Generation IV Remake Speculation

[Poke Dragon]

The claim that everything in the game is "made from scratch" is simply a wrong claim. The Pokemon models are still the same ones from the 3DS era, the only thing that changed is some of the textures on the models.

 

[RK9]

The claim that everything in the game is "made from scratch" is simply a wrong claim. The Pokemon models are still the same ones from the 3DS era, the only thing that changed is some of the textures.

There was a very nice article from someone who works in that field who explained fully how this all went down and he declared that when doing this, they do apparently 'start from scratch'. Sadly I don't have the article on me right now and I forgot the name, but it was an entire blog that said person dedicated to how it all goes down in the industry and he made that specific post because of the controversy going on.

If I can find it again I'll be happy to link it here. (Or if someone else knows which one I'm talking about, feel free.)

 

[Esserise]

Plus it's quite clear that many Pokémon got some new animations as well. From what I've been able to tell, many of the animations that play when a Pokémon is encountered in the wild or when they first Dynamax are entirely new. Furthermore, we've seen from modders' efforts to import models into SwSh that it's not a simple matter of copying and pasting, and there are obvious gaps that appear when you try to do that.

Also, even "just" creating a new high-res texture is not nothing; especially when we're talking about 900+ Pokémon species and forms. That time adds up. For instance, I once set out to copy every species' Pokédex entry into a word document for the sake of convenient reference. Granted, I was working by myself, but I had no deadline nor regular schedule; the project was entirely at my own pace. And yet despite that, I still ended up cutting some corners and felt like smashing my head into a wall by the end of it. And that's just me nicking text off of Bulbapedia, not having to create new HD textures, ensure that they map properly and interact with the lighting engine correctly, and perform QC/bugtesting to make sure that nothing broke unexpectedly (and then getting someone to fix it if it did).

At any rate, I think it's probably feasible for them to get the last ~230 models done in time for these games, but like others have said, I would err on the side of caution and not presume that it's definitely going to happen. Though the idea that Sinnoh remakes would leave out any Gen 4 Pokémon seems pretty far-fetched to me. Like, if push came to shove, then I'm pretty sure it'd be the likes of Pikipek and Stantler that got put on the chopping block before Darkrai or Electivire.

 

[Poke Dragon]

The Gen 4 remakes will definitely have all Gen 4 Pokemon, but I don't expect the same for every other generation. If Gen 1 didn't even have all of its Pokemon in Sw/Sh, then I simply don't expect any other generation aside from Gen 4 to have all of its Pokemon in the Diamond and Pearl remakes.

 

[SerenaToAlola]

Plus it's quite clear that many Pokémon got some new animations as well. From what I've been able to tell, many of the animations that play when a Pokémon is encountered in the wild or when they first Dynamax are entirely new. Furthermore, we've seen from modders' efforts to import models into SwSh that it's not a simple matter of copying and pasting, and there are obvious gaps that appear when you try to do that.

Also, even "just" creating a new high-res texture is not nothing; especially when we're talking about 900+ Pokémon species and forms. That time adds up

Isn't it outsourced? I'm fine with the games not having every pokemon upon release but there's really no reason why they can't slowly patch in the rest of the pokemon as time goes by. Well, they've been doing that actually. Just a couple of pokemon more.

 

[Minya_Nouvelle]

For instance, I once set out to copy every species' Pokédex entry into a word document for the sake of convenient reference. Granted, I was working by myself, but I had no deadline nor regular schedule; the project was entirely at my own pace. And yet despite that, I still ended up cutting some corners and felt like smashing my head into a wall by the end of it. And that's just me nicking text off of Bulbapedia, not having to create new HD textures, ensure that they map properly and interact with the lighting engine correctly, and perform QC/bugtesting to make sure that nothing broke unexpectedly (and then getting someone to fix it if it did).

I feel this so hard. I've made several reference guides of my own. Its amazing how much time and effort doing something really menial takes.

 

[PkmnTrainerV]

To be fair they’re literally the owners of one of the richest franchises in the whole world... It’s not as if GameFreak is short on resources.

 

[Esserise]

Isn't it outsourced? I'm fine with the games not having every pokemon upon release but there's really no reason why they can't slowly patch in the rest of the pokemon as time goes by. Well, they've been doing that actually. Just a couple of pokemon more.

Outsourced work is still work; someone’s still got to do the labor. Plus, outsourcing can introduce its own logistical issues. There’s a number of reasons why a company might prefer to handle things in-house, from cost to quality control.

To be fair they’re literally the owners of one of the richest franchises in the whole world... It’s not as if GameFreak is short on resources.

However, we don’t know anything about how or by whom their budgets are determined. Also, while the games absolutely do very well for themselves, the bulk of Pokémon’s revenue actually comes from merchandise. It’s a rich franchise, but that franchise has a ton of moving parts and forms of media presence that all have their own priorities. It’s not Game Freak alone just sitting on a mountain of money.

 

[Bolt Strike]

However, we don’t know anything about how or by whom their budgets are determined. Also, while the games absolutely do very well for themselves, the bulk of Pokémon’s revenue actually comes from merchandise. It’s a rich franchise, but that franchise has a ton of moving parts and forms of media presence that all have their own priorities. It’s not Game Freak alone just sitting on a mountain of money.

That's not really a good excuse, the merchandise releases can be moved around, Pokemon is such a lucrative franchise that they could put it whenever the hell they want and it would still sell millions. Whoever it is that's setting the budgets and schedules is probably a corporate executive that knows little if anything about game development and wants to rush products out the door for the holidays. And this tactic can backfire horribly, just look at Sonic 06. Pokemon's not quite there yet, but it's heading down that route.

 

[Poke Dragon]

The thing is, the games are the core part of Pokemon, so it wouldn't hurt them to just postpone the games and let the anime just make an entire filler arc to compensate. It has happened before and can definitely happen again with no backfire at all. Merchandise can wait at most a year anyway. Every other part of the franchise is mostly or solely dependent on the games.

 

[Esserise]

I think you guys are misunderstanding what I'm saying. I'm not saying that the games are slaved to the merch schedule (they may be, they may not, idk), I'm saying that "Pokémon is rich, so they can just throw all that money at the games to make the games better" is probably a facile view of the situation. How much of the money from merchandise finds its way back to Game Freak rather than being earmarked for other things? How much money from the ferociously profitable GO goes to Game Freak rather than Niantic? We don't know. We also don't know if there's just one guy in a business suit controlling all the money like a decadent emperor or if it's more complicated than that.

 

[SerenaToAlola]

How much of the money from merchandise finds its way back to Game Freak rather than being earmarked for other things? How much money from the ferociously profitable GO goes to Game Freak rather than Niantic? We don't know. We also don't know if there's just one guy in a business suit controlling all the money like a decadent emperor or if it's more complicated than that.

Well I'm not sure how that changes anything at all? The fact remains that the money exists somewhere within their organization and its up to them to allocate the resources efficiently. There really is no excuse for the biggest media franchise in the world to not have the capacity to outsource work and sort out the logistical issues. It's not like they are indie developers without any financial backing.

 

[Bolt Strike]

I think you guys are misunderstanding what I'm saying. I'm not saying that the games are slaved to the merch schedule (they may be, they may not, idk), I'm saying that "Pokémon is rich, so they can just throw all that money at the games to make the games better" is probably a facile view of the situation. How much of the money from merchandise finds its way back to Game Freak rather than being earmarked for other things? How much money from the ferociously profitable GO goes to Game Freak rather than Niantic? We don't know. We also don't know if there's just one guy in a business suit controlling all the money like a decadent emperor or if it's more complicated than that.

The money from the main series alone should be enough. BotW only took $120 million to develop, the equivalent of 2 million in sales. Pokemon sells almost 10 times that amount. Even taking into account that Pokemon has hundreds of 3D models to program, you're telling me that ~$1 billion in revenue isn't enough for them to make something better than the likes of SwSh when we got one of the most ambitious games of the century for a mere fraction of that? Puh-lease. It's penny pinching, plain and simple.

 

[Minya_Nouvelle]

I really don't feel like GameFreak has a time or resource issue. Sometimes, imagination is the true limiting factor. I feel like its something that the younger folks at GameFreak have, but the more senior members who are in charge of planning lack a bit. Also, they lack experience in planning/developing a full 3d world on a console, but I think the expansion packs show that they are improving.

 

[Poke Dragon]

I think you guys are misunderstanding what I'm saying. I'm not saying that the games are slaved to the merch schedule (they may be, they may not, idk), I'm saying that "Pokémon is rich, so they can just throw all that money at the games to make the games better" is probably a facile view of the situation. How much of the money from merchandise finds its way back to Game Freak rather than being earmarked for other things? How much money from the ferociously profitable GO goes to Game Freak rather than Niantic? We don't know. We also don't know if there's just one guy in a business suit controlling all the money like a decadent emperor or if it's more complicated than that.

Game Freak can do better than what they were doing with Sw/Sh, it's 100% possible for them to allocate more money towards main series Pokemon games without even relying on merchandise and anime.

 

[Poke Dragon]

I really don't feel like GameFreak has a time or resource issue. Sometimes, imagination is the true limiting factor. I feel like its something that the younger folks at GameFreak have, but the more senior members who are in charge of planning lack a bit. Also, they lack experience in planning/developing a full 3d world on a console, but I think the expansion packs show that they are improving.

Then simple, replace Masuda with someone younger to direct main series Pokemon games. We need the mindset of "quality=quantity" behind the games again, something they are laughably lacking ever since they started developing X and Y.

 

[Bolt Strike]

I created a new thread for this tangent:

Should Game Freak Put More Resources into the Main Games?

Back to Sinnoh remakes, I think all 4th gen Pokemon will be in, all of Platinum's 210 will be in, and the missing Pokemon from SwSh will be in. That should be roughly enough to round out this game. I would say there's going to be about 500 Pokemon total.

 

[AngryBinacle]

I'm sceptical about the whole national dex issue, but re-implementing 235 Pokémon can't be that much of a hassle for a game that has yet to be revealed.

We don't know if gamefreak's statement last year was about a game's release version or a whole generation.

Anyway, I'm hoping for proper news soon (february).

 

[SlowGinFizzzz]

There's absolutely no doubt that the Pokémon from #387 through #493, as well as every Pokémon that could be found in the original games (whether it was part of the regional Sinnoh Dex or only available in the post-game section) will be in these upcoming remakes as well. I would even go as far as assuming that pretty much all Pokémon from the first four generations will be available.

To me, the only question is what's going to happen with the ones from generation 5 to 8. My guess is that they won't want to change Sinnoh's fauna too much, and that aside from Pokémon that would really make sense in Sinnoh (particularly ice types, including regional forms like A-Vulpix, A-Sandshrew, or G-Darumaka) and perhaps some fire- and fairy-type Pokémon for the sake of balancing, they won't add all that many later-gen Pokémon.

 

[SeanWheeler]

If the National Dex isn't coming back, then 500 Pokémon is okay. But if the National Pokédex is returning, then the Sinnoh Dex should have half of that, and the rest of the Pokémon still unavailable should be easier to catch in the post-game. And whether or not the National Dex is returning, all the Sinnoh legendaries and mythicals should still be in the Sinnoh Dex. And if seeing all the Sinnoh Pokémon is a requirement for getting the National Dex, they gotta let us catch Manaphy, Phione, Darkrai, Shaymin and Arceus just like how we caught Deoxys in Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire and how we could catch Keldeo in Sword and Shield.