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SwSh Graphical Updates

Do you think Sword and Shield needs a graphical update?

  • Yes

    Votes: 5 33.3%
  • No

    Votes: 9 60.0%
  • I don't know

    Votes: 1 6.7%

  • Total voters
    15

RC821

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Graphics are a important part of a game. However, half of players noted that graphics are not good. So, I am opening a poll for anyone if the graphics should be fixed in an update.
 
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The graphics aren't amazing, but I think they're fine. Pokémon has pretty much always had fairly average graphics in comparison to other games on the same systems. And I certainly don't think places such as Motostoke and Ballonlea look bad.

I also think the Pokémon themselves look really good under the current lighting engine, and they're probably the most important part to get right.

Overall, the developmental resources it would take to create a bespoke "graphical update" (Is that a thing that games even really do?) are probably better spent elsewhere.

E: Oh, but they really should at least fix the Fossilized Drake/Fish sprite mix-up. It just makes the whole thing that bit more confusing than it needs to be.
 
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There are a few things I'd update graphics-wise, but not much, so I'm going to say no. The graphics are generally pretty nice for what they are, imo.
 
I’ve said this many times but I graphics are never what make or break a Pokémon game for me. Unless they are hideously atrocious or gorgeously beautiful, I barely even notice them. Sword and Shield really don’t have either of those.

Performing an update strictly for graphical purposes would be a waste of resources in my opinion. If they are going to update SwSh, make it QoL changes or add some more Pokémon in.
 
That texture work is quite nice.

Really, at the end of the day, aren't most of the graphics-related complaints about SwSh really just about the textures? In that regard, we can pretty much expect them to get better over time, since this was Game Freak's first time making an HD game. Technical improvement in Pokémon is always gradual.

Look at the DS games, after all:

Sinnoh_Route_209_DP.png

Unova_Route_22_Summer_B2W2.png
 
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Yes. SwSh's graphics are pretty subpar in my opinion, and rather underwhelming compared to other AAA titles such as Mario Odyssey or BoTW. The game looks more comparable to something on the Wii methinks. And while I understand that graphics aren't everything, I do feel that SwSh's graphics are... disappointing and do have an effect on enjoyment. For example, the graphics Wild Area really pulled me out of the experience due to how bad they appeared to me. Jagged shadows that pop in and out depending on your angle, the cursed trees, the bland rock pattern on the walls, etc. And the battle between the Galarian Legendary Birds shown in the trailer didn't look cool to me because it's marred by the graphics in my opinion. With the shift to more and more realistic 3D visuals, I feel there's less room for your own imagination, and graphics that don't look good serve to pull one out of the experience in my opinion. Plus, it's also a matter of how Pokemon games are some of Nintendo's star sellers; it feels like the games aren't up to standard with their fellow peers, as stated above.

That being said, that doesn't mean that all of SwSh's graphics are ugly or subpar. I do think the cities and some routes have some good graphics.
One user actually managed to fix the graphics. Note that this is an unofficial mod.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QIppLfc3Sw

"Fix" implies the graphics were original faulty whereas that is ultimately a subjective opinion--and I say this as someone who finds SwSh's graphics to be underwhelming and not up to standard, as said above. Plus, it seems like only minor quality tweaks were made, rather than a total graphical overhaul. That being said, I do think this has a partial improvement over the base game. While I feel the colors are sometimes worse in the modded areas, such as with the modded tall grass, I do feel the updates are better in other regards. Some of the trees look better, and several textures, such as the rocks and ground, are much more detailed and realistic. For example:
1603910014416.png

(timestamp: 2:53)

1603910223024.png

(3:22)

1603910267048.png

(3:27)
I feel like the modded version looks more realistic while the original version feels more emersion breaking, even with just a few less graphical details.

I'm kinda annoyed, though, that it's sometimes hard to get a good closeup comparison between objects because the camera pans away, the player is rather far from the objects, and/or the player runs by them too fast. For example, when in the Wild Area the camera swiftly pans away from the original version's trees, so quickly that it is hard to make a direct comparison between the original and modded tree graphics. Part of me feels this is almost intentional, as you never get a side-by-side closeup of the trees--you only see them at a distance--and for most of them there doesn't seem to be that drastic of a graphical upgrade.

Edit:
Tacking this on because it's a good observation:
(Really, at the end of the day, aren't most of the graphics-related complaints about SwSh really just about the textures?)
For the most part, I do think the major graphical issues are the textures, with some exceptions regarding mostly the trees as the models look weird and too polygonal.
 
The main culprit of the gripe a lot people have with SwSh's graphics is, and as i recall, because Gamefreak said they couldn't put every pokemon in the game due to focusing on the graphics and animations, and adding all pokemon and having improved graphics would be too much work (i refuse to believe these games weren't rushed to release in some capacity).

That's not to say that some of the new animations aren't pretty good or that there aren't some pretty good looking places here and there, but to a lot of people the games look overall underhwelming and i find myself among them. The trade-off between not having half of the pokemon in the game at release just to get some better animations and a few good looking places was not worth it to a lot of people. I do think a lot people would have been more forgiven of the game's graphics if it actually had every pokemon in the game, even if some of them would still lament that the game could have looked a lot better.

But given the success of the game, i doubt much at all that the game is gonna get some graphical overhaul, or even just improved textures. They don't gain much, if anything, from this.
 
No, they shouldn't do that. The game has been out for almost a year now and a new game will always take the most attention.

But I won't say I'm all that satisfied with the graphics; Lots of textures were plain bad. Yeah, objectively bad and low-res. I'm happy with the way most Pokémon are animated, only lamenting the fact that many flying Poke's don't use their standing animation but fly constantly during combat.

You know, you can make lower-res games much better-looking with good shadows, lighting and other tricks. SwSh uses none of those,except for some cities.

The game should easily be able to at least do BotW graphics (which aren't even that amazing to begin with, but work together far better). BotW also uses a lot of wind- and particle animations in the overworld; its usage of the sun's lighting is also a lot better.

At the end of the day, the majority of complaints are not about the graphics, but the very, very, very low difficulty of the game and it missing a lot of flavourful features which let the player stay engaged instead of OCD-grinds.

'Games for everyone and their kids' shouldn't be facerolls; kids like their difficulty, I bet many of us played objectively harder and challenging games when we were younger. The kids nowadays are even more used to gaming, especially multiplayers like Fifa and shooters like CoD and Fortnite, which can be challenging.
 
For me personally, they don't have to, since i don't care about graphics at all.

A game can have great graphics, but still be bad gameplay wise.
A game can also have a good gameplay, but bad graphics.
Pokemon from me, is in the middle. Decent gameplay and decent graphics.
 
I noticed that those infamous tree trunk textures were improved in the Isle of Armor and the Crown Tundra. An update to the whole game would certainly be nice, but graphics aren't really that important to me, and I actually think Sword and Shield look amazing for the most part, anyway. The only two things that bother me are the limited number of battle backgrounds, and the fact that they didn't carry over the improved model scaling from Let's Go. These are things which, I imagine, would require quite a bit of work to fix, and I don't think it would really be worth it for Game Freak now that they're busy working on the next game.

If Game Freak were to make improvements to the base game to bring it in line with the DLC, I'd rather they focused on gameplay features than graphics. For example, I'd love it if your Pokemon could walk with you in the Wild Area (or better still, the whole region!) and if Max Raid battles were updated with the improvements made in the DLC (stronger Pokemon for the AI partners, the removal of those infuriating barriers, and an option to do them alone like in that Vespiquen battle would be nice).
 
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