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

[Tsutsayosdi]

That's kinda what I'm pointing towards. That they LOOKED identical. Yet not the same models

This is absolutely incorrect. It's the same model copy-pasta-ed into different location folders to help the instance take less time and memory to load.

 

[Lanstar]

The model on the left is Partner Pikachu, the right is the XY model. There are very small differences between the two-- textures, a few minor tweaks, but all in all, they're practically the same.

Knowing a little about 3D Modelling, I see quite a few differences between the pikachu models:

-There are a lot more edge loops around the new model's neck and shoulders, probably to improve the deformations around it. The probably caused a bit of rework upon animations of it.

-Its cheeks have a different topology, in that they form a half sphere shape around them.

-The eyes and mouth now have new mesh that needs to be animated, where as before, they probably used animated textures for the eyes.

Of these differences, the last ones are probably the most prominent ones that were added, as they require more rigging and deformations to the mesh. And if they used animated texturing on these areas beforehand on the other 900+ models, that would indeed add up in terms of reworking their animations... But I would think it would be managable.

 

[Juizel]

XD If they made a time-consumingly unique flashy effect for every pokemon, then they should have checked their priorities a bit.

I'd absolutely admire the dedication in that case, though, not gonna lie. xD

If that were a problem they would've red flagged while testing out the concept noticing it takes up too much of the game.

Idk, I mean, with how often they put features in the games that they drop in the next games, it feels to me like they don't really test out concepts enough to figure it that might not work efficiently/well enough for them.
(Also note that I was mostly joking in my initial statement)

This is absolutely incorrect. It's the same model copy-pasta-ed into different location folders to help the instance take less time and memory to load.

Love how your title "Compulsive Fact-Checker" pretty much checks out here.

Knowing a little about 3D Modelling, I see quite a few differences between the pikachu models:

-There are a lot more edge loops around the new model's neck and shoulders, probably to improve the deformations around it. The probably caused a bit of rework upon animations of it.

-Its cheeks have a different topology, in that they form a half sphere shape around them.

-The eyes and mouth now have new mesh that needs to be animated, where as before, they probably used animated textures for the eyes.

Of these differences, the last ones are probably the most prominent ones that were added, as they require more rigging and deformations to the mesh. And if they used animated texturing on these areas beforehand on the other 900+ models, that would indeed add up in terms of reworking their animations... But I would think it would be managable.

Those things were only for the partner Pikachu, though, right? Do we assume that Game Freak brings all used Pokémon's models in SW/SH to the standard of the partner Pikachu in Let's Go? (I mean, it would be nice if they did, but I'm not really sure they would)
Thanks for your insight, though!

 

[Cainhxrst]

Knowing a little about 3D Modelling, I see quite a few differences between the pikachu models:

-There are a lot more edge loops around the new model's neck and shoulders, probably to improve the deformations around it. The probably caused a bit of rework upon animations of it.

-Its cheeks have a different topology, in that they form a half sphere shape around them.

-The eyes and mouth now have new mesh that needs to be animated, where as before, they probably used animated textures for the eyes.

Of these differences, the last ones are probably the most prominent ones that were added, as they require more rigging and deformations to the mesh. And if they used animated texturing on these areas beforehand on the other 900+ models, that would indeed add up in terms of reworking their animations... But I would think it would be managable.

yeah this is the thing I think gets overlooked often. It's basically a chain effect where minor adjustments to models require a whole slew of changes to be made afterwards (rigging, animation, etc)

Even if a lot of the changes are minor I'm sure it adds up with the amount of models. The only real solution here his to hire more people. I don't think gamefreak has anyone to blame but themselves for not opting to upsize their dev team sooner, but I do sympathize with them given their workload + team size

 

[prog rocker]

Zelda and Mario are like gourmet food.

Since when is Mario gourmet food? Considering what they did with the New Super Mario Bros. series and Paper Mario? And don't get me started on Mario Party.

Sincerely, if you're going to mention Oddysey, I see it as the exception, not the rule.

 

[Ambrose7]

If SwSh is as bad as SM, then I honestly wouldn't even buy them as used copies. The constant overuse of cutscenes (and especially that awful one in the ending) along with the forced linearity are precisely what made me dislike SM so much. I do not want to have to ever go through that again.

We had the ability to skip the cutscenes in Lgpe right? I do remember seeing an option to do so in the settings.

 

[Lanstar]

Those things were only for the partner Pikachu, though, right? Do we assume that Game Freak brings all used Pokémon's models in SW/SH to the standard of the partner Pikachu in Let's Go?

Pretty much for the Partner Pikachu. For the others, I wouldn't know, as I didn't quite watch the video - just the starting image of it. I'd need to see other models between Lets Go and X/Y to compare them.

I wouldn't be surprised, however, if the other Let's Go models remained with animated textures for their eyes and mouths. That Partner Pikachu was designed for tons of ingame animations, seen on a big screen - so those topology details would be much more important for it than the others.

 

[Oriden]

I think if there are any new animations, they're probably for the camping feature, since we haven't really seen them anywhere else... even though we still have all the ones from Amie and whatever SM's version was so I don't know why they would even need new ones there.

 

[SinnohEevee]

Creatures made 802 walking animations. Why couldn't GF have used them in SS?

And why cut Ride Pokémon? They were there in SM.

GF, cutting features just because.

 

[Zeosan]

While we all were talking about the models, I don't know if anyone pointed this out but I'll do it anyways, they did have the time to make 700+ of the 3D models for the XY Pokemon games before the release. Let that sink in... It was stated/confirmed before that they're using the same models for Sword/Shield that was used in XY/SunMoon/LGPE so there's still no excuse for GameFreak to be so incompetent about their decisions to cut off some Pokemon from the game.

 

[Knightwolf09]

While we all were talking about the models, I don't know if anyone pointed this out but I'll do it anyways, they did have the time to make 700+ of the 3D models for the XY Pokemon games before the release. Let that sink in... It was stated/confirmed before that they're using the same models for Sword/Shield that was used in XY/SunMoon/LGPE so there's still no excuse for GameFreak to be so incompetent about their decisions to cut off some Pokemon from the game.

You say it was stated? By gamefreak themselves even?

 

[MineFreak18]

Not sure if this has been mentioned, but I just looked over every pokemon's encounter animation from the treehouse (Wingull, Bunnelby, Machop, Machoke, Goldeen, Metapod), and they a did receive alterations to their animations. Wingull's animation change is hard to spot, but its intro animation is now one of its attack animations but held out longer and with its head tilting up (when it crys). Machoke's animation is now held out longer and look like it is crying out, and machop's animation is similar to machoke's new animation. Bunnelby has one of its attack animations now modified as a encounter animation. Metapod's animation is one of its attack animations but held out for longer with slightly different movement( i think). Goldeen's encounter animation is similar to the one in lets go but it is held out for longer. Majority of these pokemon did not have any encounter animations in sun and moon, but now all seem to use modified versions of attack animations that have been lengthened (with the exception of machop which has a relatively new animation). If you want to see another source that confirms these here is the link

Spoiler: Spoiler

View: https://www.reddit.com/r/pokemon/comments/c1pi8f/on_the_subject_of_high_quality_animations/

. But, yeah other than these "new" encounter animations everything else seems to be directly copied/ripped from sun and moon (with what we have seen so far).

 

[swiftgallade46]

@MineFreak18 can you please use a spoiler tag :’)

 

[Juizel]

While we all were talking about the models, I don't know if anyone pointed this out but I'll do it anyways, they did have the time to make 700+ of the 3D models for the XY Pokemon games before the release. Let that sink in... It was stated/confirmed before that they're using the same models for Sword/Shield that was used in XY/SunMoon/LGPE so there's still no excuse for GameFreak to be so incompetent about their decisions to cut off some Pokemon from the game.

Here! I did mention this, in fact. But it's always nice to get a reminder of that fact, imo.

Not sure if this has been mentioned, but I just looked over every pokemon's encounter animation from the treehouse (Wingull, Bunnelby, Machop, Machoke, Goldeen, Metapod), and they a did receive alterations to their animations. Wingull's animation change is hard to spot, but its intro animation is now one of its attack animations but held out longer and with its head tilting up (when it crys). Machoke's animation is now held out longer and look like it is crying out, and machop's animation is similar to machoke's new animation. Bunnelby has one of its attack animations now modified as a encounter animation. Metapod's animation is one of its attack animations but held out for longer with slightly different movement( i think). Goldeen's encounter animation is similar to the one in lets go but it is held out for longer. Majority of these pokemon did not have any encounter animations in sun and moon, but now all seem to use modified versions of attack animations that have been lengthened (with the exception of machop which has a relatively new animation). If you want to see another source that confirms these here is the link [Reddit post]
. But, yeah other than these "new" encounter animations everything else seems to be directly copied/ripped from sun and moon (with what we have seen so far).

So overall for the most part polishing stuff instead of making new animations from what we've seen so far.

 

[MineFreak18]

@MineFreak18 can you please use a spoiler tag :’)

Sorry. XD I'm a little new and don't know how to add that. I'll edit my post.

Edit: Just added the spoiler tag. Sorry about that.

 

[Lanstar]

...So I watched that video. I can't believe it - I pointed out all the same differences in the models as that video pointed out! Additionally, the video noted that in Let's Go, the alternate non-partner Pikachu and Eevees did not appear to have reworked eyes and mouths, and may still have had animated textures for them, like the X/Y models. Not bad guessing in my part.

 

[Knightwolf09]

Junichi Masuda Talks About The Future For Pokémon On Nintendo Switch - Nintendo Insider

Strolling memory lane

 

[Lanstar]

Junichi Masuda Talks About The Future For Pokémon On Nintendo Switch - Nintendo Insider

Strolling memory lane

The last part of that article is rather disturbing:

Game Freak isn’t blind to the overwhelming reaction that the news at E3 2017 was met with, and are certainly listening to feedback from fans as to what they are hoping to see.

Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon director Shigeru Ohmori added: “It definitely is really fun to see that, but at the same time, it is definitely a lot of pressure, so we’re going to do our best to create a game that answers those expectations.”

Masuda didn’t hesitate to agree, admitting that he hoped expectations from fans weren’t set too high.

“Of course, it is very difficult to make the game, so I hope people don’t get their expectations up too high,” Masuda admitted. “We’ll do our best.”

This makes me wonder what expectations they thought the fanbase had for these games in the first place, considering how these bolded parts suggest that they wanted their cake and to eat it too with the fanbase.

 

[Knightwolf09]

Well considering how of they keep announcing the difficulty of making these games, I'm pretty sure they even knew it's not going to be mega groundbreaking, but at least a better pokemon game. You know the usual progression.

 

[Cute Charm]

This makes me wonder what expectations they thought the fanbase had for these games in the first place, considering how these bolded parts suggest that they wanted their cake and to eat it too with the fanbase.

Back then, that could have meant anything like "oh, don't get your hopes up, it's not going to be Breath of the Wild or anything. This is our first main home console game after all."

But now it sounds like they expected there to be some sort of fallout no matter what they did. But they probably weren't counting on it being this big.