Pokemon Sword & Shield GENERAL DISCUSSION Thread [Spoilers]

[Ducolamia]

I don’t understand how Masuda thinks that fans are pressuring the company to make games almost every year. I thought it was already stated in the past that they don’t listen to fans anyway. I also suspect that Nintendo is mainly the one that’s pressuring them to meet certain deadlines for high sales expectations. Personally, I would much prefer for the games to have longer development times as needed, especially now that they’re on the Switch.

Since gen 5 there has usually been a mainline pokemon game released almost every year. With the exception of 2015. They really do release them once a year.
2012: Black and White 2
2013: X and Y
2014: ORAS
2015: nothing
2016: Sun and Moon
2017: Ultra Sun and Moon
2018: Let's Go (Yes this is a main game. It's been confirmed multiple times now)
2019: Sword and Shield.

That being said I am in the camp they should take longer to makes these games if they are having issues. HOWEVER I wouldn't be surprised if they got pressure from Nintendo considering pokemon is an even bigger cash cow than many of their other popular IPs including Mario.

 

[PrinceOfFacade]

not that any of this matters now with what they said during the Treehouse. if the *limit* of Pokémon isn't lifted (via patch or dlc) within the first few months of the games coming out...they will both flop

Yeah, I'm calling bullshit on that one.

People are still going to buy these games. Millions of people. Just like they bought Let's GO, and every other installment in the series over the last 20+ years.

This isn't the first time players were limited to a certain set of pokemon, even if it isn't temporary. Most players will get over it, buy the game, and play their asses off. I know I will.

 

[Bguy7]

Even if you couldn't catch them in game, they at least had all of the assets ready and let you transfer the missing ones in. You can't even do that much with SwSh, if it's not in the Galar Dex, you can't have them in the game at all. Period.

I fully understand that. If you look back in that conversation I was having, it started with me saying that I personally prefer Shield and Sword's limitation to Black and White's limitation, as I'd rather have the ability to use old Pokémon in main story than transfer Pokémon from another game, as for me, what's found in the game directly is more important than what you can export to the game externally. I agree that this debacle with Sword and Shield is not a good thing, but it just doesn't affect me as much as Black and White's Unova-exclusive dex did.

 

[Ulicies]

There is no point to Pokemon Home now. It's a one-way prison transfer for hundreds of old Pokemon that will just sit in the app until a new Switch installment comes along in 1-3 years that happens to feature them. The whole point of Pokemon is to collect them all, and barring whole swaths of them from the newest games just because GF couldn't be bothered to code them in defeats the entire purpose. I have no reason now to invest my time or energy in collecting anything in Sword and Shield, because generation 9 won't allow me to use any of the Pokemon I will grow to love, like Wooloo, or Scorbunny. But they sure as hell will let me use Charizard.

 

[Sceptrigon]

Since gen 5 there has usually been a mainline pokemon game released almost every year. With the exception of 2015. They really do release them once a year.
2012: Black and White 2
2013: X and Y
2014: ORAS
2015: nothing
2016: Sun and Moon
2017: Ultra Sun and Moon
2018: Let's Go (Yes this is a main game. It's been confirmed multiple times now)
2019: Sword and Shield.

That being said I am in the camp they should take longer to makes these games if they are having issues. HOWEVER I wouldn't be surprised if they got pressure from Nintendo considering pokemon is an even bigger cash cow than many of their other popular IPs including Mario.

Games have basically been released every 1-2 years since the beginning but yeah, this is the most it’s been in a row when considering Japanese releases. (Outside of Japan actually had more between Platinum and ORAS.) Next year should be at the very least one gap year to give more room for the next games’ development.

 

[Ignition]

I’ve seen a lot of people who were pleased and excited about Home acting like the criticism of GF not putting in all 800+ in SWSH as unnecessary. Honestly confuses me.

 

[Poke Trainer J]

I'm going to wait to hear Nintendo / Game Freak's response regarding the backlash surrounding the removal of the National PokéDex in Sword & Shield before I decide to Wonder Trade everything I have since there's no point in keeping them around anymore. I did fear that they would pull a stunt similar to what they did back in Gen 3 when they cut off backwards compatibility from Gen 1 and Gen 2 but in this case I feel it was more of a way to make VGC interesting again rather than a technical problem.

 

[Deleted member 384931]

I really think they soft-reboot pokemon beginning from LGPE and only keeping popular ones for the sake of.

 

[Bguy7]

I really think they soft-reboot pokemon beginning from LGPE and only keeping popular ones for the sake of.

That really isn't the case at all. For proof, just look at the list of Pokémon already confirmed to appear in Sword and Shield. There are some very random non-fan favorites in that list. There is no bias being shown towards the "popular ones," beyond what might expect. If your theory were true, it would be only fan favorites returning.

 

[Golden_Latias]

I mean, I could be wrong about this, but I don't think they can delay Sw/Sh. Or at least, it's not that simple .

For starters, they'd have to delay everything else Pokemon related, as well. Namely, the Sw/Sh anime would have to be delayed, and that's probably its own can of worms by itself. Because what are they going to show for an entire year when S/M is over? Reruns would hurt ratings, a filler arc would cut into the development of the Sw/Sh anime, and I'm sure they can't just take Pokemon off the air for an entire year and replace it with something else until Sw/Sh is released. There's really just no good solution there.

Delaying to anything that's not holiday 2020 would just cause the games to lose out on sales, and while I'm sure many fans would be fine waiting for holiday 2020 to have a game with all the Pokemon coded into it, I'm not convinced the majority wants to wait for holiday 2020 for a new Pokemon game.

 

[Something~Kinda~Ooooh]

I’m so upset that all Pokémon can’t be there, it’s almost a deal breaker for me. If I can’t play with my faves why bother. And all the time and effort i’ve put into shinies and all the money I’ve paid for PokeBank and then who knows if I’ll ever be able to bring them over.

Genuinely the worst decision ever. It’s a game about collecting them all!

 

[WishIhadaManafi5]

I'll still enjoy the game for what it is, any disappointment aside. Will just be keeping most of my Pokémon in the previous generations. I understand the anger and frustration, but at the end of the day, for myself, it's not a deal breaker.

 

[BCVM22]

Yeah, I'm calling bullshit on that one.

People are still going to buy these games. Millions of people. Just like they bought Let's GO, and every other installment in the series over the last 20+ years.

This isn't the first time players were limited to a certain set of pokemon, even if it isn't temporary. Most players will get over it, buy the game, and play their asses off. I know I will.

It’s the very height of silliness, much of it performative. People claiming this will either quietly realize how silly of a notion this is and buy the game anyway, or they won’t - entirely their prerogative, to be sure - and someone else will instead buy their copy.

It’s an unfortunate development to be sure, but for it to be the dealbreaker in and of itself despite all the very good we’ve been shown would be suspect to me.

 

[Poke Trainer J]

I wonder If a follow-up to Sword & Shield similar to what FireRed / LeafGreen was on the Game Boy Advance could be in the works to make up for not including a National PokéDex since the Galar PokéDex will only consist of 500 Pokémon? It's possible but I wouldn't hold my breath on it. I still remember the backlash from Gen 3 when players weren't able to transfer their Pokémon from Red / Blue / Yellow and Gold / Silver / Crystal onto Ruby / Sapphire / Emerald as it led to FireRed / LeafGreen which sort of made up for it.

Why not capitalize on that idea with a Sinnoh remake containing the same features as Sword & Shield? That might be a win-win despite a longer waiting period. I get that everyone's still upset about not being able to transfer ALL their Pokémon onto Sword & Shield but you got to remember that by taking all 800+ Pokémon by quadrupling their polygon count you're going from the 3DS to the Nintendo Switch where it's 240p to 1080p. If you take the game sprites as they are they're going to look out of place in a 3D environment. Not only does that take up a large amount of space on the game but also a lot of man power to pull off.

That would mean that the designers and developers of Sword & Shield would've had to convert EVERY single Pokémon and redraw features and for all that we know we could be having Pokémon with new details we haven't seen before. Not to mention that they're doing this to get more Pokémon games out in a timely manner. So it backs up my theory that what we're witnessing right now is reminiscent to what happened back in Gen 3 but for different and similar reasons when on the handhelds they didn't have this problem before hand except when it came to the Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS.

 

[Wulava]

I get that everyone's still upset about not being able to transfer ALL their Pokémon onto Sword & Shield but you got to remember that by taking all 800+ Pokémon by quadrupling their polygon count you're going from the 3DS to the Nintendo Switch where it's 240p to 1080p. If you take the game sprites as they are they're going to look out of place in a 3D environment. Not only does that take up a large amount of space on the game but also a lot of man power to pull off.

That would mean that the designers and developers of Sword & Shield would've had to convert EVERY single Pokémon and redraw features and for all that we know we could be having Pokémon with new details we haven't seen before. Not to mention that they're doing this to get more Pokémon games out in a timely manner. So it backs up my theory that what we're witnessing right now is reminiscent to what happened back in Gen 3 but for different and similar reasons when on the handhelds they didn't have this problem before hand except when it came to the Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS.

I believe all Pokemon models on the 3DS are already future-proofed. Meaning, they were already modeled in high-definition so they could easily adapt them in future titles, such as SWSH. This is not a reason.

I can understand the hardware limitations that prevented transfer from the Game Boy era games into GBA. But they were able to provide means for GBA to DS, then from DS to 3DS. And recently, they gave us Pokemon HOME which allows transfer from 3DS to Switch. Now, I just don't see why Pokemon had to be cut.

Aside from being able to transfer our old favorites, the entire point of Bank/Home is to provide a way of obtaining Pokemon not found on the Regional Dex. Yet that wasn't the case.

 

[Poke Trainer J]

I believe all Pokemon models on the 3DS are already future-proofed. Meaning, they were already modeled in high-definition so they could easily adapt them in future titles, such as SWSH. This is not a reason.

I can understand the hardware limitations that prevented transfer from the Game Boy era games into GBA. But they were able to provide means for GBA to DS, then from DS to 3DS. And recently, they gave us Pokemon HOME which allows transfer from 3DS to Switch. Now, I just don't see why Pokemon had to be cut.

They obviously had a good reason for it so hopefully we'll hear a response from Nintendo / Game Freak as to why.

 

[WhiteBlair]

As much as having restricted Pokémon don't bother me, having a second team to work on the title 'Town' while all their attention could have gone to Pokémon is a bit disappointing. Yet again, players are left with doubts if the game will lack content and feel rushed, especially in the time they went that extra mile to create open-world biome.

Masuda said he'll clarify in the future media reviews, and I hope hardware limitations are not the case here. That would give opportunity for future patches, hopefully.

 

[Xuxuba]

Wow #BringBackNationalDex is actually trending on the United States.

 

[Bguy7]

Why not capitalize on that idea with a Sinnoh remake containing the same features as Sword & Shield? That might be a win-win despite a longer waiting period. I get that everyone's still upset about not being able to transfer ALL their Pokémon onto Sword & Shield but you got to remember that by taking all 800+ Pokémon by quadrupling their polygon count you're going from the 3DS to the Nintendo Switch where it's 240p to 1080p. If you take the game sprites as they are they're going to look out of place in a 3D environment. Not only does that take up a large amount of space on the game but also a lot of man power to pull off.

That would mean that the designers and developers of Sword & Shield would've had to convert EVERY single Pokémon and redraw features and for all that we know we could be having Pokémon with new details we haven't seen before. Not to mention that they're doing this to get more Pokémon games out in a timely manner. So it backs up my theory that what we're witnessing right now is reminiscent to what happened back in Gen 3 but for different and similar reasons when on the handhelds they didn't have this problem before hand except when it came to the Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS.

I just want to reiterate what Wulava said, as it is important. When Game Freak made the Gen VI models, they went out of their way to make them advanced enough that they could be used in high-definition games without any changes to the model itself, and they did this specifically to avoid the scenario you're explaining. All that is needed is an updated texture, which is relatively simple compared to the model. The exact same models were used in X and Y, Sun and Moon, Go, Let's Go, and seemingly Sword and Shield, the only differences being the textures. So them taking their time to update models is not a reason.

In a way though, I almost wish it were a technical limitation. That would be a perfectly acceptable excuse. It would be disappointing, but we could accept it. If we could just know why this happened, things would be a lot easier. I want to have faith that Game Freak had a solid reason, and aren't just doing this arbitrarily, but there's just no obvious reason.

 

[Xuxuba]

Oh my, this is actually worse than i thought.