoshi's reason for returning was apparent just up ahead: a placard with a sign for a bus with the eye-shaped logo of their employer.

"Funny, it sure doesn't seem like that much has changed," Keita remarked.


"Good afternoon, everyone. And welcome to the Anniversary Team for the next generation of Capsule Monsters."

Keita blinked after hearing the words come from the front of a crowded room with low-slung tables and cushions. A bit neater than he remembered it, but it was still the same old conference room from the Cove Lily Motel that he remembered from almost a decade ago.

At the front of the room was a man with brown, vaguely reddish hair standing at a patch of blank wall lit up by a projector, the Director for this project. Keita vaguely remembered him being on the map design team the last time he was in this room. He couldn't say he'd have ever guessed back then that one day he'd be filling the old Director's shoes like this.

But even so, a number of things about the gathering felt eerily familiar. Keita was seated next to Bracket again much like he was back for the initial briefing of Capsule Monsters AGB, his Crawdaunt just a bit bigger and a bit less restless than last time. And the way that some of the developers in the room were trading puzzled looks with one another definitely stirred up a sense of deja vu.

"Wait a minute, 'Anniversary Team'?" a younger man towards the front asked. "Anniversary of what? Aren't we working on Capsule Monsters CTR here?"

"Nah, that's the team out in Kalos," a bespectacled man scoffed. "We're focused on those remakes that are sharing its same engine."

"Yeah, where have you been?" a trainer with a Porygon2 from the next table over chimed in. "The last time an Anniversary Team was put together was after Capsule Monsters NTR, when we remade the second set of games from the franchise."

"Really? Could've fooled me with all the attention you gave to the first games' region," his neighbor teased.

"Whatever. Anyhow, it's been close to a decade since then and this is the next set of remakes on the list," another developer harrumphed. "About time too, if you ask me."

… Had it really been that long since the last time he and Bracket were here? Keita supposed that 'lingering nostalgia' was as good a reason as any for the new Director to decide to develop a new set of games here of all places. Why, the only way things would've been more nostalgic would've been if the Cove Lily Motel remained the same antiquated relic he remembered it being. But it had caught up with time since then and found itself on the cutting edge of trends and technology… from about ten years ago.

The new Director sternly cleared his throat from the front of the room, briefly narrowing his eyes before he continued on.

"Things aren't quite so simple this time. Capsule Monsters CTR is a significantly bigger project, since it will be the first set of main games from the franchise to be fully built around 3D models," the red-haired man said. "That is why management found it appropriate to put our project together in parallel along with the main team's work out in Kalos. As such, we will be expected to help them refine the engine and generate content that will need to be present in their game at launch."

The Director's remarks drew a few grumbles from some of the older members of the crowd. A man with salt and pepper hair towards the back of the room piped up with a sharp scoff.

"I'm sorry, but why are we supposed to do this again?" the man asked. "I heard those developers that make those games with the warring demons and angels, the ones just the next neighborhood over from our Celadon office, were planning on doing a sprite game for their first one on this new hardware. So why should we change what we already know works?"

"Yeah, we just had a set of games sell over 10 million units using overworld sprites and their direct sequels that are about to go gold in a couple months. They have over 600 monsters in them before counting alternate forms and use the same engine just fine," another older developer chimed in. "The merchandising and media teams need firm delivery dates for our work. If we switch to a new engine that needs larger assets and more complex animations, what are we supposed to do if making them takes more time and resources than our production schedules initially assumed? Just drop entire batches of monsters and moves from the games?"

"Tch, you two are acting like we're some small indie company or something like that," the Porygon2 trainer piped. "It's a remake. How much effort is it just to make the same areas all over again with a fresh coat of paint? Why, the last I checked, the art team even had a model of that area based off the Battle Frontier ready to go!"

"All of you, enough already!"

A sharp bark from the red-haired man abruptly settled the conference room down, and even Bracket stiffened up from the man's chiding. Keita noted to himself that the former map developer must've learned a thing or two from the old Director about how to quiet a crowd. Why, he even gave the same piercing glare to communicate his displeasure. The new Director let his scowl linger for a moment, before he relented and shook his head as he continued on.

"I understand that some of you have worked on your share of projects in this firm, some of you right alongside me in the past. But even so, this isn't a project to be underestimated. This one will require all hands on deck with a broader team of 500 just to handle all the assets and the engine that will be shared between our project and Capsule Monsters CTR," the new Director insisted. "We even had to tap some of our affiliates would normally be making spinoff games for help. Our publisher is additionally expecting us to take advantage of certain features of their new hardware, including its built-in stereoscopic 3D abilities."

"But isn't this just a remake?" a bespectacled developer from the front asked. "We already know exactly what we need to make, so shouldn't this be straightforward?"

"Hardly. Almost everything for the games built from this new engine will have to be built from scratch," the new Director retorted. "Thanks to needing to support new features such as that new temporary evolution mechanic, we won't be able to just retread old ground. There will be new assets to make, new scenarios to design, and our work will need to mesh together with one of a team halfway across the world from us right now."

The red-haired man frowned and shook his head briefly before looking over at the other developers with a stern frown.

"In short, you should all expect to be kept busy for some time," he said. "This will be the most challenging project that the firm has taken on since the days when the very first Capsule Monsters games were being developed."

Keita sucked in a breath as nervous murmurs began to float about the room. The firm had always had a way of underestimating how challenging projects would be, but more challenging than a project that took six years of development time and almost bankrupted the company? Things couldn't possibly be that bad, could they?

Keita felt a tug at his shoulder, looking over to see Bracket staring up at him with a puzzled tilt of his head. The developer paused for a moment, rationalizing that however difficult these new games would be to make, that they'd surely manage to overcome it. Even if he'd joined the company after those chaotic early days, he and his Pokémon had grown since then. As had everything about the games they'd worked on.

And every time, even in the darkest moments such as the woes of getting a working save system together for Capsule Monsters NTR, or the saga of finishing Capsule Monsters TWL amidst part of its team getting caught up in regional turmoil… they'd pulled through.

And surely they would this time, too… even if Keita still found himself subconsciously clinging to the table in front of him as the red-haired man at the front of the room continued speaking.

"Which is why our publisher has quite generously given us an eighteen-month timetable for our initial stage of development," he said. "After which, they expect us to have our content ready in time for the main games' release."

At once, the room burst into a loud commotion, as various developers around the room broke out into startled outcries.

"Eighteen months?! Who on earth came up with that schedule?!"

"That's barely a year after when we're planning to launch those games that the Unova team's QA testing right now!"

"Those console spinoffs with the theme park minigames had more development time than that!"

Even Bracket seemed to be taken aback, as the Crawdaunt turned to his trainer with a worried chitter. But strangely enough, Keita couldn't help but smile. He was sure he'd wind up tearing at his hair on many a night a few months from now, perhaps even sooner than that… but somehow the news of this new deadline didn't faze him.

Perhaps it was the place, or the way his colleagues were baying in protest… but the announcement felt like old times.

Except, on this occasion, they'd have the luxury of six extra months to work with.

"Heh, well, at least it's more than twelve. It can't be that bad, right?"