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Pokemon Sword and Shield Characters Discussion Thread

shoz999

Back when Tigers used to smoke.

Huh... probably late but voice-acting might be a real thing. Also here's Gamexplain's character analysis.
 

Pokemon Fan

Knuckle Trainer
Well its looking like we aren't getting voice acting, or at least none is present in the demo. No biggie to me, I still like how the lip movements and faces are more expressive than before.

As for Nessa, a grade A gorgeous character design. And dang she is flexible, that leg kick when she throws a poke ball is impressive, and I like the little touches like her blowing a kiss to the crowd, losing her famed composure when she loses, etc. We've had two striking gym leaders so far, here's hoping they're all stunning in one way or another.
 
The designs of the main characters are fine in my opinion. I like that they are relatively reserved and that you then have the choice to make more radical customization choices as you see fit. I would also like to mention yet again that I'm glad customization is here to stay and that GF appears to have completely abandoned the idea of it being a removable/occasionally occurring aspect after the backlash for ORAS.

Prof. Magnolia is a fine design and I'm glad that we are getting an old professor again, not to say I haven't liked the younger ones we have gotten lately. In particular I like her cane. However I got to say that I would have preferred her field of expertise to have been a bit broader than just the generation's gimmick. Like how Kukui specializes in moves, not just Z-Moves.
Sonia being about as old as the champion and not as old as your rival and you is a new direction if they are planning on making her a travelling companion, so I'm wondering how the dynamic between her and the player will be given this. I like that her design is pretty grounded in reality.
I honestly love Leon's design. I usually don't think sport outfits look that great but the contrast to the very regal-looking cape sells it for me. I like the color choices here too, especially the colors for the cape, and the hair-skin-eye dynamic. Not fully sure if I think the cape being filled with sponsors on the back is just tacky or hilarious yet though. Also I'm less than pleased that Charizard appears to be his ace. I'm kind of guessing it will have some new gimmick like Diantha's Gardevoir but I still think they could have picked a less exposed or a brand new Pokémon for him.
Hop is the least interesting character so far. We have had several rivals in the past with big shoes to fill. His hairstyle is also silly.

The lip movements are an odd addition when the game does't appear to have much if any voice acting. I fear it will take you out of the experience instead of drawing you in to see lips moving with no sound coming out. The more expressive faces might also appear odd appearing side to side with the main characters, which while not as bas as in previous games still appear rather stiff expression-wise. All in all a weird choice both from a design perspective and resource perspective.

Milo's design is a bit jarring compared to the rest so far. His facial features are very different from the rest of the characters. And aside from the actual design being rather different the artwork is drawn by Take(person who drew the Aether guys for SM), who has a very unique style, making it clash even more.
I like Nessa's design a lot, aside from the life rings on the shoes that I think both look silly and dangerous. In particular I like how her eyes just grab your attention. In-game her model looks fine next to the player character's. But her artwork also appears to have been drawn by Take, if you look at her artwork next to Sonia's artwork the differences in artstyle are clear and they hardly look like they belong to the same game. It will be interesting to see how more of Take's art will blend in with more "traditional" Pokémon artists' art if they draws the rest of the Gym Leaders too. And as I mentioned earlier I'm not terribly fond of sport uniforms, and while I think they have been fine so far I'm worried having all the Gym Leaders (and potentially the E4) dress like that will be too much for me, even if I think having a common fashion theme is a cool idea.
 

lolipiece

Pictured: what browsing Serebii does to a person
Staff member
Moderator
The people suggesting Sword and Shield will have voice acting because of lip flaps and lack of text boxes need to re-check Sun and Moon, because those had the exact same type of cutscenes.

It's not an indicator of anything.
 
The people suggesting Sword and Shield will have voice acting because of lip flaps and lack of text boxes need to re-check Sun and Moon, because those had the exact same type of cutscenes.

It's not an indicator of anything.
I definitely do not believe in voice acting but lip movements appear to be more prevalent in SWSH. Only the actual cutscenes in SM had proper lip movement, which were few and far between, now they appear to be much more common. Compare facing off against Milo in the first trailer(full lip movement) to your average trial face-off in SM like right before facing Lurantis(face plate switches). Also notice how all minor characters have full lip movement now, like the audience during Milo's match, compared to in SM where only the very important characters had lip movement, even in the actual cutscenes(Aether grunts had face plates in the opening cutscene with Lillie.
 

mysticalglacia

Alola Shill
It’s just weird to animate the mouths so expressively if there’s no voice acting. In SM, the mouths never moved this much, even in important cutscenes. Now everyone in SwSh seems like they’re actually talking, even if there isn’t any voiced lines. There really isn’t an excuse to not add voice acting at this point, on this hardware, and when pretty much every other JRPG out there is semi to fully voiced.
 

Ignition

We are so back Zygardebros
So from what I’m seeing from the gameplay footage, the “canon” names for the protagonists are Gloria and Victor? As in glory and victory. If this is the case, I’m fine with that
 

Pokemon Fan

Knuckle Trainer
So from what I’m seeing from the gameplay footage, the “canon” names for the protagonists are Gloria and Victor? As in glory and victory. If this is the case, I’m fine with that
Other people had different names, so they may not be the set ones.
 

Ignition

We are so back Zygardebros
Other people had different names, so they may not be the set ones.
I know that’s why I put canon in quotes. A similar thing happened in SM so I didn’t want to say it’s confirmed as of now
 

MockingJ

Banned
Man I really hope that Leon is actually a secret bad guy and since he's pals with Sonia I'd love a second plot twist where she knew all along about his evil deeds because she was working with him. I know it probably won't happen, but I can dream...
 

1rkhachatryan

Call me Robert guys
I like the rivals design this time around and how we seem to be real friends and even having conversations like on the train. Yes I know everyone wants a jerky rival but hopefully now that we know he wants to be champion, he takes it more seriously.
 

WhiteBlair

ベストチャンピオン。
I'm warming up to Nessa even though I still don't like her name since it reminds me of the Loch Ness monster lol. Maybe that's on purpose. Her design reminds me of a female Marlon and I'd love if they end up being related. :p
Nessa made Sonia irrelevant within a week.
 

Ultra Beast Lover

Well-Known Member
Only thing I don't like about Nessa's outfit are her shoes, do they let her walk on water like the water bike? Other than that I'm liking the idea that she's Shelly and Archie's daughter, the timeline could work, they'd just have to be really young parents. It'd be an interesting backstory though it's probably not the case.
 

Orphalesion

Well-Known Member
I'm warming up to Nessa even though I still don't like her name since it reminds me of the Loch Ness monster lol.

Would it help if I tell you that Naesse is the German word for moisture and in Tolkien's Middle Earth mythos there's a character named Nessa who's sort of the Archangel of celebration and dance?
 

mysticalglacia

Alola Shill
Super curious as to how Kabu and Opal will look. I know the leak isn’t 100% confirmed, but it’s safe to say at least the Gym Leaders might be correct since Milo/Nessa were confirmed.

Kabu is a wildcard, but Opal gives me Diantha vibes due to her actress description. There’s a lot of potential for a unique design there, I think.
 

Orphalesion

Well-Known Member
Super curious as to how Kabu and Opal will look. I know the leak isn’t 100% confirmed, but it’s safe to say at least the Gym Leaders might be correct since Milo/Nessa were confirmed.

Kabu is a wildcard, but Opal gives me Diantha vibes due to her actress description. There’s a lot of potential for a unique design there, I think.

I'm kinda disappointed that the Fairy specialist/gym leader is a woman again, not saying Opal can't be a cool character but I want to see a male Fairy gym leader at some point. We had several female fighting type leaders, why not a male Fairy leader then?

Really curious what type Kabu's gonna have.
 

WhiteBlair

ベストチャンピオン。
Super curious as to how Kabu and Opal will look. I know the leak isn’t 100% confirmed, but it’s safe to say at least the Gym Leaders might be correct since Milo/Nessa were confirmed.

Kabu is a wildcard, but Opal gives me Diantha vibes due to her actress description. There’s a lot of potential for a unique design there, I think.
Kabu somewhat reminds me of Kabuto(-ps) and I wonder if he is the Gym Leader of the Rock/Ground Gym who looks like an Archeologist. But, I'm open for other creative design options.

From the first time I heard the name Opal, I can't stop thinking about Olympia from XY. Love to see a similar design like hers; elegant, mature, also fitting the nature of an actress leading a Gym.
 
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Ultra Beast Lover

Well-Known Member
Honestly I'm gonna have to see how the characters act before I can really decide how I feel about them. It seems that Hop is basically Barry though it seems like he won't be fining us. I hope he's our childhood friend, it puts the battles at stake for both of us because of course we'd both want to beat Leon. Also, I hope his catch phrase is, "Let's Hop to it!"
 
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