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

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Megas are not a thing in this game? I personally think Dynamax is a really bad replacement for Megas since much more creativity went in an individual mega evolution, and it actually brought new designs to the table- but in Dynamax every Pokemon just gets a red texture and poop-looking clouds while the model grows to cover the screen.

It’s disappointing, really, seeing the mechanics that had so much creativity go into them being replaced by Totems-but-actually-(too)-large.
 
Famitsu interview reveals no Mega Evolution or Z Moves are present in the games.
kek

『ポケットモンスター ソード・シールド』の“いま聞きたいこと”について増田順一氏、大森滋氏を直撃。「連れて来られるポケモンの話」にも言及!【E32019】 - ファミ通.com

「特定のエリア内におけるバトルで一度だけ、3ターンの間ポケモンを“ダイマックス”させることができる。なお、本作ではメガシンカや、Zワザは登場しない。」

"Pokémon can be Dynamaxed during 3 turns in specific areas. Also, in this game there aren't Mega Evolutions or Z Moves".

119667
 
I absolutely refuse to believe that they remodeled every Pokemon again so that can appear Dynamaxed. Every Pokemon in the game seems to be able to be Dynamaxed, so there's just no way that would make any sense as a viable option? Maybe they uploaded identical models but bigger as separate assets, that sounds inefficient but at least it sounds like a decision that would make sense on some level. Individually remodeling all the Pokemon would only be necessary if they were too low poly to upscale and look good, and the models they've been using seem like they'd be fine? Maybe I'd believe that they'd add polygons and polish to the bigger scaled Dynamax models, which would take a lot of time to do for every model...

I still don't think Dynamax is the reason every Pokemon isn't going to make it into the game, though. It's tempting to blame that on Dynamax because most people don't seem to really be into it and its replacing megas and Z moves, but I really can't imagine scaling the models up would be that difficult to do? I could be wrong though- I shouldn't act like I know how everything in the video game industry works just because I know some basic stuff about 3D modeling and animation pipelines, I really haven't studied much about game dev. Maybe those models that we've had since Gen 6 that we assumed were future proofed really didn't look high quality enough scaled up that large??

But if that's the case, why go with Dynamax at all? I assumed that they went with it because the dramatic scale is kind of cool and it would be relatively simple to do for every Pokemon, but if it wasn't relatively simple to implement... I don't really understand why they went with it. Maybe other people find the big Pokemon more exciting than I do, but I just kind of think they look silly. My girlfriend disliked it enough that after I played her the trailer, she said she didn't like any of the starters anymore because they looked so ridiculous that big. I think she was at least partially joking, but I can't wrap my head around why they thought it would be that exciting? I actually think the big gym stadiums look cooler with the tiny battle in the middle, the scale of the stadium is more impressive to me that way, and it feels more like a real event that I could go to.
 
I wonder if any other beloved series had this happen?
I'm guessing you weren't a Sims fan in 2014? Sims 4 was that fandom's Sword & Shield.

RE: the model thing. I'm sure the cloud is part of the Dyanamax Pokemon model, but part of me hopes that the game just loaded multiple assets at a time. Then again, this is the company that made a new Lillie for each scene.
 
To be correct. All the pokemon left out of SwSh are not going to be left out in futere titles forever. More so each selection is switched and rotated around, so some pokemon you will be able to use eventually. It's not like every regional dex is the exact same.
 
Just why the hell would they make a new model for every Dynamax Pokemon?! Wouldn't it have been easier to just shrink the backgrounds to give the impression of growth like in Katamari Damacy's programming? Especially since it can only happen in a handful of locations. My programmer husband is flabbergasted at how inefficient and amateur that decision is.
 
Impidimp looks like it might have a theme of the number one. It has one nostril and one wing. My guess its first evolution will have two wings and the second evolution (if there is one) will have three wings.
 
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I’ll honestly trade away Dynamax for Megas every single day Iive. Megas and their lore was still natural to me, but Dynamax looks too artificial for my liking.

I was fine with both of them coexisting, but Dynamaxing replacing Megas entirely? No. No. No.

So that also means that the Mega designs people grew to like and love will also go unused in favour of a mechanic that simply oversizes a Pokemon model, adds totem aura and poop clouds.

Megas and Z-Moves had much more effort put into them and it shows- clearly. Personally it’s a bigger deal breaker than the limited dex thing (since I don’t have anything to transfer. I do understand that it’s going to be the biggest dealbreaker for other people, and I fully support them).

Dynamax shouldn’t have been a thing if it meant the definitive creative death of two mechanics which had much more effort, heart and soul put behind them.
 
  • Pokémon Character Motion
    • Lead: Masataka Hata
    • Sosuke Honda
    • Masahiro Ueda
    • Tomoko Kanesaku
    • Masashi Nakata
    • Tomomi Sakuma
    • Tomokazu Yoshida
    • Yosuke Takahashi
    • Kazuki Kobayashi
    • Masayuki Kawakita
    • Mitsuo Iida
    • Kazuhiro Suganuma
    • Akira Sakawa
    • Nobuyuki Takahashi
    • Yasuko Motoki
    • Mikako Araumi
    • Masakazu Tagawa
    • Takahiro Koizumi
    • Hidefumi Takeda
    • Nobuyuki Miyai
    • Hirofumi Horii
    • Nami Oosaku
    • Megumi Miyagawa
    • Masato Mori
    • Mika Anzai
    • Yusuke Morino
    • Keiichi Nagao
    • Yutaka Ishida
    • Hiromichi Hidaka
    • Yuichi Ishizaki
    • Kazuaki Toya
    • Genki Kaneko
    • Kazuyuki Matsumoto
    • Yoshiakira Nakano
    • Katsuki Hisanaga
    • Kunihito Ihara
    • Kuni Furukobo
    • Yoshihiro Maruyama
    • Kosuke Hayashi
    • Shogo Fujihara
    • Shigeru Takenaka
    • Hirotatsu Ishida
    • Satoshi Arai
    • Jun Takada
    • Yosuke Tanahashi
    • Yuya Kimura
    • Tatsuo Kuwabara
    • Reiko Kodama
    • Satsuki Nakamura
    • Koji Sato
    • Sayo Mikami
    • Yasunori Tatsuki
    • Keito Miura
Look at the sheer size of this list from XY's credits - over 50 people. I'd wager that a chunk of these people were outsourced, but the point is that they worked entirely on Pokemon animations. To argue that their time would have been better spent on map design, battle balance or a Battle Frontier, is nonsensical because motion is what they were hired to do. Now, it's quite difficult to argue that that their job now is much harder if you look at the E3 footage (which also shows how simplistic the Dynamax animations are). If Pokemon are really "expressive" anywhere in the game, it's the camping feature. Does it make sense to exclude hundreds of Pokemon for an optional mode? Absolutely not. You hire/outsource more people or just limit the camping feature. The end.

Of course, their reasoning is fairly different, but doesn't make for good PR.
 
If they cut all those features and Pokemon, and then the game is still the same basic, formulaic adventure with the same act structure and meager postgame that they've been doing for years now, and they still want $60 for it, we're going to have words. They're going to have to make this game mindblowing and do A LOT with improving battles and world design and immersion to justify this. We got the bad news out of the way, and Dynamax sounds meh right now. Every other bit of news is going to have to be astonishing. Otherwise, what exactly did they make that sacrifice for?
 
If Pokemon are really "expressive" anywhere in the game, it's the camping feature. Does it make sense to exclude hundreds of Pokemon for an optional mode? Absolutely not. You hire/outsource more people or just limit the camping feature. The end.
We don’t even know for sure that the camp is going to have entirely new animations. The sleep animations and such might be brought over from refresh or Amie.
 
Look at the sheer size of this list from XY's credits - over 50 people. I'd wager that a chunk of these people were outsourced, but the point is that they worked entirely on Pokemon animations. To argue that their time would have been better spent on map design, battle balance or a Battle Frontier, is nonsensical because motion is what they were hired to do. Now, it's quite difficult to argue that that their job now is much harder if you look at the E3 footage (which also shows how simplistic the Dynamax animations are). If Pokemon are really "expressive" anywhere in the game, it's the camping feature. Does it make sense to exclude hundreds of Pokemon for an optional mode? Absolutely not. You hire/outsource more people or just limit the camping feature. The end.

Unless the camp feature is basically as fully fleshed out as Nintendogs, it wasn't at all worth it. Even then, people were happy with Pokemon Ami and Pokemon Refresh just having your Pokemon hop and show a heart emoji for being interacted with.

I’ll honestly trade away Dynamax for Megas every single day Iive. Megas and their lore was still natural to me, but Dynamax looks too artificial for my liking.
Megas were great but GF was naive if they thought they wouldn't be mandatory on every competitive team. I thought that was literally their intention with the concept and when I heard them say stuff like "We expected a harder choice between a Mega Stone and Choice Band/Leftovers" I was like "do you people even know how your game works?!"
 
I am not sure what your stance actually is: are you saying that in your opinion they should cut "X" number of Pokémon in general, and not have them reappear in future games at all?

I think that wouldn't be very wise.

No, I don't want any Pokémon removed from existence altogether - I think that, when making an individual game, they should do precisely what they've claimed to have done here, and select which of the existing Pokémon best fit the setting in order to compose the regional Dex. It should rotate, as it always sort of has. But I think, while that makes sense for whatever current game they're on, the solution they've devised in regards to transferring feels very awkward to me. Like, we know Hippowdon is in the Galar Dex. So I can transfer good old Sarlacc the Hippowdon from Pokémon Platinum up through to Pokémon Home, and then move it to Sword. But Skorupi, on the other hand, might not be in the Galar Dex. So what happens? Assuming it would be in the New Sinnoh Dex, I could transfer it to the Sinnoh remakes... but not Sword? Not without a patch, at least, which Masuda appears to be "uncertain" about. So what's the point of allowing the transferring at all? I would think people would want to keep their old favorites together, rather than shipping them off to go live whole regions and game carts apart from each other. Sure, they can always come "back Home," which I suppose is how they're interpreting that software - as a place to store your Pokémon, so that when you travel to a new game's region, you can take along the ones that do appear in that region's Pokédex with you, and then you all go back, along with any new friends you made, to await the next adventure. But still, I just wonder if it wouldn't have made more sense to say that USUM are simply the end of the line for any of the Pokémon that were caught in the older games.
 
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I’ll honestly trade away Dynamax for Megas every single day Iive. Megas and their lore was still natural to me, but Dynamax looks too artificial for my liking.

I was fine with both of them coexisting, but Dynamaxing replacing Megas entirely? No. No. No.

So that also means that the Mega designs people grew to like and love will also go unused in favour of a mechanic that simply oversizes a Pokemon model, adds totem aura and poop clouds.

Megas and Z-Moves had much more effort put into them and it shows- clearly. Personally it’s a bigger deal breaker than the limited dex thing (since I don’t have anything to transfer. I do understand that it’s going to be the biggest dealbreaker for other people, and I fully support them).

Dynamax shouldn’t have been a thing if it meant the definitive creative death of two mechanics which had much more effort, heart and soul put behind them.
I do agree that creating Megas and Z-Moves likely required more effort then Dynamax, as well as being more visually appealing.

But we know nothing on the lore behind Dynamax, so I’m not going to judge that part beforehand if it’s natural or artificial, or well written or not.

If it’s all about the feeling in terms of the gigantism vs a temporary new evolution, I’d agree on that as I said earlier.
 
So.... the fandom is just falling apart?

Expect the Pokemon fandom to become like the Digimon/Monster Rancher etc. fandoms. People who admire the character designs but don't actually buy any of the products or engage much with the fandom besides browsing wikis and chatting. Pokemon had an edge on the other monster collection franchises because the size of content and the assurance that it would be expanded and not shrunk every 3 years unified fans. Expect that to go away - you can already see it happening on various social media across the web over the past few days.

No, I don't want any Pokémon removed from existence altogether - I think that, when making an individual game, they should do precisely what they've claimed to have done here, and select which of those Pokémon best fit the setting in order to compose the regional Dex. It should rotate, as it always sort of has. But I think, while that makes sense for whatever current game they're on, the solution they've devised in regards to transferring feels very awkward to me. Like, we know Hippowdon is in the Galar Dex. So I can transfer good old Sarlacc the Hippowdon from Pokémon Platinum up through to Pokémon Home, and then move it to Sword. But Skorupi, on the other hand, might not be in the Galar Dex. So what happens? Assuming it would be in the New Sinnoh Dex, I could transfer it to the Sinnoh remakes... but not Sword? Not without a patch, at least, which Masuda appears to be "uncertain" about. So what's the point of allowing the transferring at all? I would think people would want to keep their old favorites together, rather than shipping them off to go live whole regions and game carts apart from each other, and I just wonder if it would have made more sense to say that USUM is the end of the line for any of the Pokémon that were caught in the older games.

Sure, they can always come "back Home," which I suppose is how they're interpreting that software - as a place to store your Pokémon, so that when you travel to a new game's region, you can take along the ones that do appear in that region's Pokédex with you. But that feels like a very weird half-measure of a compromise. I guess I just have more of an "either do it or don't" brain than them.

To sustain the series, Pokemon probably has to shift from a "once every 3 years event AAA title" to a "games as service" model with an online component so that GF can update the series. Basically, the level of model fidelity and maintenance can be sustained with an MMORPG or a pseudo-MMORPG profit model. Pokemon Go attempts this, but there's not a lot you can actually do with the Pokemon in that game after you catch them, and the battle system is moronic. An expansion of Pokemon Go or a side project to replace it would allow for an infinitely expanding PokeDex and an income stream that doesn't have to be punctuated every 3 years after years of drought.

They might actually do this with Pokemon Home (with Pokemon Home being the core game and the handheld titles being for immersion) we'll just have to wait and see.
 
For the record, I’d also trade away Dynamax if it meant we could’ve had older Pokemon.

And they’ve said that we’re getting high quality animations to make up for the Pokemon loss. But where are the high quality animations? Physical attacks still look ridiculous in battles, and people have already compiled lists of animation errors.

Why don’t they actually show us the improvements? The current changes they’ve shown us are minimal at best.
 
Well, they kind of have to add data for Sword and Shield if they want trading to keep going "smoothly" for their next main series games. Compatibility within the same generation is the key thing they have to keep.
 
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