Social Social Thread - Please Read Last Post

[BlondeLombax]

I think that they implied the Hero would be in a special episode. Since season 1 of their weekly show just ended and we don’t know when season 2 starts, this special episode could drop whenever.

Someone correct me in case I’m being a horrible liar.

Ah, so I misinterpreted things.

Again.

With no end in sight.

Thanks anyway, man.

Also, to those of you going to the Pokemon World Championships this year, stay safe, I'm scared that hostilities might arise due to the continuing drama surrounding the NatDex controversy.

 

[NonSpecificGuy]

The point of contention with Pokemon can all be boiled down to the fact that the Pokemon game franchise has become to large for Game Freak. The problem of course lies in the fact that, unlike Smash and Sakurai who decided to bring in Bandai-Namco for outside assistance or even Intelligent Systems bringing in Koei-Tecmo for assistance on Fire Emblem, The Pokemon Company and Game Freak has decided rather than getting assistance from a studio with more experience in the development of HD games that they would develop it in house. Even if it meant that graphical prowess, animation quality, and gameplay mechanics ended up being subpar.

It's bull ****. It was done to cut costs and they know they can get away with it because Pokemon sells no matter what. People had a problem with me having a problem with the game, it's graphical capabilities and it's overall design, when it was first shown off. I'm not trying to be an "I told you so" ass hole but I do want to say - if someone has criticisms about a game it doesn't mean they hate it. It just means they care about it enough to acknowledge those flaws.

Edit: tl;dr at some point in development, probably early on, they realized that their product wasn't going to be optimal but instead of tossing in more money for assistance to improve the game they continued with their very basic understanding of HD development and we've ended up seeing a product that is, well, not optimal.

 

[Guynamednelson]

Spoiler: Pokemon talk

Also that Chinese bootleg with the VASTLY SUPERIOR ANIMATIONS?

They stole those animations from Pokken, they didn’t animate ****.

Spoiler

It's also a dataminer.

 

[Idon]

Spoiler: Pokemon talk

Also that Chinese bootleg with the VASTLY SUPERIOR ANIMATIONS?

They stole those animations from Pokken, they didn’t animate ****.

I play(ed) Pokken competitively and
firstly, while plenty are direct riffs, they still had to be animated by themselves. They couldn't just use Pokken's riggings.
Secondly, not all of them were taken by Pokken, namely ones that were never in Pokken
Thirdly, if Pokemon used animations from Pokken, you'd see no complaints. Pokken animation is fantastic and if mainline had animations even close to on par, I'd be impressed.

 

[Zinith]

Something seems off...

 

[Noipoi]

Thirdly, if Pokemon used animations from Pokken, you'd see no complaints.

Pokken tier animations for 30+ different moves for over 1000 models for every single creature in the game

That’s a lot

 

[NonSpecificGuy]

That's NOT HOW THAT WORKS.

First of all, Heihachi will, mark my words, get another VA like he has for the past 2 VA deaths.

Second of all, Yoshimitsu is purely a Tekken character. Just because he appears occassionally in Soul Calibur does not make him a duo rep. Cody doesn't represent street fighter, Hayabusa doesn't represent dead or alive.

Bruh, Yoshimitsu has appeared in every Tekken AND Soul Calibur. If there ever was a duo rep it be him or, like you said, Hayabusa since he's appeared in every Dead or Alive. Don't understand the point of arguing semantics like this when the fact still stands they're major characters in both franchises that they're represented in. That's like saying that Donkey Kong has to represent SPECIFICALLY Donkey Kong, the original arcade game, and not DKC or any of his crossovers with the Mario crew. Like, what's even the point of making that statement?

 

[StormC]

Anyone here play Yoku's Island Watch? It's on sale on the eShop.

 

[Noipoi]

Anyone here play Yoku's Island Watch? It's on sale on the eShop.

Sounds like a fusion between Yoshi’s Island and Yokai Watch

 

[EricTheGamerman]

Spoiler: #National Dex talk

To be fair here, they actually do care about balance to an extent and have tried to tweak things here and there. For Gen 6 and 7 they buffed a few Pokémon's stats like Scolipede and Krookodile while also giving the former a much better HA. Conversely, they nerfed a few abilities such as Mega Kangaskan's Parental Bond, all of the -ate abilities (they only give a 20% boost) and perhaps more infamously, Gales Wings. The weather abilities were also majorly nerfed, which any single format player appreciated after what happened with the weather wars.

The issue comes down to three things: 1) They really only balance for Doubles, so if you play any other format you're kind of out of luck 2) Even with the buffs and nerfs in mind, only very few have moved the meter much in the competitive format. So while you do get cases like Talonflame going down while Scolipede rose up, you often still get Pokémon that stay within their tier with little movement. Finally, 3) they introduce a large number of new variables to balance for such as Z-Moves and new Pokémon that the metagame becomes imbalanced again in a different way. So it's not a case of not caring, it's a case of trying to juggle too many things while only focusing on a specific format that not everyone plays.



It's been stated before, but it's not an easy copy/paste job as many would try to tell you. Strong Bad made two posts on the matter before, but to get to the gist of it: You can never future-proof models and there will always be a large amount of work that goes into bringing those models forward into the next game on a new system.

Now whether GF is conveying this problem properly in their PR or how it's being reflected in the trailers and gameplay, that's another issue and I have my complaints on the former in particular, but the workload issue is probably something that is legitimate based on what's been said by those familiar with game development.

Spoiler: More Pokemon Talk

Wait, Game Freak balances around doubles... That's the actual dumbest thing I've heard even if it is typical Nintendo bull**** to do something like that. But beyond that, I don't know why Game Freak needs to be concerned about balance all that much when Player vs Player battles is such a relatively minor aspect of Pokemon. They are primarily single player driven experiences with social aspects as an option, but the battles aren't even necessarily the big draw of the player interactions when trading tends to take priority. Like, yes, PvP gets used by a number of people, but I'd call it an auxiliary experience to the primary story mode. The main balance should primarily revolve around making sure nothing is stupidly broken. Pokemon's other mechanics allow for the PvP to function generally as intended already (Type Advantages, Pure Stats, Abilities, Berries (are those even going to be in this game?), and so on). Since the bulk of the game revolves around PvE, I don't see why an extra focus on the niche competitive PvP side of things warrants the kind of attention Game Freak seems to be paying the games.

Again, I'm with Noipoi in saying that I'm willing to believe that Game Freak hit snags with bringing the 3DS models to the Switch, but I was more expressing concern regarding their ability to bring the Pokemon from XY to Sun/Moon. Like that was all 3DS and the models were generally kept the exact same between those games. I'm forgiving on a 3DS to Switch transition because that's completely different hardware with basically two generations worth of additional power to harness for your games that have always functioned exclusively on underpowered dedicated handhelds. But why would the XY to Sun/Moon transition be such a hassle? I'm not insinuating that such a transition doesn't require work, it absolutely does, but it also shouldn't be the burden that Masuda is implying it to be in this Famitsu interview either. Unless, they're genuinely making models from scratch, and if that's the case... Game Freak needs to hire much better people on the technical side and figure out appropriate shortcuts vs inappropriate ones and also use the opportunities of creating stuff from scratch to properly rework things. Again, they've said they were future proofing in the past by making models that could scale. Regardless of the reality of that situation, Game Freak officially stated as much, so, much like far too much in this cycle, they've created all their own problems with people not taking them seriously. They need to have leagues better transparency on what's going on, and if they're not going to do that, then just keep their damn mouths shut so this controversy can stop coming up every two weeks when Masuda finds the need to justify himself yet again to the fanbase.

The point of contention with Pokemon can all be boiled down to the fact that the Pokemon game franchise has become to large for Game Freak. The problem of course lies in the fact that, unlike Smash and Sakurai who decided to bring in Bandai-Namco for outside assistance or even Intelligent Systems bringing in Koei-Tecmo for assistance on Fire Emblem, The Pokemon Company and Game Freak has decided rather than getting assistance from a studio with more experience in the development of HD games that they would develop it in house. Even if it meant that graphical prowess, animation quality, and gameplay mechanics ended up being subpar.

It's bull ****. It was done to cut costs and they know they can get away with it because Pokemon sells no matter what. People had a problem with me having a problem with the game, it's graphical capabilities and it's overall design, when it was first shown off. I'm not trying to be an "I told you so" *** hole but I do want to say - if someone has criticisms about a game it doesn't mean they hate it. It just means they care about it enough to acknowledge those flaws.

Edit: tl;dr at some point in development, probably early on, they realized that their product wasn't going to be optimal but instead of tossing in more money for assistance to improve the game they continued with their very basic understanding of HD development and we've ended up seeing a product that is, well, not optimal.

Spoiler: Pokemon Talk Part 2

This post honestly highlights every main criticism I have about the games. This was always going to be a painful transition and they've had to have known that it was coming for some time when they'd have to move on from the 3DS. I think it's possible they intended to keep supporting the 3DS further... but I also think Game Freak has been a bit too stuck up about sticking to portables over the years for their own good anyway, and once they were tasked with making something on Switch, all the stops should have been pulled out. The transition to HD has been super difficult for Nintendo in every aspect over the past few years like you've highlighted, and most of the other studios have adapted to the demands of such development. Breath of the Wild spent years in development and they got help from Monolith Soft as well. Fire Emblem got Koei Tecmo, Smash got Bandai-Namco, and Nintendo went out of their comfort zone to secure projects like Mario X Rabbids, Hyrule Warriors, Bayonetta, and Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 from other developers. But Game Freak looked at all the trouble the past 7 years of HD development trouble Nintendo has had, and still just forged on ahead with their standard development team... They didn't hire new employees, they don't seem to have taken any extra time given the size of this transition, and they didn't contact a secondary studio to aid them. And worst of all, they decided that they were going to be working on three projects simultaneously for Switch with their already limited resources in Town and the Let's Go games.

I'm not angry at the developers at Game Freak, I know video game development is a massive problem honestly and as a developer you don't have much of a voice. But I'm livid at the management over there and the entirely monetarily driven approach to Sword/Shield. They refused to shell out additional money for more development staff, refused to let the cash cow have a moment to breathe and just take some extra time to make Pokemon's big debut mean something, and worst of all, they know exactly how much they can nickel and dime the fan base with future titles by making a big deal out of Pokemon returning and forcing players who have a living Pokedex to pay for the new Pokemon Home.

 

[Idon]

Pokken tier animations for 30+ different moves for over 1000 models for every single creature in the game

That’s a lot

Yeah, it is a lot, which is why I don't expect it.
I'd like It, but don't expect it.

However, if they want to argue less pokemon = better animation, then getting shown up by someone using the same models and animating using them better isn't a good look.

Bruh, Yoshimitsu has appeared in every Tekken AND Soul Calibur. If there ever was a duo rep it be him or, like you said, Hayabusa since he's appeared in every Dead or Alive. Don't understand the point of arguing semantics like this when the fact still stands they're major characters in both franchises that they're represented in. That's like saying that Donkey Kong has to represent SPECIFICALLY Donkey Kong, the original arcade game, and not DKC or any of his crossovers with the Mario crew. Like, what's even the point of making that statement?

The point is there's no such thing as a duo rep, especially for 2 series as big as Tekken and Soul Calibur. Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Country still feature A Donkey Kong and uses a DK logo. Compare that to someone like Terry Bogard from SNK who while has been a mainstay in KoF for basically ever stil represents Fatal Fury, to the point his hat has it emblazoned on it. Terry isn't going to duo rep both KoF AND FF, his logo is purely going to be FF. Now look at Yoshimitsu who is batting with both Heihachi/Jin/Kazuya AND Nightmare for representing those 2 series while being not important to either.

 

[Shadowwolflink]

That's NOT HOW THAT WORKS.

First of all, Heihachi will, mark my words, get another VA like he has for the past 2 VA deaths.

Second of all, Yoshimitsu is purely a Tekken character. Just because he appears occassionally in Soul Calibur does not make him a duo rep. Cody doesn't represent street fighter, Hayabusa doesn't represent dead or alive.

Yoshimitsu doesn't just appear "occasionally" in Soul Calibur, he's playable in every single numbered iteration. The only exceptions being Soul Edge and Soul Calibur Legends. He literally is a representative of both franchises, the fact that he first appeared in Tekken doesn't change the fact that he's also a Soul character.

 

[Noipoi]

I just hope that one day Gamefreak is allowed to take their time with a Pokémon game instead of rushing it out so the anime can have a new season and you can make new toys.

Most of these issues might be resolved if they were just given time. Time to develop the animations more, time to hire more people, time to ask other studios for help, just more time.

 

[Michael the Spikester]

You know sad to say it but as good as Crawl really is were probably going to inevitably get low-budget SyFy original sequels to this film the same way Anaconda and Lake Placid had.

Although...I wouldn't oppose to the idea of a Crawl and Sharknado crossover.

 

[Aurane]

Something seems off...

Yeah that seems about right.

 

[Zinith]

You know sad to say it but as good as Crawl really is were probably going to inevitably get low-budget SyFy original sequels to this film the same way Anaconda and Lake Placid had.

Although...I wouldn't oppose to the idea of a Crawl and Sharknado crossover.

Well Anaconda had a theatrical sequel

 

[ZephyrZ]

The point of contention with Pokemon can all be boiled down to the fact that the Pokemon game franchise has become to large for Game Freak. The problem of course lies in the fact that, unlike Smash and Sakurai who decided to bring in Bandai-Namco for outside assistance or even Intelligent Systems bringing in Koei-Tecmo for assistance on Fire Emblem, The Pokemon Company and Game Freak has decided rather than getting assistance from a studio with more experience in the development of HD games that they would develop it in house. Even if it meant that graphical prowess, animation quality, and gameplay mechanics ended up being subpar.

It's bull ****. It was done to cut costs and they know they can get away with it because Pokemon sells no matter what. People had a problem with me having a problem with the game, it's graphical capabilities and it's overall design, when it was first shown off. I'm not trying to be an "I told you so" *** hole but I do want to say - if someone has criticisms about a game it doesn't mean they hate it. It just means they care about it enough to acknowledge those flaws.

Edit: tl;dr at some point in development, probably early on, they realized that their product wasn't going to be optimal but instead of tossing in more money for assistance to improve the game they continued with their very basic understanding of HD development and we've ended up seeing a product that is, well, not optimal.

This is all just speculation. Maybe they knew from the start they couldn't pull off bringing all 700+ pokemon back. Maybe they just overestimated themselves and realized it far too late into development to go back.

None of us work at Gamefreak and very few of us have game development experience. This is all just speculation and we need to state it as that - all we know is what's been said through their admittedly bad PR.

 

[Michael the Spikester]

Well Anaconda had a theatrical sequel

Ah yes your right. The Blood Orchid. Otherwise the rest were SyFy.

 

[Shadowwolflink]

This is all just speculation. Maybe they knew from the start they couldn't pull off bringing all 700+ pokemon back. Maybe they just overestimated themselves and realized it far too late into development to go back.

None of us work at Gamefreak and very few of us have game development experience. This is all just speculation and we need to state it as that - all we know is what's been said through their admittedly bad PR.

Isn't it common knowledge though that GameFreak has never really been known as a particularly competent developer? Like if you go back to Gold and Silver, just about everyone knows the story of GameFreak being unable to fit the game onto the cartridge, so they had to bring in Satoru Iwata, who not only was able to get it to fit, but also had enough time and space to fit the entire Kanto region onto the cartridge. One man compared to their whole development team at the time. And if you go back even further to Red/Green/Blue, for as fun and groundbreaking as they are, those games at their core are a glitchy mess.

 

[EricTheGamerman]

This is all just speculation. Maybe they knew from the start they couldn't pull off bringing all 700+ pokemon back. Maybe they just overestimated themselves and realized it far too late into development to go back.

None of us work at Gamefreak and very few of us have game development experience. This is all just speculation and we need to state it as that - all we know is what's been said through their admittedly bad PR.

There's a bit more to this still though. We know for a fact that they were taking on three major projects at once with Let's Go, Sword/Shield, and Town. We know that Game Freak is only a studio of around 140 people. We also know that Pokemon has had three years between new generations since Pokemon White in 2010. Those are all facts that we can look at and start to analyze in detail as to what this means for this game.

If they overestimated their own abilities... OK? Again, this is an issue where you have to be cognizant of your abilities and shortcomings when you're going to take on all of this stuff. If you decide to develop a spin-off title and a brand new IP without expanding your studio on a brand new console that is more or less two generations ahead of anything you've worked with, there's no real excuse for looking at something like Sword/Shield and deciding that you can just proceed as normal with development and not make other preparations. There is clearly a string of decision making several years ago that has led to the frustrating events of today.

 

[ZephyrZ]

Isn't it common knowledge though that GameFreak has never really been known as a particularly competent developer? Like if you go back to Gold and Silver, just about everyone knows the story of GameFreak being unable to fit the game onto the cartridge, so they had to bring in Satoru Iwata, who not only was able to get it to fit, but also had enough time and space to fit the entire Kanto region onto the cartridge. One man compared to their whole development team at the time. And if you go back even further to Red/Gree/Blue, for as fun and groundbreaking as they are, those games at their core are a glitchy mess.

Yet modern Pokemon games have very few glitches, and you're remarkably unlikely to find one in any random play through. Huh. I wonder why.

Maybe we're all just pushing narratives and pretending we know everything because we're angry at a bad decision they made? And when we're angry about something we assume it's people are inclined to believe it's due to moral failing?

 

[Knight Dude]

Yeah, it is a lot, which is why I don't expect it.
I'd like It, but don't expect it.

However, if they want to argue less pokemon = better animation, then getting shown up by someone using the same models and animating using them better isn't a good look.



The point is there's no such thing as a duo rep, especially for 2 series as big as Tekken and Soul Calibur. Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Country still feature A Donkey Kong and uses a DK logo. Compare that to someone like Terry Bogard from SNK who while has been a mainstay in KoF for basically ever stil represents Fatal Fury, to the point his hat has it emblazoned on it. Terry isn't going to duo rep both KoF AND FF, his logo is purely going to be FF. Now look at Yoshimitsu who is batting with both Heihachi/Jin/Kazuya AND Nightmare for representing those 2 series while being not important to either.

Not that Yoshimitsu would be added over a Mishima or Nightmare/Seig, but if they did, couldn't the whole splitting hairs on which series Yoshimitsu represents be solved with his costumes? Like half are Tekken costumes and half are Soul Calibur costumes? Yoshimitsu is known for a wide variety of suits as it is, it's one of his gimmicks.

He's been in every Tekken game and every SC game barring Soul Edge.

 

[ZephyrZ]

There's a bit more to this still though. We know for a fact that they were taking on three major projects at once with Let's Go, Sword/Shield, and Town. We know that Game Freak is only a studio of around 140 people. We also know that Pokemon has had three years between new generations since Pokemon White in 2010. Those are all facts that we can look at and start to analyze in detail as to what this means for this game.

If they overestimated their own abilities... OK? Again, this is an issue where you have to be cognizant of your abilities and shortcomings when you're going to take on all of this stuff. If you decide to develop a spin-off title and a brand new IP without expanding your studio on a brand new console that is more or less two generations ahead of anything you've worked with, there's no real excuse for looking at something like Sword/Shield and deciding that you can just proceed as normal with development and not make other preparations. There is clearly a string of decision making several years ago that has led to the frustrating events of today.

Funny how just as you said this I ran into this little tidbit of information.

-GAME FREAK has not split their staff in half for Town.
-Despite having 143 full time employees work at Game Freak, there are more who work on the games including freelancers and those at other companies like Creatures Inc who aid in development. For example SM had over 500

— Joe Merrick (@JoeMerrick) July 13, 2019

Huh you know now that I think of it, I do distinctly remember there being far more then 140 names when the staff credits rolled at the end of Sun and Moon.



I can't believe the pokemon fandom actually believes there's only around 70 working on Sword and Shield right now.

 

[Shadowwolflink]

Yet modern Pokemon games have very few glitches, and you're remarkably unlikely to find one in any random play through. Huh. I wonder why.

Maybe we're all just pushing narratives and pretending we know everything because we're angry at a bad decision they made? And when we're angry about something we assume it's people are inclined to believe it's due to moral failing?

Sure, they're less glitchy because the QA process has become more in-depth over the years, but they obviously still struggle with some parts of development that other developers don't. The graphics of Sword and Shield get brought up a lot, maybe too much, but the Switch truly is capable of so much better than what those games look like.

 

[NonSpecificGuy]

This is all just speculation. Maybe they knew from the start they couldn't pull off bringing all 700+ pokemon back. Maybe they just overestimated themselves and realized it far too late into development to go back.

None of us work at Gamefreak and very few of us have game development experience. This is all just speculation and we need to state it as that - all we know is what's been said through their admittedly bad PR.

I mean, yeah, it is speculation. I'm trying to give Game Freak the benefit of the doubt that, yeah, they made mistakes. It's certainly also possible that Game Freak is "lazy" or "greedy" as some are pointing out around the web but I'd like to think that they and The Pokemon Company aren't so anti consumer to just say "**** it they'll buy it no matter what. It's Pokemon" but that's just me.

 

[MSmariosonic]

Yoshimitsu won't come with two stages and two icons I'm sure.

He'll either represent Tekken more or Soul Calibur more. With maybe a costume referencing the other franchise.


If you ask me adding, Yoshimitsu would be akin to only adding Donkey Kong in a crossover and being satisfied with him representing both the Mario and Donkey Kong franchises.

 

[Noipoi]

Yoshimitsu won't come with two stages and two icons I'm sure.

He'll either represent Tekken more or Soul Calibur more. With maybe a costume referencing the other franchise.


If you ask me adding, Yoshimitsu would be akin to only adding Donkey Kong in a crossover and being satisfied with him representing both the Mario and Donkey Kong franchises.

Donkey Kong represents the Metroid series

Come on man, this is common knowledge

 

[ZephyrZ]

Donkey Kong represents the Metroid series

Come on man, this is common knowledge

...Yep, it checks out.

 

[Knight Dude]

Yoshimitsu won't come with two stages and two icons I'm sure.

He'll either represent Tekken more or Soul Calibur more. With maybe a costume referencing the other franchise.


If you ask me adding, Yoshimitsu would be akin to only adding Donkey Kong in a crossover and being satisfied with him representing both the Mario and Donkey Kong franchises.

Oh for sure, he won't have a stage for both. Or two icons, but splitting the costumes in half, and giving him moves from both series wouldn't be too weird.

Donkey Kong represents the Metroid series

Come on man, this is common knowledge

He's the main protagonist of the Fire Emblem series you fool.

 

[Gentlepanda]

He's the main protagonist of the Fire Emblem series you fool.

it's him

the anime swordfighter

 

[Metal Shop X]

it's him

View attachment 231221

the anime swordfighter

Since RD Ike is considered a gorilla in Japan, does that mean is the sixth member of the DK crew, huh?

 

[Noipoi]

it's him

View attachment 231221

the anime swordfighter

His banana sword can stab in spurts.

If he hits ya, you’ll bleed to death.

 

[Shadowwolflink]

His banana sword can stab in spurts.

If he hits ya, you’ll bleed to death.

This just stabbed me directly in the funny bone.

 

[EricTheGamerman]

Funny how just as you said this I ran into this little tidbit of information.
Huh you know now that I think of it, I do distinctly remember there being far more then 140 names when the staff credits rolled at the end of Sun and Moon.



I can't believe the pokemon fandom actually believes there's only around 70 working on Sword and Shield right now.

Spoiler: Pokémon Stuff

You’re strawmanning a bit there. I never said there were only 70 people working on Pokémon or that half of the 140 were working on Town or anything of the sort. I said that Game Freak took on three major projects at the same time despite not really having the history to back that up during the most important transition of the Pokemon franchise.

Free lance workers aren’t going to be able to match the output of full time employees either, that’s just not how it works and generally speaking we see that part time/non full positions are less motivated to perform well in all aspects of labor than those with more secure positions and are also given next to no voice in the developmental processes. You’re right, we don’t know the specifics of Game Freak in that regard, but if they’re making use of a large part time/freelancers, that’s arguably a big ****ing issue that also needs to be addressed. It’s done entirely too often in the gaming industry to cut costs of development at the cost of those workers. Again, we don’t know the specifics, but there’s a high likelihood of that being a very real and painful issue.

As for Creatures Inc. I know they’ve used them for some time in different capacities and I’ll admit I know less about them overall as an entity. As of a couple years ago they had around 110 employees, so they’ve had that number since around Sun/Moon at least. The issue comes in if they didn’t have anyone hired either, which as far as I know, they haven’t had some major hiring spree either. It seems like nothing major happened to prepare for Sword/Shield based on what we know. Unless it was primarily free lance contracting, in which case I have bigger problems to address. I can’t stress enough how it fell to those in charge to be ready for this transition. There’s a large amount of evidence that Game Freak did nothing special with this particular development cycle and have been working on lots of things at once, with very little evidence suggesting other possibilities.

I know we don’t know the full scope of things or all the details, but I’m going to call this situation as I see it (And again, I don’t hate the games, I rather like them in their own right and am more than willing to judge them for what they are instead of what they aren’t at this point... but I’m also going to analyze the process behind this all too).

 

[StormC]

I'm just in the wait-and-see stage with Sword And Shield. It'll be the first new Pokemon gen I don't day 1. I'll wait on impressions from other people before diving in. If the postgame is a decent size and the game is less barebones than the 3DS ones then I'll probably pick it up. Otherwise... I might wait and buy it used or something.

 

[Arcanir]

Spoiler: #Where's my National Dex!?

Wait, Game Freak balances around doubles... That's the actual dumbest thing I've heard even if it is typical Nintendo bull**** to do something like that. But beyond that, I don't know why Game Freak needs to be concerned about balance all that much when Player vs Player battles is such a relatively minor aspect of Pokemon. They are primarily single player driven experiences with social aspects as an option, but the battles aren't even necessarily the big draw of the player interactions when trading tends to take priority. Like, yes, PvP gets used by a number of people, but I'd call it an auxiliary experience to the primary story mode. The main balance should primarily revolve around making sure nothing is stupidly broken. Pokemon's other mechanics allow for the PvP to function generally as intended already (Type Advantages, Pure Stats, Abilities, Berries (are those even going to be in this game?), and so on). Since the bulk of the game revolves around PvE, I don't see why an extra focus on the niche competitive PvP side of things warrants the kind of attention Game Freak seems to be paying the games.

I mean, niche or not, the Pokémon World Tournament is a thing and it's major enough that they actually hold a championship event for it at the end of each August where the best players come in and battle each other for the top title. Said Championship is also where they advertise and promote new games like announcing Pokken for the Wii U and Crabrawler for SM, so it also has some merit in publicity for them. It may not be as big as their casual audience, but I don't think it's so minor that GF/TCPi wouldn't care at all about it.

Regardless, my point wasn't to say that it's bigger then the story mode, but that it's not something that GF is apathetic to. They have made changes that only competitive players would appreciate, so it's not something so negligible that it should be written off.

Again, I'm with Noipoi Noipoi in saying that I'm willing to believe that Game Freak hit snags with bringing the 3DS models to the Switch, but I was more expressing concern regarding their ability to bring the Pokemon from XY to Sun/Moon. Like that was all 3DS and the models were generally kept the exact same between those games. I'm forgiving on a 3DS to Switch transition because that's completely different hardware with basically two generations worth of additional power to harness for your games that have always functioned exclusively on underpowered dedicated handhelds. But why would the XY to Sun/Moon transition be such a hassle? I'm not insinuating that such a transition doesn't require work, it absolutely does, but it also shouldn't be the burden that Masuda is implying it to be in this Famitsu interview either. Unless, they're genuinely making models from scratch, and if that's the case... Game Freak needs to hire much better people on the technical side and figure out appropriate shortcuts vs inappropriate ones and also use the opportunities of creating stuff from scratch to properly rework things. Again, they've said they were future proofing in the past by making models that could scale. Regardless of the reality of that situation, Game Freak officially stated as much, so, much like far too much in this cycle, they've created all their own problems with people not taking them seriously. They need to have leagues better transparency on what's going on, and if they're not going to do that, then just keep their damn mouths shut so this controversy can stop coming up every two weeks when Masuda finds the need to justify himself yet again to the fanbase.

It's possible that the differences and updates between games were enough that it still caused a problem, but I'll admit this is an area where I'd give the subject to someone with more experience on the matter. I'm not too certain how far the updates went with SM in regards to that, so I don't want to say anything on something I'm not too familiar with.

As for the PR, I agree this is an area GF has been very poor with. I don't think they need to keep their mouths shut, but I do think they should explain things more thoroughly so that fans can understand where they're coming from. MP4's delay announcement was a good example of that as Nintendo said they were dissatisfied with the project, why the project got rebooted, and thus why it got delayed, and due to that very few people got upset over it. Doing something similar would help, and while they may still get backlash as people are of course going to be mad at any cuts, being able to understand the walls that they hit and what they had to do to overcome them would give some background to the decision and go a long way in getting fans to better adjust to the situation.

 

[Will]

imagine buying sword and shield instead of waiting for the inevitable third game / sequel titles in the same generation / sequel that retcons the previous games and this one is totally the real deal story with exclusive new pokemon give us extra money please / previous gen remake that just rehashes the current gen gimmicks with slight tweaks and improvements

man i shouldnt be up this late

 

[Noipoi]

imagine buying sword and shield instead of waiting for the inevitable third game / sequel titles in the same generation / sequel that retcons the previous games and this one is totally the real deal story with exclusive new pokemon give us extra money please / previous gen remake that just rehashes the current gen gimmicks with slight tweaks and improvements

man i shouldnt be up this late

But I want a Sobble

 

[Opossum]

Yet modern Pokemon games have very few glitches, and you're remarkably unlikely to find one in any random play through. Huh. I wonder why.

Maybe we're all just pushing narratives and pretending we know everything because we're angry at a bad decision they made? And when we're angry about something we assume it's people are inclined to believe it's due to moral failing?

Gen V is literally the only Gen I can think of that didn't have some sort of major glitch or engine issue.

Gen III had the Berry Glitch where the internal clock would get messed up and potentially prevent daily events from ever occurring and it was big enough that they had to distribute a patch for a GBA game, something pretty much unheard of.

Gen IV had horrible engine optimization issues that caused everything in Diamond and Pearl to move at a snail's pace.

Gen VI and Gen VII literally had gamebreaking save data glitches that needed to be patched out in an update.

Yeah, there may be fewer glitches, but the ones that slip by tend to be major.

 

[Will]

But I want a Sobble

you can get sobble on shodown