Official Pokémon Sword and Shield speculation thread (Updated June 5th, 2019)

[badwolf1234]

I think people have a right to be upset and express that they are upset. It's not merely a criticism, it is a complaint. Criticism is telling the waiter that your burger could have been seasoned a little more. A complaint is telling the waiter that your hamburger is raw or you found a hair in the salad. Excluding certain pokemon arbitrarily because of "deadlines" (presumably) makes the game feel unfinished; raw.

Now some people might see that same burger and think that it is not raw, because everybody cooks their burger differently, but to the people who think it is raw; it is a pretty big deal, and you shouldn't expect anyone to just accept a raw burger.

As such, I think that telling people to express "criticism" alone isn't really appropriate in this context, and is insulting to people who are upset about it; especially after GameFreak has acknowledged that they are aware of how important people's pokemon are and how unique that emotional connection is to the franchise. The whole situation is odd, and they need to know that its more than just a criticism.

This is NOT to advocate personal attacks of any kind, but it also really unfair to lump people who are upset over this issue and voicing their complaints in with people who are making the attacks. It's also really insulting to infer that everyone should not only just accept the burger and eat it anyway, but also be sympathetic to the Cook who served it to us.

This!!!

If we had to compare lets look at Apple, people have be tolerating their big prices with kess innovation over the years and keep on tolerating then when they lock certain functions behind paywalls, then tolerate them again when they just says No to every improvement need to their merchandise. Now look where are they now, in the brink of collapsing and lacking any certainty on what direction their product would go!

If we tolerate it now who's to say they would just reboot the system and delete all the pokemon altogether and make a new set of 151 pokemon right? Sometime we need to set our foot down and draw the line and tell them to stop and push through! IF WE REALLY LOVE THE FRANCHISE WE WILL NOT LET THEM SCRAP ANY OF THE PAST GEN POKEMON OF LOCK THEM BEHIND PAYWALLS!

 

[Zeta]

I also tend to focus on the newer Pokémon when I play a new generation game (I actually build my team with purely new Pokémon). But when I finish the game I love being able to pick from over hundreds (nearly a thousand) of Pokémon to build a competitive team, whether they're viable or not.
Having such a wide range of options we're free to choose from is what makes it fun to me.

As I said before, if they wanted to go with all new Pokemon for Galar this would be an easier pill to swallow. Instead it's more "HEY! Charizard and Pikachu are here, they're the main characters all other Pokemon are GARBAGE! Look the Champion has CHARIZARD! CHARIZARD! CHARIZARD!"

Assuming that leak is fully accurate, I'm not sure if anything named Team Yell will ever live up to the plotline of Team Plasma, but who knows. I liked Gen 5's direction (obviously) so I also would be a little more enthused if that was the direction they were going. They seem to have only moved away from that though as the years have passed.

Aside from plot, (which we know nothing on so far) I'm not really impressed with the animations we've seen so far. Like I said before, cutting Pokemon from the dex to improve on the others is somewhat valid imo; but the attack animations and the overworld of the wild area could be greatly improved upon, among other things.

The Badge Quest plot ABSOLUTELY peaked in G5 when it asked if it was even moral. With that out of the way, there's literally no other questions to ask and absolutely no where else to go with it.

G6 had a wet fart of a plot that was a rehash of G1 to an even greater extent than seen before.

G7 ALMOST went somewhere interesting with the Ultra Beasts that posited an alien world that had Pokemon. And then did NOTHING with that concept, only letting us see 12 of the Pokemon from an alien world.

If GF wanted to do this, they should've done a different planet with all new Ultra Beast Pokemon and no badge quest for a clean break. Instead it's just "Lol Getz the Badgez" again.

When you get a Shin Megami Tensei, Digimon, or Persona game you're sacrificing the ability to capture all of the series' creatures in return for a great/original story.

Now in Pokemon, you're going to have piecemeal content AND "Getz teh Badgez" as your story? LOL no. Not paying $60 + subscription fees for that garbage. I'll keep my team in Pokemon Ultra Sun and never touch sequels.

 

[badwolf1234]

^ Honestly, the not-being-able-to-transport-all-pokemon over to Sw/Sh is likely temp, likely fixable by patches, as well as future games, so I wouldn't worry about it.

Masuda specifically said that from now on this is the direction they would take meaning every game from now wont have complete pokedex and will have different set of pokemon

 

[Zeta]

Masuda specifically said that from now on this is the direction they would take meaning every game from now wont have complete pokedex and will have different set of pokemon

"Remember to subscribe to Pokemon Home for all the Pokemon you won't get to use! Give us money!"

 

[techitisJ]

If they do end up patching in the Pokemon, I was thinking of a possible idea with it. I don't think they would end up following this exactly, but I do think I can see them doing something similar.

• November 15th, 2019 - Pokemon Sword and Shield release worldwide.
• January/Early 2020 - GF makes an announcement that they are working on the next main series Pokemon games, but that it will not be coming out in the year of 2020. Along with this announcement, they announce that they are working on patch updates for Pokemon Sword and Shield that will add in all the Pokemon that were not included in the Galar regional dex into the games so that you can transfer over your old Pokemon.
• Throughout the year of 2020, they release these new patches into the game, pleasing the fans slowly, but surely.
• Then, at the end of the year, they make a full announcement of the next Pokemon titles (maybe even with a release date period of sometime in late 2021). As a little add on, they could even bring the national dex.
• Then 2021 happens and they do whatever they do with the next game.

This idea does a few things. For one, it gives Pokemon fans what they want, the ability to transfer in older Pokemon into the new games. No, it might not be all initially, and your favorite Pokemon might not be in those first few batches, but eventually, it will be in the game. I know that part is a little harder to swallow, but it's better than it not being there at all.

For two, it gives Pokemon the break year that they are needing! Allowing more time for Pokemon games to be developed in between, gives them more time to not only work out all their ideas, but add the extra stuff that they know fans will like. I know the major reason we don't have these Pokemon in the game right now is because well, there is just so many Pokemon. But part of that factor in itself is time. With the time they had, they wanted to prioritize quality over quantity. But with extra time, they can do both, for other features of the games.

For three, it shows the fans that they do care about what we want, and that they are listening. And putting these patches in during the break year is an excellent idea because it is showing fans this continued support over their current game, while they are working on the next one. Makes that wait easier, that's for sure.

There are some holes in this idea, and the announcement and National Dex are a bit extra, but they would make fans happy if it happened.

 

[badwolf1234]

"Remember to subscribe to Pokemon Home for all the Pokemon you won't get to use! Give us money!"

Right now it seems Pokemon Go would be the only game that will have a complete dex in the future!

 

[NealIRC]

So will there be more Pokemon news on Wednesday Thursday, or was it just today?

 

[EternalPKMNfan]

I have a question. Since Pokemon is a $90 billion dollar franchise, doesn’t that mean GF should have the money to hire more 3D modelers and animators?

 

[Tsutsayosdi]

I'm not sure where I stand right now.

On one hand, one thing I like to do with post game is to build ridiculous theme teams out of the entire National Dex roster and then go to town with battles for fun. I will not be able to do that as well with a game that doesn't have all 800+ monsters to choose from. I can definitely empathize with those who are upset with this decision even if I'm not ready to join the boycott or break away from the franchise yet myself.

On the other hand, it doesn't matter much to me directly that I can't transfer every Pokemon ever into the latest games. I never have and never would. I think it's perfectly reasonable for "Catch 'Em All" in one of the RPGs to refer to the roster specifically in that RPG, and only refer to the broader, complete franchise sense in an application like Pokemon Home for those diehard fans that want their Lusamine Eternal Stasis room for their "Living Dex."

We don't know a lot about Home yet. If competitive battling is available on the Home service, (or if the National Dex roster grows back to completion over time) I'll be able to reconcile both of my feelings moving forward, and not care very much about the curation of the roster in this or any future Pokemon game.

 

[MetroLSD]

Based on all the gameplay i've seen so far, the battle animations are just as static and lifeless as they were in the 3DS games. So what exactly was the tradeoff for locking Pokemon out of the game.

 

[NealIRC]

Honestly, you battle with a team of 6. They'll probably take all the weak pokemon that nobody uses due to the competitive play.

 

[EternalPKMNfan]

Based on all the gameplay i've seen so far, the battle animations are just as static and lifeless as they were in the 3DS games. So what exactly was the tradeoff for locking Pokemon out of the game.

They can always make the battle animations less static. Hopefully.

 

[Tsutsayosdi]

Based on all the gameplay i've seen so far, the battle animations are just as static and lifeless as they were in the 3DS games. So what exactly was the tradeoff for locking Pokemon out of the game.

The trade-off would be not spending resources on out-of-/after-battle animations, like the Scorbunny fist-bump seen in last week's Direct, or adjusting the aforementioned static battle animations (and there have been tweaks and new animations seen on old Pokemon like Machoke), and updating all 800+ textures to match up with SwSh's new style changes from USUM.

 

[El_]

Now in Pokemon, you're going to have piecemeal content AND "Getz teh Badgez" as your story? LOL no. Not paying $60 + subscription fees for that garbage. I'll keep my team in Pokemon Ultra Sun and never touch sequels.

The much higher price due to being a console game is also another major point of contention for a lot of people. If the content in said game is actually less than its handheld counterparts, then it will be viewed as a rip-off. At best, an HD port of a 3DS era title.

I'm not pinning on some kind of "patch" or update dlc like others here, bc game freak (to my memory) never did that in the past and this actually seems to have also been a design choice. I just wish the trade off meant much higher quality in other areas.

 

[Fairy Type Arceus]

Also what even is the point of transferring if it can only be pokemon obtainable in that game?

Swsh releases
3 months later
Home releases
Cool but you cpuld have already caught all the pokemon in galar, and now no longer need home to get those same exact pokemon :/

 

[Tsutsayosdi]

I'm not pinning on some kind of "patch" or update dlc like others here, bc game freak (to my memory) never did that in the past and this actually seems to have also been a design choice.

I'm not pinning any hope on content updates either. It seems like the desperate bargaining stage in the process of grief to me. But I'm not ruling them out. Policy can always adjust. Also, the nature of Nintendo's handheld firmware and cartridges never made content updates easy or even feasible even into the 3DS era, but the move to a hybrid console can potentially change that.

Look at Capcom's Monster Hunter franchise. Every mainline title (and Generations) has had separately released definitive versions (the equivalent to Pokemon's "third versions") up until the latest: Monster Hunter World. In an example of both a policy change and a change in what is possible given more powerful and versatile hardware and software, Capcom is poised to release the definitive version: Monster Hunter World: Iceborne as an expansion pack - not as a separately packaged game version.

 

[NealIRC]

Also what even is the point of transferring if it can only be pokemon obtainable in that game?

Swsh releases
3 months later
Home releases
Cool but you cpuld have already caught all the pokemon in galar, and now no longer need home to get those same exact pokemon :/

Cuz your pokemon from older generations could have the best IVs and such, and now you want to upgrade them with Gen 8 moves / abilities / etc.

 

[LuxrayOfTheWild]

I honestly have to say the fact that we can only transfer a Pokemon from Pokemon Home to SWSH is just insulting to the fans.

 

[Cute Charm]

Another random thought...

What if all pokemon...are in the dex...

But split equally between versions?

 

[AngryBinacle]

Another random thought...

What if all pokemon...are in the dex...

But split equally between versions?

Then they would've said something else entirely, obviously, and Masuda wouldn't have to warn us beforehand. It was a deliberate move, to not surprise us later on.