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You can’t see the inside of shops/buildings? Seriously GameFreak?

lolipiece

Pictured: what browsing Serebii does to a person
Staff member
Moderator
And I remember Kalos having museums, castles, lots or buildings and lore
Those locations are a dime a dozen in Pokemon. If I wanted places to go to, I'd much rather they be new and interesting.
 

Orphalesion

Well-Known Member
I'm honestly not surprised. This is the first Open World Pokemon game, and a jump to open world seems intensive enough that some other stuff might fall by the wayside. I base that on the time when the Sims series went open world with Sims 3 and that led to the inside of shops and restaurants and other public buildings not being visible, so houses and many shops being non-enterable in S/V reminds me of that.

And honestly I can live without them, unlike with the Sims 3, which had your characters disappear into buildings wihtout you being able to follow them during gameplay, no gameplay in Pokemon is specifically tied to the inside of people's houses, so it's not really needed and not much is lost.
As somebody else said, the houses were just filled with people babbling inanely about their Pokemon friends. I take the huge expanses of nature we can roam around in S/V any day over that bit of fluff. And it's not like the NPCs are gone, they just hang around the outside of the towns/cities now and walk around them, making them very lively.
Of course it would be nice for houses, including larger buildings other than just the academy, to return in a future instalment. I'd honestly like those restaurants back where you battle between the courses and things like large hideouts inside derelict buildings.
 

PrinceOfFacade

Ghost-Type Master
The easiest route to ensure open world gameplay was to remove interiors, which I expected right out the gate, especially with the Pokémon Centers being turned into kiosks.
 

Sαpphire

Johto Champion
Pokémon is simply using its transition to an open world model to transcend silly concepts like “entering buildings” and “being inside.” By the tenth generation, there will be no buildings at all! When vast open world games like Elden Ring (2022), Genshin Impact (2020), Breath of the Wild (2017), The Witcher 3 (2015), Skyrim (2011), Oblivion (2006), Morrowind (2002), etc etc allowed us to actually see inside buildings, and even enter many, they were mistaken, you see. Entering an open world game’s buildings when you could be thriving in the action-packed, full-of-life 3D wilderness is, like, so 1994 (The Elder Scrolls: Arena).

If we’re being completely serious - which is kind of hard to do with this series sometimes, honestly - this is a direct result of the development constraints currently placed on Game Freak. There’s no good faith argument that the game’s world is meaningfully streamlined or improved by disallowing us from actually entering shops and homes, or making other enterable buildings. It’s not like it was a sacrifice made to make one of the best open worlds we’ve ever seen, it’s a sacrifice that was made to get the open world over the finish line in time for a fall 2022 release at all, much like Dexit is suspected to have been a sacrifice to get a working Sword and Shield out on-schedule.

I’m relatively certain that in dozens of hours of playing I’ve only entered the school, cut-and-paste gyms, and one cut-and-paste sandwich shops - that’s less variety than games like RBY and GSC. Being unable to experience homes, museums, cultural centers, unique gyms, complex ruins, towers, shopping outlets, hotels, and other buildings present in prior regions - or even new places they could feature for the first time! - does meaningfully detract from the sense of the culture of the region. Partially as a result, Paldea feels very “generic Pokémon” to me. There’s a lot less substance to what flavor is present in the cities we see; they’re hollow, pretty but empty. The games are fine without these things, sure, but they’re not as good as the could have been - things like these are details that can contribute a lot more than you might think to making a video game feel like an experience with depth and life.

It all comes down to the fact that these games are almost universally given just three years of development with other titles being developed at the same time, even sharing some staff, in a continuous conveyor belt of content to keep up with the breakneck pace of the Pokémon merchandise schedule. They’ll come out; they’ll be fine; they’ll sell. They might even be better than the first games of the last generation (these are certainly better than Sword and Shield). But the magic erodes just a little every time something is sacrificed.
 

dementeddurian

Love Ball Lover
All this talk reminds me of the time I wandered into a neighbor's house without thinking and I spooked the poor lady in the kitchen.

I apologized throughly, and she understood I wasn't going to hurt her.

Anyways, I think the old trope about RPGs when it comes to people's homes depends on the game.

If it's lighthearted, people will welcome you in.

If it's serious, people will call the authorities.

If it's sarcastic, people will call you out for waltzing in their homes like it's a video game and more fourth wall-breaking jokes.

Pokemon is usually the first one of these. I don't remember any people yelling at you for barging into their home in any Pokemon game.
 

vondecayle

Well-Known Member
Looool yeah we want to enter buildings in pokemon to assault people a lo grand theft auto. People are so hilarious and creative. Even if we can’t enter houses, it would be nice to enter shops, malls, restaurants, museums and so on.
 

KyogreThunder

Call of Fate
All this talk reminds me of the time I wandered into a neighbor's house without thinking and I spooked the poor lady in the kitchen.

I apologized throughly, and she understood I wasn't going to hurt her.

Anyways, I think the old trope about RPGs when it comes to people's homes depends on the game.

If it's lighthearted, people will welcome you in.

If it's serious, people will call the authorities.

If it's sarcastic, people will call you out for waltzing in their homes like it's a video game and more fourth wall-breaking jokes.

Pokemon is usually the first one of these. I don't remember any people yelling at you for barging into their home in any Pokemon game.
Actually, in the Generation I games and their remakes, there is a reclusive female NPC living near Route 16 who isn't happy to see you, but gives you the Fly HM for keeping it secret. Also, in Generation II games and their remakes, there is an Idol living at Route 28 who also wishes to be left alone, and gives you the Steel Wing TM for not telling her fans about her secret hideout.
 

dementeddurian

Love Ball Lover
Actually, in the Generation I games and their remakes, there is a reclusive female NPC living near Route 16 who isn't happy to see you, but gives you the Fly HM for keeping it secret. Also, in Generation II games and their remakes, there is an Idol living at Route 28 who also wishes to be left alone, and gives you the Steel Wing TM for not telling her fans about her secret hideout.

I just remembered something on the S.S. Anne in Red/Blue where a Gentlemen becomes upset you barged into his room, challenges you to a battle and orders you to get out when he loses.

That was more of what I was getting at. The other two you mention were flustered but didn't yell if I remember correctly.
 

Victreebong

Gives 'em the slip..
I’ll play devil’s advocate for a second. They’ve done this a lot since BW, but even those of us with RBY remember buildings littered around Kanto with no doors. So it’s nothing new at all. Buuut, there’s other open world games with fully explorable interiors, BOTW is the most obvious answer. I don’t think GF has the biggest team to handle everything on the scope that they require to appease everyone. 1000 Pokémon with fully animated models is the biggest point, but there’s also 898+ normal moves, types, NPCs, items, animations, shading, the list goes on.

The Switch carts are hampering the required data space while the dating of the Switch itself is holding back the series’ performance. THAT we do know.
 

Marbi Z

Cin-Der-Race!
I’m shocked. You go to enter the clothing shop for example, a menu pops up and you can’t even explore or see your character interact with the shopkeeper.

How incredibly lazy this was and the excuse of it being open world isn’t cutting it for me. If open world means cutting back from exploring the inside of buildings, then doesn’t it defeat the whole purpose?

Am I overreacting? What are your thoughts? I’m pissed
While I am a little annoyed that you can’t explore most of the shops it’s also nice that the shopping experience has been streamlined. If you have a little imagination you can still immerse yourself dining out with your Pokémon. Somthing I really love doing. Though I really wish you could actually purchase from Kofu’s restaurants and the Bug Gym Leaders Bakery. Perhaps we’ll get better immersion with the shops in future DLC.
 

Spider-Phoenix

#ChespinGang
After playing more, my minor niptick is that some stores do look like the PC can enter but... Can't. Seems strange. Either limit stores for the ones that can be used or at least give them a purpose.

But as I've said, before, it's not really a dealbreaker
"Get out."
Gaia-meme.png
 

Ryker101

Well-Known Member
I find it irritating also. I get that having a bigger open world means you need to cut down other places. But really? Entering houses was such a basic thing. I’m getting annoyed at how rushed these games are getting now. I’m sure the devs are overworked and it’s a shame how pokemon’s become more quantity > quality. Like I’m sure most other AAA titles would’ve delayed it to include both features, at least nintendo’s ones
 

Copley Hill Gym

Well-Known Member
I thought I’d be more annoyed about not going into most houses etc but frankly it’s not a deal breaker, what I was wanting was proper caves and areas to explore in the wider game and frankly scarlet/violet did a great job of this.
 

EmeraldArcanine

#TeamScorbunny
I blame it on the fact it's the first fully open-world installment, and they're still learning how to handle such programming first.
There's also the fact that Gamefreak had to rush the last year of the game on the holiday deadline too. So a lot of stuff has been left out and unoptimized. So Devil's Advocate, I don't think they're lazy in this.
 

Ophie

Salingerian Phony
I also would've liked to have more places to enter. In addition to the cultural centers like museums, hotels, transportation hubs, industrial centers, and so forth (which Galar did have), most conspicuous is the lack of a department store, though to be fair, they seem to have slowly phased that out. The last location to be called a department store was in Unova, though the last place to function like one was in Alola.

The lack of hotels/apartment buildings you can enter also means Game Freak does not make an appearance in this game, making Generation IX the first time Game Freak isn't present in a game from the generation's start. (They may appear in the DLC though.)

It all makes Paldea feel like one giant recreational area rather than a region, even if it's very large. (It doesn't help that the northern third of Paldea has only one town--it feels like the northeastern sector really needed one. Maybe we'll get DLC based on Andorra later on though.)

While I am a little annoyed that you can’t explore most of the shops it’s also nice that the shopping experience has been streamlined. If you have a little imagination you can still immerse yourself dining out with your Pokémon. Somthing I really love doing. Though I really wish you could actually purchase from Kofu’s restaurants and the Bug Gym Leaders Bakery. Perhaps we’ll get better immersion with the shops in future DLC.
While you can't buy from Soapberry (which was a missed opportunity if you ask me), you CAN buy from Kofu Lounge. The meals there are the equivalent to the Master-level sandwiches in effect, and your character will make the "most delicious" gesture after eating his food.

A bit of a nitpick though.
 

Palamon

Silence is Purple
I'm a little disappointed we don't get to see what the inside of shops look like, but...eh. It's not really that big of a deal to me, honestly. I thought it was really lame at first, but it doesn't bother me. Most shops in the game are just eateries anyway.
 

Xuxuba

Well-Known Member
It does bother me. Makes the region feel a lot more shallow. Sure, there are a lot more mountains, but they just feel like stretched out empty zones. I want to know more about the lives' of the people from those towns, i want to interact with them, trade with them, see the different types of building and their interior designs, get more information about other characters from them, further explore the lore without having to always visit the same school-setting with their boring tutorials.

And that is just the basic, many games take it even further, allowing you to get sidequests from those buildings; play minigames like the PokéAthlon and Voltorb Cards from HGSS (the Cassino too but that is no longer possible), decorate your own space like the Secret Bases, take part time jobs for money like the Hotel from XY; use unique features like the Contest halls, PokéStar Studios, the Trainer PR videos and Photo studios, battle facilities and etc...

That said, i don't think that specific lack of interiors is the result of laziness of the devs, but rather the greed from the higher-ups who want GF to vomit as many games as possible, even if they do not hold up to the expectations of what already is the most lucrative franchise in the world.
I am sure they would want to implement them if they had the time to do it.
Those locations are a dime a dozen in Pokemon. If I wanted places to go to, I'd much rather they be new and interesting.
These are just archetypes of buildings. You can have two entirely different castles, museums or any other type of building you usually visit.
 
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Ophie

Salingerian Phony
It does bother me. Makes the region feel a lot more shallow. Sure, there are a lot more mountains, but they just feel like stretched out empty zones. I want to know more about the lives' of the people from those towns, i want to interact with them, trade with them, see the different types of building and their interior designs, get more information about other characters from them, further explore the lore without having to always visit the same school-setting with their boring tutorials.

And that is just the basic, many games take it even further, allowing you to get sidequests from those buildings; play minigames like the PokéAthlon and Voltorb Cards from HGSS (the Cassino too but that is no longer possible), decorate your own space like the Secret Bases, take part time jobs for money like the Hotel from XY; use unique features like the Contest halls, PokéStar Studios, the Trainer PR videos and Photo studios, battle facilities and etc...

That said, i don't think that specific lack of interiors is the result of laziness of the devs, but rather the greed from the higher-ups who want GF to vomit as many games as possible, even if they do not hold up to the expectations of what already is the most lucrative franchise in the world.
I am sure they would want to implement them if they had the time to do it.
One of the buildings in Alfornada REALLY looked like it was going to have some kind of pottery-baking minigame, but it didn't...
 
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