Official Pre-Pokémon Sword & Pokémon Shield Speculation & Leaks thread

[Myth]

It's normal that I feel nervous every time someone mentions BotW? Because I feel that's putting the 2019 game in a pretty high pedestal, and if the game doesn't deliver that (even if the game is great) there's going to be backlash, "because it doesn't fulfill their expectations". Just stay calm, expect something good but not perfect, and you're gonna be alright.

I understand what you mean, and I agree.

But Botw is not perfect.

I agree that some people are having exaggeratedly high expectations. But I think when it's about Pokémon, people will always expect something, at least, good, most of the time, something incredible, and sometimes (as now, by what is supposed to means the change from handheld to a home console), something perfect or very close to it (perfect or close to it in the context of the series, at least).

After all, money to invest isn't a problem for them.

Game Freak is one of the best game developers to me, their creative ability is incredible, and the love that they put into the games is visible, taking care of every little detail.

But there's so much wrong too...But I know the history of the company, and I understand the most of the reasons for so. And I still find them incredible.

Game Freak started as a gaming fanzine. And even today, they are a very small company compared to other developers who produce others giant hit series almost annually.

Spoiler

But I hope they at least continue to "evolve" over time, as they have always done.

The 3DS era brought many advances (XY was one of the games with the most innovations in the series, and with the best online system of all the serie's games, SM have one of the most well-developeds characters and story of the series. Pokémon designs have also continued to being improved over these generations, getting better each time, more diverse, and with more personality. And so on...).

However, unlike the GBA and DS eras, it regressed in so many others...(Difficulty went down too much, and yet they didn't give us a difficult setting. The post-game has subsided. The exploration went down on XY, and died in SM. In the 3D era it became even more apparent how bad they are in the programming and graphical aspect. Other day I saw someone saying that they use several Lillie's files for each place that she appear in the game. It means that in the game files there are several Lillies: one for the home of the Kukui, one for the bridge where we are saved by Tapu Koko etc.

That is bad programming. Much bad. They don't need multiple files from Lillie, that just makes the game heavier. Even those who don't understand too much of programming will understand that they only need a single file of the character and then they will be able to use it everywhere.

There were other things that I don't remember right now, but that just makes you realize how much the Game Freak's programmers aren't very good (as if other things had not already made us realized that)...

Their philosophy in the 3DS era (of competing with smartphones) also seems wrong to me. They are making games for one of the most important series of video games.

If people today spend a lot more time on others medias, you don't take content out of the games, by doing so, you're only encouraging them to do so. You should do otherwise, you should add even more content.

And as Bolt the Cat has said here once, and I agree, the fanbase is not only split in black and white (super casual gamers vs. super hardcore gamers), it's something gray. So by doing that (cuting content out), you're "alienating" a part of the fanbase, and it's also damaging and holding content from a lot more people than you think.

In my view, the 3DS didn't have much to do with smartphones. But the Switch has absolutely nothing to do with smartphones (maybe LGPE for having relationship with GO, but I'm talking about the traditional series here).

I truly believe they will leave that kind of methodology behind, along with the 3DS. Time will tell if I'm wrong, but I really trust Game Freak in this regard.

We're talking about the highest-grossing media franchise of the world RPG game. Pokémon games should be the example to be followed, at least in technical aspects.

The games should be able to please from the most casual person to the most hardcore player ever.

Your plot has to be at least good (And as much as I enjoyed the XY's themes, I have to admit that it did it wrong).

Your graphics and programming aspects should have a high level of investment, and serve as an example of quality in the industry (not so much the graphics properly itself, but the animations and all the rest of the programming part should be near perfection).

But for some reason, Game Freak, the developer of the main game series, the developer of the main aspect of the highest-grossing media franchise of the world operates as an Indie studio with only 143 employees, even developing multi-projects simultaneously, planning to launch annual games. Do you understand how strange that is?

I know that when it comes to investments, security is an extremely important factor. It is not good for you to invest too much on something with no exact prediction of return.

The company has been growing gradually, and I know they've been hiring for years. In the beginning, there were far fewer than 140 employees. And I agree that growing too abruptly could undermine the entire creative process of the company.

But at the same time, it is ridiculous that they have grown so little in so long, and after all they have conquered.

Honestly, I already accepted that. I'm not sure why, (maybe Masuda is spending all the money himself lol), but for some reason, the company still operates as an Indie studio, although they still present a product immensely superior to an Indie game.

As a fan of the series, I hope that at least they keep increasing the company for the years ahead.

And for the Switch game, I hope at least they keep evolving, as they always did, but without regressions like they did in the 3DS era.

If they had any problems in the 3D transition in the past, I hope they have already totally solved it. And that the games, from now on, at least return to the level of the DS era (but without removing any of the advances of the 3DS era), and that after that, they continue to evolve more and more, as it always has been.


tl;dr

Sorry, it got too long.

It's good for some people to face reality and lower their expectations a bit.

But on the other hand, it is quite understandable the reason for so much expectation about it, it isn't totally unfounded.

The minimum that the company can deliver is a game that will not regress in anything anymore. And of course, enough of the "smartphone competition philosophy", they have to be aware that they aren't making mobile games. They are ahead of the most valuable, and one of the most important video game franchises in the world.

I don't expect a Botw, but I expect something really worthy, at least.

 

[Oriden]

Is there any game mechanics we haven't talked about yet? Do you think the Gen 8 games could have a similar capture mechanic to Let's Go Pikachu/Eevee where you aim the ball and throw at the ring? I would like to be able to battle the wild Pokémon for experience, but maybe when you select a Poké Ball from your bag, it can go into capture mode where you aim the Poké Ball? Nah, Let's Go still has that luck factor in the capture so it might just make it harder than necessary.

You know what feature I want? Autosaving. Not just for communication play and the Hall of Fame, but every time you battle, pick up an item, swap Pokémon in your Party or Box, give an item on your Pokémon, use an item, watch a cutscene, talk to someone, examine something, go inside a building or cave, go to a route or the next town, etc. there would be this spinning Poké Ball on the lower right corner of the screen to signify autosaving. And you can save manually by going into your Trainer Card and pressing Y. And no, the autosave won't be a problem with Legendaries because the Legendaries won't disappear until they are caught.

I don't believe that the capture mechanic will be in Gen 8- if I recall right, development on LGPE began separately and after development on Gen 8 started, and it was promised to be a more traditional game? Besides which, people are already running into issues with the GO-style capture mechanic where it automatically switches balls when you run out, causing some players to accidentally waste their masterball on a useless pokemon.

As for autosaving, I feel like that could be a huge issue for shiny hunters. Or single encounters- because I'm not sure why one-time encounters like legendaries wouldn't disappear if you beat them on accident and the game autosaved? Even if they didn't disappear if you beat them, if it worked anything like Pokemon GO does, it would save the legendary as being non-shiny and so you would not be able to reset to make it shiny. Or if you wanted to rewatch that cutscene because you missed part of it- now you can't because autosave! Plus if your game lags while autosaving, like most things with autosave features do... yeah, it could be potentially very annoying.

 

[SeanWheeler]

Well, I don't really care that much about shinies. But maybe for people who do, maybe the legendary could be randomly generated every time it respawns so that it can be shiny. And maybe, there can be a Movie Viewer key item to rewatch events?

 

[PkmnTrainerV]

Auto save seems like more trouble than its worth.
People will shiny hunt anything they can (even gift Pokemon, not necessarily legendary).

 

[KenzeyEevee]

Auto save seems like more trouble than its worth.
People will shiny hunt anything they can (even gift Pokemon, not necessarily legendary).

Why is it trouble?

 

[TechSkylander1518]

Why is it trouble?

They just talked about it earlier-because of its effect on soft-resetting.

 

[Matleo]

How would you feel about hyper realistic Pokemon in gen 8?

a big no , no.

I hope that Melmetal the new steel type gets better abilities in gen 8.
Bc Magnet Pull would only be good if the buff it to be immune to steel type moves too.
That ironfist abilit on it's evo is also not enough for me.

Spoiler

if they plan a fire starter , a winged snake like Quetzalcoatl would it be to obvious to make it fire/flying?
Then i would make it fire/poison teach bounce and make learn whirlwind also make it fast.
I think that after the UBs remindet me of Aztects that this starters will be in this category.
I really would like to see a water/fighting or water/eclectric jaguar if they go that route.

On the other hand in future I really would like to see grass/steel, grass/rock, grass/electric , grass/fairy(druid) starters and maybe a necromancer with reuse of grass/ghost typing a special attacker with summoning and other qualities?

 

[PkmnTrainerV]

I hope that Melmetal the new steel type gets better abilities in gen 8.
Bc Magnet Pull would only be good if the buff it to be immune to steel type moves too.
That ironfist abilit on it's evo is also not enough for me.

It’s ability will remain the same, it’s a 99.9% chance, since they had the option to code it in without abilities but didn’t so it’s a final decision.

 

[Oriden]

Well, I don't really care that much about shinies. But maybe for people who do, maybe the legendary could be randomly generated every time it respawns so that it can be shiny. And maybe, there can be a Movie Viewer key item to rewatch events?

I just realized more issues with the legendary not despawning until caught- you could effectively defeat the same powerful pokemon endlessly for exp- and if it randomizes shininess every time it respawns? You just keep defeating it, strengthening your pokemon up, until it comes up as shiny. That just seems like a broken concept.

 

[prog rocker]

They just talked about it earlier-because of its effect on soft-resetting.

I just remembered something else: What if you release the wrong Pokémon? If there's auto-save, well, you are completely screwed. Doesn't help that everyone has done this at least once (specially if it's the first time they play).

 

[Poke Dragon]

Please don't include auto-saves, I know sometimes everyone forgets to save properly, but I think trying again is so much better than losing something forever, take it from the guy who played Animal Crossing: New Leaf and lost a few rare items for not paying attention to his inventory. I know I'll be very upset if I accidentally clicked on the Master Ball to catch a Pokemon and then the game auto-saves after the battle, unless off course, you get to keep an earlier save in which the Master Ball wasn't used.

 

[Icy Wind]

Why are you guys so against auto-saves? Every game that has an autosave feature also has regural saves. Botw and Mario Odyssey both do this, for instance.

 

[Knightwolf09]

Why are you guys so against auto-saves? Every game that has an autosave feature also has regural saves. Botw and Mario Odyssey both do this, for instance.

I think it's because they're afraid of the game saving at the worst possible time. Like if you accidentally knock out a legendary you're trying to catch, or said legendary or even starter is the wrong nature and the games saves after that point, there's no taking it back unless delete your whole save data to start over from scratch. Yeah I can see how autosaves are a bad thing for a game like this.

 

[Icy Wind]

I think it's because they're afraid of the game saving at the worst possible time. Like if you accidentally knock out a legendary you're trying to catch, or said legendary or even starter is the wrong nature and the games saves after that point, there's no taking it back unless delete your whole save data to start over from scratch. Yeah I can see how autosaves are a bad thing for a game like this.

This isn’t a problem.

In Botw you can choose to load your game from either the manual saves or the auto-saves. Pokemon can do the same.

 

[SinnohEevee]

I think it's because they're afraid of the game saving at the worst possible time. Like if you accidentally knock out a legendary you're trying to catch, or said legendary or even starter is the wrong nature and the games saves after that point, there's no taking it back unless delete your whole save data to start over from scratch. Yeah I can see how autosaves are a bad thing for a game like this.

Or when your Pokémon wants to learn a new move but you screw up and delete a good move.

 

[Kallyle]

Personally, I think the best way to implement an autosave feature is to make it optional, as well as customizing when your game should autosave instead of just an automatic implementation after every little action like @SeanWheeler suggested. That's just my take!

 

[prog rocker]

This isn’t a problem.

In Botw you can choose to load your game from either the manual saves or the auto-saves. Pokemon can do the same.

I didn't know they did that. Most of the games that have auto-save don't have that option, which is why I was never aware of it.

 

[Jackalantyrn]

I just realized there are no fishing rods in LGPE. it’s taking forever to get a water type pokemon.

No. To auto save. It would save anytime you black out which would be a save, and 9 out of 10 times reloading is at a ridiculous spot if they did BOTW style which i think is a horrible method anyway. You never find the correct save you need. Even my own personal saves get lost in the clutter. It’s just easier to remember to save every so often as needed. There are few games I find autosaving actually useful. What if you can’t have a pokemon faint and it does? No thank you I would rather try that again. I always save before gym battles for example, so I can do it again. Shiny hunting is always a good example to this not being good. I just think this would be an all around nightmare. Besides in pokemon everytime you get in the menu (which is probably often as you are always getting into the pouch or party) the save is right there. Just take two seconds and save it while you there.

Features to keep for gen 8. The PC box in the actual menu. It makes my life sooooo much easier!

 

[Icy Wind]

Here’s a simple solution:

You can still manually save, and the game will autosave after taking x amount of steps. Then, when you decide to reload the game, you can pick to load from either the manual save or the most recent autosave. Everyone is happy. No fear of losing a shiny legendary or whatever.

 

[BigBadButterfree]

I would say just have it auto save when you use the Pokemon center. That way it shouldn't affect anything like soft-resets.

Or just don't include it, I don't care either way tbh.