Generation IV Remake Speculation

[Phosphene]

The person who leaked Glastrier and Spectrier tweeted a few days ago a hint as to the nature of the upcoming main series game: apparently, it won't be branded as "Let's Go" but it might still have some features of LGP/LGE. Look up Centro on Twitter and you will find whom I'm talking about.

Here's the tweet I'm assuming Adelon is referring to:

Spoiler

View: https://twitter.com/CentroLeaks/status/1330800573482938368

 

[RC821]

Well, Game Freak can still support Sword and Shield even after they made a new game. Square Enix did the same technique with their older games.

 

[AngryBinacle]

Here's the tweet I'm assuming Adelon is referring to:

Spoiler

View: https://twitter.com/CentroLeaks/status/1330800573482938368

View attachment 137908

The tweet after it shouldn't be left-out, though:

"This tweet isn't about any specific game. At this point in time we don't know if next year's game will use a simplified gameplay style.

But we do not rule out the possibility."

 

[Minya_Nouvelle]

Even if it is a hint, it is an incredibly vague hint. "Simplified Gameplay Style" could mean anything.

 

[Esserise]

Even if it is a hint, it is an incredibly vague hint. "Simplified Gameplay Style" could mean anything.

Yeah, that's what I was going to say. Which "simplified" aspect in particular? No abilities/held items? GO-style catch mechanics? Did they mean the artistic direction? Map layout? What? "Simplified" on its own is just a buzzword.

 

[prog rocker]

The person who leaked Glastrier and Spectrier tweeted a few days ago a hint as to the nature of the upcoming main series game: apparently, it won't be branded as "Let's Go" but it might still have some features of LGP/LGE. Look up Centro on Twitter and you will find whom I'm talking about.

I thought Glastrier and Spectrier (or their placeholder data) were found in a datamine before the Crown Tundra released.

 

[Esserise]

I thought Glastrier and Spectrier (or their placeholder data) were found in a datamine before the Crown Tundra released.

Their placeholder data was revealed by the usual dataminers (SciresM, Matt, etc.) months before CT came out, but a few days before the release date, Centro Leaks began dropping all sorts of more precise stuff like their names and abilities, as well as HOME models for the horses, the Galarian birds, and Calyrex.

 

[RC821]

Maybe they could still work on Sword and Shield with updates even while working on Sinnoh remakes to make sure they are compatible?

Yeah. If possible, Gen VIII could surpass Gen IV as the longest Pokemon generation if there are a lot of updates to the Sinnoh remakes and Sword and Shield.

 

[Bolt Strike]

Vague hint or not, if it's real, it's very bad news. More simplification is the last thing this series needs right now and nothing LGPE simplified was beneficial. It doesn't matter if it's branded as a LG game or not, it's the gameplay that needs to be avoided, not the branding. Everything of value from LGPE except co-op was already done better in SwSh, so the remakes should be taking more influence from SwSh, not LGPE. If that rumor is true, I'm skipping these games and staying as far away from them as possible.

 

[Poke Dragon]

I agree, the Let's Go series needs to keep its worst aspects away from the traditional games. Overworld Pokemon was great, but the catching mechanic was horrendous, just let me throw a Poke Ball in-game without the need of aiming. If I wanted to play a game that had aiming as part of its main gameplay, I would just play Splatoon 2.

 

[Shib]

Everything of value from LGPE except co-op was already done better in SwSh,

Soft disagree on this - while much of the good stuff from LG was taken to SwSh, I’d say that none of it was done better and some was done worse. The two primary culprits in this are two features I was never particularly fond of any way but Overworld mons and Following mons. To me it’s hugely annoying that overworld mons on SwSh don’t show shinies and the followers speed things is really annoying.

I can live with them trying to make it more realistic than having super slow Pokémon easily keep up with bike speed but they went too far with it, even Pokémon that are too fast feel broken as they catch up to you then slow to walk then need to run again, where they should realistically be able to maintain pace.


With this “rumour” specifically I honestly think that the tweets are deliberately vague enough that the poster can use them as evidence in future if correct but not ever have to justify them if nothing comes of it. I can imagine remakes going back onto grid based design for ease of conversion, which means a LG style overworld is possible but I don’t think it’s that likely.

 

[Phosphene]

With this “rumour” specifically I honestly think that the tweets are deliberately vague enough that the poster can use them as evidence in future if correct but not ever have to justify them if nothing comes of it.

Yeah, that’s what makes me wary of them, especially with the second tweet AngryBinacle brought up. Vague mentions of “simplified” gameplay that could refer to any game GameFreak makes in the future isn’t exactly conclusive evidence of anything methinks.

 

[Esserise]

I can live with them trying to make it more realistic than having super slow Pokémon easily keep up with bike speed but they went too far with it, even Pokémon that are too fast feel broken as they catch up to you then slow to walk then need to run again, where they should realistically be able to maintain pace.

Hmm, just a thought, but is this maybe more of a species-based thing? LGPE had a comparatively very small pool of Pokémon. Like, do we know if Kabutops moves at the same rate in both LGPE and SwSh? 'Cause if so, then it may simply be the case that some Pokémon that weren't in LGPE (like Pheromosa for instance) just have an inherently really fast running animation that, had they been in LGPE, would have given the same result as they do in SwSh.

I can imagine remakes going back onto grid based design for ease of conversion, which means a LG style overworld is possible but I don’t think it’s that likely.

I certainly could see that, and I suppose I could also imagine the games being self-contained and incompatible with SwSh, with their own limited roster of Pokémon and such, but I think I'd be surprised if that really happened. On the one hand, I guess there's what I've been saying, that maybe the SwSh Expansion Pass are meant to act as that "second phase" of the Gen 8 metagame, so perhaps DP remakes could be divested from that and do their own thing (like LGPE having its own separate meta in ""Gen 7""), but I have to wonder what the motive for that would be. Obviously I'm not a developer, but I would think it would be easier to continue building upon what exists than it would be to create an entirely separate division.

Extending this further into my own speculation, I really can't see them removing Abilities and held items again - that was a choice made to create a sense of fidelity with the Gen 1 games, which were fundamentally designed without those elements in mind (and let's keep in mind that LGPE still contained all of the data for Abilities and such, it just didn't use them - that's how we learned that Meltan and Melmetal would have Magnet Pull and Iron Fist long before SwSh came around). But that's not the case with Diamond & Pearl (which introduced some Pokémon that have their own Ability-based functions, like Cherrim, Arceus, and Regigigas) so I don't think there would be any reason to do it, especially since people who maybe hopped in on the series with LGPE and then tried out SwSh would now be familiar with those kinds of mechanics.

And as for GO-style catching mechanics, well, I'd argue that they're not really "simplified" so much as they are just "different." It's not like the standard catching system is hard to comprehend. The one advantage of the GO system is that you can't accidentally knock the Pokémon out, but that is negated in turn by the Pokémon being able to flee after a certain amount of time. Furthermore, I think the trouble that some people had with the motion controls suggests that the inner workings of the system is actually a bit more complicated and unintuitive than the usual process of making strategic choices and pressing the confirmation button. Plus, under the GO system, there's not really a way to make the Pokémon any easier to catch other than by throwing Razz Berries at it. With the standard system, you can whittle down the target's HP to hopefully make it a little easier to catch, and can also inflict it with a status condition. Beyond all that, it kinda goes back to what I said in my previous paragraph - LGPE and DP remakes would have pretty different "mission statements," if you will. The GO-style catching in LGPE was there to entice and appeal to people who were familiar with Pokémon through playing GO. But DP remakes would be targeting a different experience; one that is nostalgic for the original Diamond & Pearl and how those games worked.

At any rate, I definitely think the overall claim of "New Snap + UNITE + Detective 2 + Main Series Game for next year" is sound.

 

[Shib]

Hmm, just a thought, but is this maybe more of a species-based thing? LGPE had a comparatively very small pool of Pokémon. Like, do we know if Kabutops moves at the same rate in both LGPE and SwSh? 'Cause if so, then it may simply be the case that some Pokémon that weren't in LGPE (like Pheromosa for instance) just have an inherently really fast running animation that, had they been in LGPE, would have given the same result as they do in SwSh.

I can’t claim to have texted every Pokémon but I’ve had a few follower Pokémon crossovers between LG and SwSh and I can definitely say that with those LG uses the typical game following character formula of having them basically stuck one pace behind the PC and move at the same rate as the PC. Off the top of my head I definitely had a Meltan following in both- LG it easily keeps up, Shield it barely moves at all as you move. I get what they were going for in SwSh but it’s just executed in a way that makes the vast majority of following Pokémon feel broken in some way.

 

[FelipePR]

I can’t claim to have texted every Pokémon but I’ve had a few follower Pokémon crossovers between LG and SwSh and I can definitely say that with those LG uses the typical game following character formula of having them basically stuck one pace behind the PC and move at the same rate as the PC. Off the top of my head I definitely had a Meltan following in both- LG it easily keeps up, Shield it barely moves at all as you move. I get what they were going for in SwSh but it’s just executed in a way that makes the vast majority of following Pokémon feel broken in some way.

I agree with you, Mr. Shib. Follower Pokémon was badly implemented in SwSh, it is almost a not worth mechanic. Pokémons get stuck, they have very bad animations and etc... I have better stated it in "Controversial Opinions" topic:

I am playing Crown tundra and I can have a very controversial idea.

As much as I like the partner Pokémon feature in HG/SS, I can't say the same about the Crown Trundra element.

The feature is/was pretty nice in a 2D world, in which your Pokémon follows you very closely. Howewer, in a 3D world in which your Pokémon follows you loosely, the feature has so many issues. Your Pokémon constantly stumbles or gets stuck in scenery objects, sometimes it has bizarre visual interactions with objects or the scenario itself and, the worst, every time I turn over I stumble in its. Besides that, the Pokémon animations in overworld are a complete crap, theirs movements are quite odd and very awkward when you ride on the bike.

As soon as i figured out how to disable this, i did. For God's sake.

 

[Esserise]

not shiny forms and etc...

Hmm?

Spoiler

 

[Shib]

not shiny forms

Shinies do show on followers in SwSh - which makes the choice to not show shiny spawns in overworld odder

 

[FelipePR]

Hmm?

Spoiler

My bad, I misinterpret Mr. Shib declaration.

 

[Cainhxrst]

Crown Tundra was the much needed step away from the series recent trend of streamlining/simplifying everything (which came to its peak in base game Sw/Sh). I'd be really disappointed if DP remakes (or the next main series game after that, even) returned to simplicity

 

[Poke Dragon]

Streamlining certain things like getting rid of HMs is good, but I prefer that only certain things are simplified, like allowing you to access your PC box pretty much anywhere is a good feature, so needing to go to a Pokemon Center to access your PC isn't a bother anymore. Everything else like wild battles needs to stay the same in a traditional style.