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

[PkmnTrainerV]

and they were very non-committal about information on the Switch games since they announced them at E3 2017.

What are they supposed to say though? They cannot really reveal anything about a game 2 years from release.

 

[Silktree]

As someone who has turned 23 years old two days ago, I noticed that my cousin's child definitely has a huge attention span, as she seem to want to keep trying again and again after losing to an A.I. opponent, so that proves that the attention span was just a reason being thought out in the spot and not planned to be said.

An anecdote can't prove that. You need statistics.

What are they supposed to say though? They cannot really reveal anything about a game 2 years from release.

Well, they did just that with RS and DP (GS were an anomaly due to the massive delay). They probably stopped for a good reason (not wanting to steal attention from other projects, such as LGPE in this case), but it wasn't strictly necessary.

 

[Joker901]

Funny thing to think about: while we are still trying to understand when gen 8 games will be announced, GF has probably just started to work on two other titles that can be d/p remakes or gen8 sequels for 2021.

 

[Lufenium]

What are they supposed to say though? They cannot really reveal anything about a game 2 years from release.

They don't have to say anything, especially considering another game (LGPE) was in development and due for reveal and release before the Gen VIII game. I'm just saying that their silence could be because they faced delays in the Gen VIII development, and didn't want to give a release date that they may not be able to hold to. But also that they didn't want to disrupt or take away from promotion for LGPE.

Funny thing to think about: while we are still trying to understand when gen 8 games will be announced, GF has probably just started to work on two other titles that can be d/p remakes or gen8 sequels for 2021.

By now they're well into working on future titles, whatever they may be.

 

[Plubio]

I'm just saying that their silence could be because they faced delays in the Gen VIII development, and didn't want to give a release date that they may not be able to hold to. But also that they didn't want to disrupt or take away from promotion for LGPE.

I honestly believe the goal was always 2019 (considering a lot of other factors like the anime or the Mewtwo film), just that they didn't explicitly say it due to LG.
To be fair nobody expected a Kanto remake with GO-like catching system to be their first game on Switch.

 

[Oriden]

I honestly believe the goal was always 2019 (considering a lot of other factors like the anime or the Mewtwo film), just that they didn't explicitly say it due to LG.
To be fair nobody expected a Kanto remake with GO-like catching system to be their first game on Switch.

Yeah, it appears that the "2018 or later" came directly from the E3 announcement that said, in 2017, that it may not release for "more than a year" and wasn't changed to "late 2019" until they announced that it would be released in late 2019. So the release dates on the financial report pretty literally reflect public announcements and not internal release dates- there was probably no question on GameFreak's end of when Gen 8 was going to be released.

 

[Poke Dragon]

Well, at this point, no more excuses to delay Gen 8, they had a long time to get used to the Switch ever since that announcement and work out the problems they were having, another year of recycled content is a bad idea to have happen a 3rd time in a row.

 

[Oriden]

Well, at this point, no more excuses to delay Gen 8, they had a long time to get used to the Switch ever since that announcement and work out the problems they were having, another year of recycled content is a bad idea to have happen a 3rd time in a row.

Well they already announced late 2019, so it's not like there's any reason to expect any delays now. They're confident that it's coming out later this year.

I'm sure the comment about developing for Switch being a challenge was just commentary to express how they are trying to consider the new platform and make the best of it.

 

[SinnohEevee]

I hope we don't get another XY.

 

[RK9]

I just hope we more have a bit older looking protagonists of which the ages are kind of ambiguous due to their designs like Hilda/Hilbert and Calem/Serena.

Having a 10/11-years old as your character as a 20-years old guy feels weird since it's supposed to be a representstion of yourself.

 

[Oriden]

I just hope we more have a bit older looking protagonists of which the ages are kind of ambiguous due to their designs like Hilda/Hilbert and Calem/Serena.

Having a 10/11-years old as your character as a 20-years old guy feels weird since it's supposed to be a representstion of yourself.

Still think they should add age customization to the games- LGPE pretty much acknowledged that the series has grown cross-generational by that "share your childhood with your kids" pitch, plus trying to drag in the many middle aged Pokemon GO players, it would do them well to add some simple age options to the customization. Honestly, at this point, why not do it? You can still appeal to kids without forcing everyone to be one.

 

[TheMottledWren]

I think what I'd like from gen 8 is maybe a game like the earlier Final Fantasy games. Using 9 as an example, it's a big world with a massive story and there are still random encounters (though following lgpe they could take a leaf from Tales and have enemies appear on the overworld still) while still following a fairly linear story but with sidequests dotted about and extra areas were legendaries could be under certain circumstances.

 

[NinjutsuSen]

I hope we don't get another XY.

For me it's the last three generations minus BW2.

 

[PinkIceFox]

He was talking about LGPE, but it most likely applies to the next games as well:

"While you can still play in handheld mode, you now have the option of playing on a bigger TV screen while in docked mode. Given this new hardware, I’ve found it harder to make a new mainline Pokemon game than I had originally thought. Even as a Pokemon game on the Switch, does it still work? Is it possible for me to make all of those playstyles interesting? I think it’s probably about five times harder than any of you could imagine!"

Oh yeah, those big ol' playstyle differences of playing on a small screen in your hands or playing on a tv screen. Totally a new concept and never seen before. *cough* super game boy *cough* game boy player *cough*

Seriously, this comment makes me moderately concerned about what kind of dumb gimmicks they're thinking about putting into the switch games.

 

[Silktree]

It boils down to motion controls versus gyro and touch controls.

 

[PinkIceFox]

Or they could, y'know, not make big features that require those. Gyro controls are one thing because at least the joycon controller has the gyro controls. But motion controls and touch controls are really unnecessary if a game is meant to be playable in either mode. Kind of a jerk move to make a feature where you have to stop mid-playing and like take the joycons off the controller to throw a pokeball/pull up the fishing rod or yank the switch out of the docking station to poke the screen.

Not to mention that some people can't really do stuff like that due to medical conditions or anything. My girlfriend had to stop playing main nintendo games after the wii came out because she has DMD and only has use of her pinky fingers. :\ So as far as I'm concerned Nintendo and Gamefreak need to lay off the gimmicks for a bit and just make a good Pokemon game. Spread themselves thin with different gimmicks and the whole will suffer. Especially if one of those gimmicks with the gyro controls ends up like the puzzles in BotW shrines where you gotta twist the controller/switch at odd angels to get things where they need to go. I can't even do a lot of those with the switch undocked because it requires me to basically flip the controller upside down where I wouldn't even be able to see the screen if I was playing in undocked mode.

 

[Oriden]

I hope we get something better than every other Pokemon game. XD

If we could just get a "S/M done right," though, I'd be happy. Changing things up and taking it seriously? Count me in. S/M had the right idea, but I think they treated everything too jokingly that it failed to be as impressive as it should have been. Great in concept, but poor execution.

Also they need to learn to utilize cutscenes better. No one likes sitting around for minutes at a time watching characters stand around and bob their heads silently while reading lame dialogue.

Oh yeah, those big ol' playstyle differences of playing on a small screen in your hands or playing on a tv screen. Totally a new concept and never seen before. *cough* super game boy *cough* game boy player *cough*

Seriously, this comment makes me moderately concerned about what kind of dumb gimmicks they're thinking about putting into the switch games.

I think it's quite a bit different concept to have your handheld game played on the tv screen via a peripheral device and to design a game actually worthy of being on the tv. I owned the GameBoy Player and my parents should have never bought it because there was no reason to ever use it- GameBoy games were better suited to being played on the GameBoy.

Some of the difficulty they were experiencing may just be something so simple as working with the varying resolution. Unless I'm mistaken, GameFreak has pretty much only designed games for a specific screen size- it's easy to make something look good for a set size, but when you try to make it adaptable to very different resolutions, it's a bit more challenging to figure out how you can make what looks good on the little screen also look good on the big screen and vice versa. It's why a lot of websites look like total shit on a mobile phone.

>.> Also why some websites are opting to look like shit on a computer screen instead, but that's my mobile gripe.

 

[techitisJ]

Having an age customization for the games would be really cool. I could never see it happening, but it would be really cool. If anything, I can see them making a more child like male and female character option. and then a more teenage/adult like male and female character option. This way both the older fans and the younger fans would have more of a representation.

It personally doesn't bother me too much. I usually just give my character a random name and they sort of become their own character along the journey. It's really fun actually. Probably that little writer side of me.

But, it would be a really neat option for older fans to have a better representation of their age in their characters.

 

[multiingbe]

I hope we get something better than every other Pokemon game. XD

I feel as though it is close to certain that Gen 8 will be equivalent to what Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask were compared to the previous Legend of Zelda games during the times they were new, as well as how people consider them now!

 

[Poke Dragon]

As long as my character isn't smiling 100% of the time, that would be a good change for storyline purposes.