Pokemon Legends: Arceus General Discussion

[Bolt Strike]

Honestly the never ending complaints about graphics is so frustrating to me. The reality is that TPC is a huge machine, and the people at the very top (which is only partly Gamefreak) decided to have yearly (or nearly yearly) game releases to fuel the other parts of TPC (anime, merch) with content.

There's no real need for TPC to rush Game Freak into completing these games quickly to get new merchandising content. There are almost 900 Pokemon to work with, they have plenty of material to work with to come up with something to fill the gaps while they wait for Game Freak to come up with new material for them to work with. At the very least, there is no need for there to be the rigid, 3 year generations we've had since 5th gen. At this point there should probably be planned 4 or 5 year generations with more filler content in between if they want yearly entries, but the 2 or 3 year development times simply do not cut it on an HD console like the Switch.

I will be one to agree with everyone else that the graphics look bad- not even comparing it to BOTW, just from an art standpoint. But what bothers me more than people pointing it out is this idea that if they gave it more time, it would be better. It's not a time issue, it's a skill issue, and that usually improves with practice, so this rapid release schedule making them work on more things could actually work in their favor eventually. At present, though, what I see are design choices that worked in a 2D format but not well in a 3D one.

I feel that it's pretty fair to say that it looks bad in a lot of places, but it's also fair to say that it looks good in some places. But if we want more good than bad, I think we need to give them more games to get there, not more years between them.

So why isn't Nintendo stepping in and offering them more help? They've been through all of this before, they know the challenges of developing on an HD console, so why aren't their studios pitching in and teaching Game Freak's artists and designers 3D design? Why is Nintendo not putting more developers on the Pokemon games to help get them right? Even BotW was not developed solely by Nintendo's in-house studios, they also had assistance from MonolithSoft and IIRC Retro Studios. Nintendo is very protective of its IPs' reputation, they can't be happy about the state of Pokemon right now, so why are they just sitting back and leaving Game Freak to their own devices? This sounds like exactly the kind of situation where Nintendo should intervene and help make these games better.

As far as the argument that it's just skill, the counterpoint to that is that the jump to HD caused a lot of problems for experienced 3D game developers that caused tons of delays. Most of the industry experienced this in the mid 2000's on the 360/PS3 (or at least from what I've heard, I don't pay as much attention to non-Nintendo development). Nintendo definitely went through these issues on the Wii U, part of the reason the Wii U's lineup was so sparse was because developing in HD on the Wii U was more intensive than they were prepared for and their games took longer to release than expected. HD is simply notorious for this sort of thing and you cannot develop a competent 3D adventure game on an HD console in the 1-3 year development cycles Game Freak is used to. So the skill won't help, they could become the best programmers and designers in the world and it still wouldn't help them make a quality console scale game, HD development simply does not work well with short development schedules.

 

[FaeKing17]

Nobody? Take a random scroll through any thread that isn’t something very specific (“if you were a gym leader, what would your music collection look like?”). It’s filled with people who are very vocal about their negative opinions of the franchise/aspect of a current game.

Or for a larger sample size, pop over to reddit where even a simple question about where to find a specific ‘mon will frequently get a multitude of responses on why the game sucks, and how GF is scamming sheeple out of their money.

And it is perfectly ok to have a negative opinion, and to share that opinion. I’ve read plenty of comments discussing certain aspects they dislike; whether or not I agree doesn’t invalidate that. But when the negative opinion boils down to “this franchise sucks now, I hate it, GF should have it taken away from them, etc.” and the same people keep making the same argument page after page, it becomes tedious. The negative opinions don’t hinder my enjoyment of the games, but it does make it harder for me to want to interact with the community.

On-topic; I’m very curious to see what the story actually is, and if it’ll tie into BDSP in any way, other than some of the characters being ancestors of the DPPt/BDSP characters.

I’m well aware of that and I’m sorry but I see far more support against the criticism on Reddit as well as Twitter and tumblr, in my experience

 

[Oriden]

...gawd I went looking for that Manaphy myth and came across this article, and I know the "it's not open-world" thing isn't news, but having played some Monster Hunter demos recently, I now fully understand what they're talking about and it really pains me, because the segmented areas in Stories 2 and Rise felt small. =/ I was really hoping to actually travel in the game, not get teleported around the map to little play areas for specific tasks.

'Pokémon Legends: Arceus' will not be fully open-world, devs confirm

The Pokémon Company has confirmed that the game will not be entirely open-world.

www.nme.com

So why isn't Nintendo stepping in and offering them more help? They've been through all of this before, they know the challenges of developing on an HD console, so why aren't their studios pitching in and teaching Game Freak's artists and designers 3D design? Why is Nintendo not putting more developers on the Pokemon games to help get them right? Even BotW was not developed solely by Nintendo's in-house studios, they also had assistance from MonolithSoft and IIRC Retro Studios. Nintendo is very protective of its IPs' reputation, they can't be happy about the state of Pokemon right now, so why are they just sitting back and leaving Game Freak to their own devices? This sounds like exactly the kind of situation where Nintendo should intervene and help make these games better.

Because Nintendo has its own games to work on and Pokemon sells well enough without additional resources being wasted on it? And it's not like Pokemon is in a desperate state that it urgently needs help to be better- it's consistently a best-seller. I doubt Nintendo is unhappy with it in any way.

And it's not like the Switch has a shitton of amazing graphics games on it, most of their eshop is comprised of indie 2D side scrollers. Outside of Mario and Zelda, Pokemon has almost zero competition when it comes to graphics on the Switch.

 

[TheElderKing]

I don’t think the open map mode necessarily means the areas will be small. They could be, but it’s not connected to this model.

For anyone who played Dragon Age Inquisition years ago, the game was structured in the same format, and most of the areas were huge (too huge, in my opinion).

The areas in Legends could still be quite big. I think we’ll have a verdict on this with the previews.

 

[Articfoxgamez]

They seem to be at the very least not any smaller than the SWSH wild area. Which i found to be plenty big enough but i suppose it might be a little small for a game like this,

 

[Oriden]

I don’t think the open map mode necessarily means the areas will be small. They could be, but it’s not connected to this model.

For anyone who played Dragon Age Inquisition years ago, the game was structured in the same format, and most of the areas were huge (too huge, in my opinion).

The areas in Legends could still be quite big. I think we’ll have a verdict on this with the previews.

Hopefully... still don't like the being teleported around thing. It was really off-putting to me in both of the Monster Hunter games, and I prefer the feel of areas actually being connected, like we've had in every Pokemon game up to this point.

 

[Bolt Strike]

Because Nintendo has its own games to work on and Pokemon sells well enough without additional resources being wasted on it? And it's not like Pokemon is in a desperate state that it urgently needs help to be better- it's consistently a best-seller. I doubt Nintendo is unhappy with it in any way.

Nintendo isn't solely driven by profits though, as I said they are very protective of their IPs' reputation and they avoid developing low quality games that cause complaints, so allowing controversial games like SwSh to remain as is is very uncharacteristic of them. There's even a famous quote from Miyamoto about not rushing games:

Spoiler

SwSh is the very antithesis of this notion, so Nintendo permitting SwSh to release the game in the state that it was is perplexing.

And it's not like the Switch has a shitton of amazing graphics games on it, most of their eshop is comprised of indie 2D side scrollers. Outside of Mario and Zelda, Pokemon has almost zero competition when it comes to graphics on the Switch.

Mario and Zelda look and play hundreds of times better than Pokemon though, so their competition is creaming them. Pokemon should be on Mario and Zelda's level, Pokemon is making even higher profits than those two and yet it feels closer to the indie games than BotW and Odyssey.

 

[Oriden]

Nintendo isn't solely driven by profits though, as I said they are very protective of their IPs' reputation and they avoid developing low quality games that cause complaints, so allowing controversial games like SwSh to remain as is is very uncharacteristic of them. There's even a famous quote from Miyamoto about not rushing games:

Spoiler

SwSh is the very antithesis of this notion, so Nintendo permitting SwSh to release the game in the state that it was is perplexing.



Mario and Zelda look and play hundreds of times better than Pokemon though, so their competition is creaming them. Pokemon should be on Mario and Zelda's level, Pokemon is making even higher profits than those two and yet it feels closer to the indie games than BotW and Odyssey.

Because it's not some big controversy? We graphics critics are just a vocal minority. Most people buy the games and love them and they receive high praises, so as far as Nintendo is concerned- it's a non-issue if Pokemon happens to make Nintendo's own titles look better by comparison. It's just not something that they desperately need to step in to fix.

 

[Bolt Strike]

They've been drifting away from that mentality recently.
They've gone down the "just release the game now and make free updates later" rabbit hole, which may have been exacerbated by Covid.
Like in Mario Golf and ACNH maybe>

Eh, whether or not that model makes the games bad is somewhat questionable, there's some benefits to it if they can make a good game even better. But they don't just rush a terrible game and use updates to fix it.

Because it's not some big controversy? We graphics critics are just a vocal minority. Most people buy the games and love them and they receive high praises, so as far as Nintendo is concerned- it's a non-issue if Pokemon happens to make Nintendo's own titles look better by comparison. It's just not something that they desperately need to step in to fix.

Doesn't matter, anytime something like this happens, even if it's just a vocal minority, Nintendo usually addresses the complaints in some way the next game. They don't want to get negative press by their fans so they usually try to make it as good as it can possibly be. Something like Dexit, where they shrug and say "Can't because graphics" is something that simply DOES NOT HAPPEN with Nintendo games, if they don't have enough time to fit them in, they just delay it until they can. By Nintendo standards, this is a big controversy and yet they don't seem to be doing anything about it.

 

[Oriden]

Doesn't matter, anytime something like this happens, even if it's just a vocal minority, Nintendo usually addresses the complaints in some way the next game. They don't want to get negative press by their fans so they usually try to make it as good as it can possibly be. By Nintendo standards, this is a big controversy and yet they don't seem to be doing anything about it.

Probably because it's not really their games, then? They're not the developer, Game Freak is, so how it's handled is really in Game Freak's court. Sure, Nintendo has a stake in Pokemon, but it's still not really their game to take criticism personally on, and as far as opinions go, they're just 1/3rd of TPC.

 

[blitzle stan]

I agree but I see more than once that any criticism is automatically brought into the whining category regardless of how thoughtful it is.

That’s big hyperbole and, ironically, feels like whining? I don’t mean to attack you- just defending myself and my perspective after this grand generalization.

Your complaint is that they wished they did better on this 5th 3D game (in think is the third though, right? Let’s Go, SwSh, now PLA. Am I forgetting two games?). If this means you think PLA does not look WAY better than SwSh, they’re previous 3D game (I believe), then we’re simply not looking at the same reality so there’s no use continuing this.

And more generally to everyone that commented on my point- yes of course comments on graphics are relevant to this thread. A broken record of “Gamefreak still sucks at making games!” is the over generalization that I’m so tired of seeing and makes the franchise way less easy to enjoy (not the graphics!).

 

[TheElderKing]

That’s big hyperbole and, ironically, feels like whining? I don’t mean to attack you- just defending myself and my perspective after this grand generalization.

Your complaint is that they wished they did better on this 5th 3D game (in think is the third though, right? Let’s Go, SwSh, now PLA. Am I forgetting two games?). If this means you think PLA does not look WAY better than SwSh, they’re previous 3D game (I believe), then we’re simply not looking at the same reality so there’s no use continuing this.

And more generally to everyone that commented on my point- yes of course comments on graphics are relevant to this thread. A broken record of “Gamefreak still sucks at making games!” is the over generalization that I’m so tired of seeing and makes the franchise way less easy to enjoy (not the graphics!).

XY/ORAS and SM/USUM are also 3D Pokèmon games.

 

[Bolt Strike]

Probably because it's not really their games, then? They're not the developer, Game Freak is, so how it's handled is really in Game Freak's court. Sure, Nintendo has a stake in Pokemon, but it's still not really their game to take criticism personally on, and as far as opinions go, they're just 1/3rd of TPC.

Actually they own the IP and its assets, TPC is responsible for managing the brand but if that relationship were to dissolve and Game Freak and Creatures went elsewhere, Nintendo would still own Pokemon. So they should care about the brand and its reputation. I do think perhaps they could smooth things out a bit more if they acquiring a bigger stake in TPC, but as is they should already be concerned.

 

[blitzle stan]

XY/ORAS and SM/USUM are also 3D Pokèmon games.

Oh gosh, I guess technically yes, but I kinda think by 3D it should really mean “free camera” right? Even though they’re probably different terms that I’m mixing up, free camera environments must be exponentially more complicated to create visually, and one really can’t use the 3DS games as a “why aren’t they doing better at this “ point. It’s apples and oranges, in my opinion.

Which, thinking now, PLA is their first free-camera game. They had the wild area and the SwSh DLC, but no full game like PLA.

 

[TheElderKing]

Oh gosh, I guess technically yes, but I kinda think by 3D it should really mean “free camera” right? Even though they’re probably different terms that I’m mixing up, free camera environments must be exponentially more complicated to create visually, and one really can’t use the 3DS games as a “why aren’t they doing better at this “ point. It’s apples and oranges, in my opinion.

Which, thinking now, PLA is their first free-camera game. They had the wild area and the SwSh DLC, but no full game like PLA.

I'd agree that things got more complicated in world building with SwSh first, and now PLA, which is why I take in consideration the fact that this game is the first game where their maps are fully open...although the Wild Areas and the dlcs were still their first try with open areas. It's clear, for example, that they took the experience and feedback on vanilla SwSh to improve in the maps of the dlcs. Of course, a full game developed like that is bigger challenge, even more so considering that the gameplay additions and innovations.

Howewer, we can look at the switch from 2D to 3D and notice how in terms of world building, at least in my opinion, they suffered in said passage. I don't think they did overall a good job in each of those games in this area, considering what they were aming to do.

My biggest issue is overall this one, not the graphic fidelity, textures, etc. Those are never going to be amazing on Switch , although they could be better (I'd say they should aim in terms of quality, not art style, of what they had in LGPE and BDSP, but it's going to be harder to achieve that in an open world game). A good and well thought world building is more important that textures.

As I said before, I'm going to wait to see the game in full before making a full judgment on this, although I don't think it's going to be great in any case, based on what we saw. And I think it's something that is going to be better in the future, I think.

 

[Cute Charm]

Personally it seems like even though Game Freak is a share holder of TPC, they're also being held hostage by it sometimes. Like, yeah, they own a stake in it, but they're also at the whim of the anime and TCG. If those two things get stale, then new games happen.

Mario, Zelda, and Nintendo's other franshises don't have to deal with that. Even when they were huge in the 80s, Super Show, the cartoons, anime, comics, manga, whatever just did their own thing or were made by other countries. They had no bearing on the games.

I'm still holding out hope that everything just seems rushed due to COVID and once they slowly start to run out of things that were finished and half finished before lockdown, the quality of things will increase somewhat. But at the same time I'm not holding my breath over the people who don't give constructive criticism and just repeatedly comb through still images and find the worse frames going away any time soon.

 

[blitzle stan]

I agree that the literal world building of Galar was bad- that mushroom forest was so small, and then it led to a beautiful town that was really just a picture- nothing to do or explore and very small. They definitely dropped the ball with Galar, and I remember reading that they only added in wild Pokémon in the overworld after it was so well received in LGPE, meaning Galar as a region was already done (so the routes were often not built for actually seeing the Pokémon).

I am very hopeful how they fare with PLA, since they seem to have built this game as an open world, everything viewable in the wild, experience from the ground up.

 

[Articfoxgamez]

even though it isn't fully open-world I do think that it'll end up being pretty great in that department itself--as long as loading zones aren't TOO frequent it'll be OK.

Based on rough guesses i imagine the only real loading zones are going to be when your traveling between the town and one of the zones.

 

[blitzle stan]

even though it isn't fully open-world I do think that it'll end up being pretty great in that department itself--as long as loading zones aren't TOO frequent it'll be OK.

Oh right, I misspoke maybe- “open world” like “free to touch and go everywhere you see”, not exactly “free to keep going one direction until you reach the end of the world.” Taking Galar as an example again, the region was coded with areas the player was not meant to go to, while in this game you can even hop up some small cliffs on Wyrdeer.

I am curious how clunky or not they handle they area edges- I have never played Monster Hunter so I’m not sure how the invisible walls are there. I remember Gamefreak doing a good job with the DLC edges though.

 

[Articfoxgamez]

Oh right, I misspoke maybe- “open world” like “free to touch and go everywhere you see”, not exactly “free to keep going one direction until you reach the end of the world.” Taking Galar as an example again, the region was coded with areas the player was not meant to go to, while in this game you can even hop up some small cliffs on Wyrdeer.

I am curious how clunky or not they handle they area edges- I have never played Monster Hunter so I’m not sure how the invisible walls are there. I remember Gamefreak doing a good job with the DLC edges though.

Based on the one area map we have seen it looks like they are going the route of just surrounding each area on all sides with mountains (or ocean in some cases). Presumably too steep for Wyrdeer to climb. Not sure how they will go about Braviary though unless the mountains are just super high. And the ocean will probably be done the same way they did with the isle of armor.