Pokemon Direct : new Pokemon games! Sword / Shield

[Carrehz]

(re: Harmonie's spoiler cut)

Spoiler

Huh, really? That's a surprise. I'm still shocked (pleasantly) that Trubbish made it in...

I'm not. Think about it - Britain's known for talking constantly about their bins

Yeah, but I wouldn't expect them to put that much thought into it! I would've expected something more ~*marketable*~.

(Then again, they DID make some new Trubbish merch earlier this year... Maybe someone at Nintendo likes them, hehe.)

[tailrustedtealeaf]

Did someone mention that moves were cut as well? I'd imagine a good chunk of these were exclusive to cut pokemon, but it looks like return was cut.

[Carrehz]

Wait, what???? Why on earth would they cut MOVES?!?? What's their justification for THAT????? 

What happens if you try and transfer up a Pokemon with a removed Move?

[tailrustedtealeaf]

What's funny is even tho Woobat is in the game, they cut *heart stamp*.
If the pokemon is transferred with a cut move, I think it'll ask to forget it?

[TheBeatlesPkmnFan42]

Hardware limitations and the like aren't even a valid excuse for these issues. They claim they cut Pokemon to improve models and animations when they seemed to have just copypasted models and animations from the previous games with little to no improvements.

Here's a good Reddit thread compiling all the issues this game has:

https://www.reddit.com/r/pokemon/comments/dv438w/complete_list_of_all_problems_known_so_far_in/

I'm really disappointed. I had always been really excited for new mainline Pokemon games in the past, but I think I'm going to be skipping these ones. They just. Don't look good. It's baffling how much worse this looks compared to many other games on the same system. This is a Switch game but the visuals don't look that much better than the 3DS games. Their excuse for cutting Pokemon was entirely bs.

[tailrustedtealeaf]

This reddit post is incredibly comprehensive. Are you telling me the entire cut Gen 5 starter line didn't free enough space up to make a turning animation for the legendaries?

[Sora]

I tried the demo at Pokemon Center London, and I'm not too surprised to hear about the graphical issues... When I faced Nessa, there was a crowd in the stadium there which I thought was pretty cool, until they moved a little more and I realized they were just 2D GIFs playing all around me. Would prefer a way to turn them off, especially when I have Nintendo 64 games that use the same trick.

The thing that bothers me the most though is the 'can't catch Pokemon higher than certain levels without the badge' routine. Can you imagine getting into battle with a shiny, only to be told you can't catch it because it's one level too high? OUCH.

[Carrehz]

Wow, I'm completely shocked after reading that list. I knew things were bad, I didn't realize they were this bad. All of those cut Pokemon! And for what? Graphics aren't any better and it really doesn't look like there's all that many new Pokemon, either... I mean, if we were at least getting a good number of new Pokemon then I'd say, okay, fair enough, but as it is... And I STILL don't see any logic in cutting moves. And just... damn. Damn it.

The thing that bothers me the most though is the 'can't catch Pokemon higher than certain levels without the badge' routine. Can you imagine getting into battle with a shiny, only to be told you can't catch it because it's one level too high? OUCH.

This is just completely insane, I had no idea this was a thing. What on earth were they thinking, surely they know about shiny hunters and the like???

[bright rabbit 1]

Wow, I'm completely shocked after reading that list. I knew things were bad, I didn't realize they were this bad. All of those cut Pokemon! And for what? Graphics aren't any better and it really doesn't look like there's all that many new Pokemon, either... I mean, if we were at least getting a good number of new Pokemon then I'd say, okay, fair enough, but as it is... And I STILL don't see any logic in cutting moves. And just... damn. Damn it.

The thing that bothers me the most though is the 'can't catch Pokemon higher than certain levels without the badge' routine. Can you imagine getting into battle with a shiny, only to be told you can't catch it because it's one level too high? OUCH.

This is just completely insane, I had no idea this was a thing. What on earth were they thinking, surely they know about shiny hunters and the like???

Bummer, I’ve got some friends who like shiny hunting they’ll be disappointed.

Clearly they don’t care about shiny hunters. Looks like I’m sticking with Let’s Go Eevee on the switch, and Pokemon on the 3DS

[Harmonie]

One thing that really gets to me is how they made Exp All a requirement now.

Personally I liked Exp All in Sun because I found that the SOS wild Pokemon feature (while providing some neat easter eggs, and being a neat concept on paper) made it really arduous to train my Pokemon, as they kept on getting double teamed, and then double teamed again and again and again thanks to the never-ending nature of the feature. It became too frustrating for me, so Exp All was turned on and that was it.

But, with that said, that feature should not be something that can not be turned off! What was GF thinking?! There are so many people who prefer to play it the traditional way, and outside of the Generation VII games I do, too.

It just really baffles me why GF would knowingly choose to alienate so many fans of its games for absolutely no reason like that. While I don't buy a lot of the excuses for the elimination of the National Dex, I can at least see why it is a challenge to implement and how a game with a rushed development cycle and low team members (thanks to GF allotting resources to LGP/E and Town Hero) would make it harder, BUT the Exp All no longer being optional? That's a whole different matter. I can't imagine any challenge associated with implementing it. Instead, they made the choice to make it no longer an option, and with that they've alienated a ton of fans, for absolutely no reason.

I heard over and over again about how LGP/E weren't actually a bad thing and that GF would make Sword/Shield a proper "core" game, but this just proves that wrong. I never bothered with LGP/E, but I recall hearing it also forced the Exp All (the first time for the series), and look at that... It's in our core games now, too. Lovely.

[Pokeyonekenobie]

Yeah, I don't always use Exp All on the other games.  Like right now I'm working on getting a set of Pokemon that are level 1 to start out a game with all level 1s with the exception of the required starter.  That means they have to hatch from eggs and if I run into a pokemon on my way to the computer to put them away and pull out the next egg, then Exp All will make it so they are no longer level 1 unless I just let my pokemon lose all the time.  (They will have Disney names and an OT of "Walt" because, yes, I'm that nerdy.)

[Carrehz]

I don't like the required Exp All, either. I like Exp Share! I like Exp All! But a mandatory Exp All, with no way to turn it off? Noooo thank you. They've been dumbing these games down way too much lately, I noticed it in Sun/Moon but this just takes the cake. Too much hand holding!

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the games should be super difficult or anything. Some changes were good (like the map being on the bottom screen in Sun/Moon instead of having to pull it out all the time, that was nice! ...Well, nice in theory... in practice I disliked it since half the time I tried to check it, I just ended up with the !@~#$%*^ Rotomdex yelling at me, but.. you know. ), but I really don't get why they seem to be systematically whittling away any challenge these games have...

[tailrustedtealeaf]

We got a new trending tag on Twitter. Apparently models that could be ripped from SM were used in the game instead of new ones. Some people are skeptical, it would be easy to fake especially since the game isn't in most hands yet.
Cue typical outrage over the animations.
Someone also found out that (could be worded wrong, I will amend later if I can find it again) instead of having one model for Lillie, there are multiple models that are used for each area, but the models are identical. Also, the game de-encrypts and re-encrypts a lot (this means something).

[Leave a Whisper]

So I hear its getting good reviews. Doesn't surprise me. At the very least a Pokemon game will score reasonably well. Despite some of its controversial decisions.

[tailrustedtealeaf]

Yeah, I'm glad the game is still fun to play despite a lot of the outrage.
There's a lot of....stuff going on.