Official Pokémon Sword and Shield speculation thread (Updated June 5th, 2019)

[El_]

Do keep in mind, that Game Freak themselves mainly brought up animation as a reasoning for cutting the Dex, in their claim for quality > quantity. People are acting as if this graphics debate is solely a scapegoat for bashing Sword N Shield, when that isn't the case. Yes people were complaining about graphics before, but GF only added fuel to that fire. I myself didn't really even care till e3, and yes you damn well better expect that I expect more from a game with a $60 price tag, $120 bundled. If it is looking worse, performing worse, and lacking features that past cheaper entries had, then we have an issue, no?

People never truly specify what they want to change, only that they want it, and that doesn't help. Look at the wild area, people said they wanted a form of openworld for ages, finally get it, people say it's barren and complain about a tree.

Maybe because it's only in one (admittingly large) area that barely would be half of the region? It's more akin to an open world Safari Zone, but cut off from civilization. In any case, simply wanting a somewhat open world and wanting a well done open world are two different things. Game Freak cut well loved features for that tree, so surely expecting a little game texture, not having your bicycle clip into the earth, your Dynamax Pokemon pop in & out, NPCs slip n slide, or the game lag is not an unreasonable desire in 2019.

 

[Poke Dragon]

Game Freak can't expect to get praise if they don't get on the same level as other developers on the platform. They should've known that cutting the things that were guaranteed to stay in previous generations wouldn't bode well. If they got flack for not expanding on Mega Evolutions, then they darn well shouldn't have been thinking of cutting Pokemon entirely. I'm just sick and tired of seeing people defend Game Freak no matter what their decisions are. And don't even bring up that bullcrap claim that there's already more than 1000+ Pokemon without mentioning forms, which if you think about it, we already exceeded that number in Gen 3 thanks to Spinda's million forms or whichever gigantic number that is. If you don't count forms, we are still in the 800s in terms of the amount of Pokemon. Graphics, I can let that slide, but outright removing Pokemon is something that off course I'm going to get furious about and get even more furious if someone tells me I can't complain about it.

 

[TechSkylander1518]

I don't think change is as welcome as people think it is. Heck people were bashing on Let's Go for wild battle being gone. That already shows how people feel about change.

That was a removal of a regular feature, though, and it removed the way some people liked to play Pokemon. (Players had to rely on Go catching mechanics, while some preferred to be able to weaken a Pokemon to capture it, and to earn XP from wild Pokemon, they had to catch the Pokemon, making some people feel like their boxes ended up overcrowded) Most of the change people are asking for isn't to remove elements of gameplay, but to add to them in some way.

Also, we've had tons more examples of change that people reacted positively to.

• Breeding was introduced in Gen 2-people think it's a positive addition.
• Abilities changed battles in Gen 3-people think positively of them.
• Gen 3 introduced Contests-people think positively of them.
• The physical/special split of Gen 4 changed how battles work-people think positively of it.
• Black 2 and White 2 introduced sequels instead of third versions-people think positively of it.
• Gen 6 introduced affection minigames and the PSS-people think positively of them.
• Gen 7 removed HMs, and let players be more flexible with their team as a result of it. Even though people might want more options for PokeRide, few people are wanting required moves to be returned.

People respond positively to change in Pokemon all the time.

 

[Knightwolf09]

That was a removal of a regular feature, though, and it removed the way some people liked to play Pokemon. (Players had to rely on Go catching mechanics, while some preferred to be able to weaken a Pokemon to capture it, and to earn XP from wild Pokemon, they had to catch the Pokemon, making some people feel like their boxes ended up overcrowded) Most of the change people are asking for isn't to remove elements of gameplay, but to add to them in some way.

Also, we've had tons more examples of change that people reacted positively to.

• Breeding was introduced in Gen 2-people think it's a positive addition.
• Abilities changed battles in Gen 3-people think positively of them.
• Gen 3 introduced Contests-people think positively of them.
• The physical/special split of Gen 4 changed how battles work-people think positively of it.
• Black 2 and White 2 introduced sequels instead of third versions-people think positively of it.
• Gen 6 introduced affection minigames and the PSS-people think positively of them.
• Gen 7 removed HMs, and let players be more flexible with their team as a result of it. Even though people might want more options for PokeRide, few people are wanting required moves to be returned.

People respond positively to change in Pokemon all the time.

Those are more or less additions and improvements than actual change like they mentioned.

 

[TechSkylander1518]

Those are more or less additions and improvements than actual change like they mentioned.

Additions and improvements are still changing a product. I don't even agree with most of Lanstar's requests, I'm just pointing out that negative reaction to LGPE's removals doesn't indicate anything about people's reactions to change in general

 

[Knightwolf09]

Spoiler: Supposed Leak

 

[PkmnTrainerV]

Making gym leader rematches forced? I don’t want to go through the badge quest two times just to battle the champion.

 

[prog rocker]

Why would you need to beat the gyms twice?

 

[Boss1708]

Why would you need to beat the gyms twice?

Because apparently, beating them once isn't enough anymore.

#GalarIsDifferent

 

[PkmnTrainerV]

I can't imagine the amount of children rage quitting when informed that all their effort was stolen by a hyena and they have to start over.

 

[TechSkylander1518]

"I gave these confidential details of my friend's employment. Just check who worked on USUM and SwSh, and Game Freak is already close to finding out who to fire."
If I had a friend who would gladly share this, I wouldn't be telling them anything about my work, lmao.

Okay, I know we're a good four months out since announcement, but I still think it's worth saying...the entire dex should not be leaked by now. If I'm not mistaken, this is the eleventh leak to promise it?

Wooloo has two evolution forms based on weather-but no explaining whether that's sun, rain, hail, or sandstorm. Okay.

Pokemon Sleep is developed by Niantic, not Game Freak. I'm skeptical that Game Freak would have Niantic design an app for a main part of SwSh when they're unwilling to hire people for Pokemon models.

"Improve chances for your Pokemon to attack first"? This sounds like it was written by someone who doesn't know how the Speed stat works. Yeah, there's things like priority and Quick Claw, but there's no chance involved with the basic question of who goes first.

"A new type of egg is introduced." It...is not described to be any different from regular eggs? I guess there's the bit about walking with the PokeBall Plus, but why do you need a special egg for that?

The player loses their gold key, and the gym leaders, who gave them the key, are like "no you gotta fight us again" instead of just giving it back?

"Expect a direct in August." Why? They said their friend works on the game, not marketing.

 

[Lanstar]

...And to think that the Galar Border memes couldn't get any more hilarious:

View: https://www.reddit.com/r/pokemon/comments/c34p5x/yyes_heres_my_id_now_if_youll_excuse_us_uh_i_mean/

 

[Scruffyjay]

Didn't they say they weren't taking let's go/go stuff into this game?

(besides overworld pokemon, I guess...)

So why would there be pokemon sleep connectivity + go egg mechanics?

I actually find the gym rematch thing interesting, but it would be frustrating for pretty much everyone, and kind of weird for the "they already gave you these things before, and they remember that" reason.

 

[Ambrose7]

While I agree anyone can have his own taste on 2d or 3d models for the pokemon, 3d graphics are not just for the pokemon. Imo having a 3d map, being able to see the environment in 3d is just another experience. Galar looks like a proper region and the people in Galar look much more expressive. This helps making the game more addictive.
I can feel this is the way pokemon should be. It makes you finally believe you are actually in a pokemon region and not simply navigating in a square picture route after route, city after city.

After all the posts about bad graphics, I had forgotten how the game does looks gorgeous in some areas. The inconsistency in graphics makes me hope it'll be fixed by the release.

 

[NealIRC]

96 new pokemon? That's like 45 new pokemon-families, divide that by some 18 elements = damn. Hopefully the Galar variants are cool.

 

[PocketMonster]

Not sure where this idea that they can't handle it comes from... making a ton of new 2D sprites isn't really quicker than re-texturing models, so it wouldn't help there. The only difference I can see is that the games would flat out stagnate graphically. Welcome to your totally different pokemon adventure where the only difference is that we rearranged the map.

Yeah, there are some side features in 2D, but think about what those features were and how difficult they would honestly be to implement into 3D. Remember that most of them were built using static screens and sprites just using the same animations as they do everywhere else.

Yeah, some things on the map don't look right in 3D yet, but give them some more time to master it- next generation is going to look better than this one, no doubt about that. The only thing that running back to 2D does is make the graphic improvements more negligible. As it is, they were already throwing in 3D elements because there was nowhere else to go.

The idea of them not being able to handle 3d comes from

1. People being really unhappy with they way the graphics look
2. People making comments that they should be able to do better or they expect better graphics
3. People questioning why they arent hiring more people
4. Gamefreak admitting they need more experience and admitting thier difficulty to add to what the consumers already noticed

Again i did say associating 2d with being quicker thus more other things is hypothetical. Others may not think so though

Im ok with the graphics that others are upset about. Its pokemon theyve always had worse graphics than other games. But because of the really bad outrage pokemon already has, i dont think they can handle more. Thus if the graphics complaints or unhappiness doesnt simmer down or if it increases as we get close to release or after release it may be wise for pokemon to go back to 2.5d or 2d at that point. Others may compare 3d and 2d as something better than the other but i dont see it much more than an art style and like different things about each and dislike different things about each. Rearranged map, i feel, is that way whether 2d or 3d. 3D is just a different angle of that in a pokemon game. Pokemon games have some sort of path and i dont see an issue with that. Unless they do away with going about a map in a certian order like taking on gyms in any order, it will continue.

 

[Esserise]

The player loses their gold key, and the gym leaders, who gave them the key, are like "no you gotta fight us again" instead of just giving it back?

I don't really see any reason to believe that post, unless I'm missing something. (I definitely don't remember telling any of my friends about that stuff.)

That being said, just taking this as a hypothetical, it could be less "you MUST fight us again before we reissue your Badge" and more, "Hey, <player>! Long time no see! Oh, you lost your Badge and need a new one? Well, sure! But hey, since you've come all this way, why don't we have a nice little rematch to see how you've grown?" and then you, being a Pokémon game protagonist, gladly accept.

Also they already did a similar sort of thing in USUM as a part of Mina's trial, where you had to go and revisit each Captain (some of which you had to battle) to receive one of the flower petals.

 

[Esserise]

Making gym leader rematches forced? I don’t want to go through the badge quest two times just to battle the champion.

Why would you need to beat the gyms twice?

Again, not that I think the leak is real, but haven't online fans been complaining about the difficulty for several generations now? Isn't this the kind of thing they'd like? An extra boss rush against all the Gym Leaders with fully-powered teams before facing the real final challenge?

Or to put it another way, if something like this had been in Emerald or HGSS or B2W2, wouldn't everyone be talking all the time about how it was the most based thing ever and how it should have been in XY or ORAS (and then mocking USUM for its half-measure reimplementation of it)?

 

[Silktree]

1. Making rematches mandatory isn't a good idea. Mina's trial didn't involve rematches, and it certainly didn't take place between the Elite Four and the Champion.
2. We don't even know when exactly Pokemon Sleep will be released; it could happen a full year after SwSh's release. Game Freak wouldn't make it so closely related to an in-game feature.

 

[PocketMonster]

Making gym leader rematches forced? I don’t want to go through the badge quest two times just to battle the champion.

Why would you need to beat the gyms twice?

Losing badges in life could happen. Sounds like they are trying to make things more of a challenge. Its not like the gyms would be the same level or order.

Again, not that I think the leak is real, but haven't online fans been complaining about the difficulty for several generations now? Isn't this the kind of thing they'd like? An extra boss rush against all the Gym Leaders with fully-powered teams before facing the real final challenge?

Or to put it another way, if something like this had been in Emerald or HGSS or B2W2, wouldn't everyone be talking all the time about how it was the most based thing ever and how it should have been in XY or ORAS (and then mocking USUM for its half-measure reimplementation of it)?

Yes.