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

[prog rocker]

Feb 2010: Zoroark
Feb 2013: Nimphali
Feb 2016: Magearna
Feb 2019:?

we will inevitably have something new, it's obvious

Who's Nimphali?

 

[Icy Wind]

Who's Nimphali?

Sylveon in french

 

[prog rocker]

Sylveon in french

Thanks!

 

[Lixarion]

Sylveon in french

Whoops

 

[Oriden]

On the possibility of the next region being inspired by Southern France. I think it can happen, but it's unlikely to have been premeditated since XY as some people think, because:

1. From what we can see by interviews, the Director of the games chooses the place where the region will be inspired from by the themes and the names of the versions, that he also chooses himself previously. They probably were not even thinking about the themes and the names of the next games at the time of XY yet.
2. Masuda was the Director of XY. Shigeru will probably be the director of the next games, not Masuda.
3. If they were planning to make another region inspired by France posteriorly, to continue the Kalos' lore, why put Zygarde and his new forms in Sun and Moon, instead of holding them for this new region?
4. It has been said in some interview that the anime, somehow, would "close" Kalos lore.

So, I think the next region can be inspired by Southern France. But I don't think the absence of the XY's third version has anything to do with it. Even if it happens, I don't think it would be something planned from the beginning.

I personally still believe they were there solely for the cave paintings, not for the region itself.

Well, we also know that the 3DS was limited, so if they wanted to do significantly more with Kalos, they may have been held back by the hardware. So if we get a return to France that has remotely anything to do with Kalos, it could be content that was withheld from the first games- which may also explain why we didn't get a Z, because there's sure nothing like having a big huge plan of what you want to do and not being able to do it.

As for the Zygarde forms, they may have been designed or commissioned by the anime team (like Ash-Greninja and Lugia), or given to them to "complete" Kalos, and they subsequently got shoehorned into Sun and Moon because we already knew they existed by that point. I don't imagine that they would have wanted to leave us hanging with Zygarde or they would have been nagged by fans for years. Plus it would have really felt like an obvious loose end.

Could also just be that they want to emphasize the advanced capability of the Switch by expanding on a previous region like "Hey guys, look what we can do now!" Really not rooting for an entire revisit to Kalos, though... maybe a revisit to the southern part of it along with this new region because all we got was one little town before, but I don't think that we need the whole entirety of France in the game. I'd rather we get a multi-cultural region with southern France and northern Spain.

I’ve seen people speculate that it’ll be a successor for Pokémon Bank, but it’ll also be available as an App for Phones and the like, because said people pointed out Monpoké could mean Monster Pocket.

I do think that a phone app could be likely... kinda look forward to it if it does turn out to be one, because it would be interesting to see how that would work.

 

[RileyXY1]

I don't think that any past regions will be revisited in these games.

 

[Oriden]

One plus to returning to Kalos (or an area near enough to Kalos) in any way... excuse to bring back Mega Evolution?

I swear, if the secret Mewtwo figure turns out to be Mega Mewtwo X, it had damn better be a sign that we're getting some more megas in Gen 8. >=/

 

[Myth]

EDIT: @Myth I think that they put Zygarde's formes in Gen VII because they got cut for some reason in Gen VI, but were re-added to the games because the anime decided to use them. Doesn't help that the reason they are in Alola sounds like a hand-wave.

I was referring to people who believe that the absence of XY third version directly increases the chances of Kalos reappearing again soon. As if it had been planned by Game Freak all the time. If it had been planned, why not hold Zygarde's forms so far? AZ Floette also appeared in Generations (and even in the game), and even so they are still holding it until now.

I think XY didn't have a third version because they just didn't want to do one, not because they're still preparing a return to Kalos or something. And Zygarde has a certain relationship with Sun and Moon, since theoretically he is the defender of the earth (Earth~Sun~Moon), so it made sense to me. I wasn't questioning that.

 

[SodiumChloride]

we knew that we were getting a pokemon game announced in feb weeks before the s/m trademarks were leaked though. There was a leaked NOA scheduling list that included "Pokemon Niji" on it and was described as a "20th anniversary celebration game" .

I agree with if the announcement were truly imminent, we'd probably have more rumblings when it comes to leaks/trademarks/hinting etc

I don't know, I feel like nintendo has cracked down on leaks recently
Smash never leaked before it was announced. We haven't had any major leaks since LGPE (well we did have smash leaks, but that was after the game was revealed)
Nintendo and TPCI are probably more self-aware when It comes to leaks now. USUM wasn't even trademarked until after it was revealed, and they will probably do the same for gen 8

 

[Oriden]

I was referring to people who believe that the absence of XY third version directly increases the chances of Kalos reappearing again soon. As if it had been planned by Game Freak all the time. If it had been planned, why not hold Zygarde's forms so far? AZ Floette also appeared in Generations (and even in the game), and even so they are still holding it until now.

I think XY didn't have a third version because they just didn't want to do one, not because they're still preparing a return to Kalos or something. And Zygarde has a certain relationship with Sun and Moon, since theoretically he is the defender of the earth (Earth~Sun~Moon), so it made sense to me. I wasn't questioning that.

Gonna chip in to agree that Z probably wasn't planned (or that if they ever had any hope to make one, it was scrapped early on. XD)

I just think that if we are making a return to France, it's possible that they could use ideas that were originally intended for Kalos- like how stuff from the Gold/Silver demo got used in future games.

Maybe we'll finally get Mega Flygon. >=/

 

[Bolt Strike]

I was referring to people who believe that the absence of XY third version directly increases the chances of Kalos reappearing again soon. As if it had been planned by Game Freak all the time. If it had been planned, why not hold Zygarde's forms so far? AZ Floette also appeared in Generations (and even in the game), and even so they are still holding it until now.

I think XY didn't have a third version because they just didn't want to do one, not because they're still preparing a return to Kalos or something. And Zygarde has a certain relationship with Sun and Moon, since theoretically he is the defender of the earth (Earth~Sun~Moon), so it made sense to me. I wasn't questioning that.

So why not make Zygarde the mascot for USUM instead of Necrozma if that was the plan to begin with? Why even bother introducing it in XY instead of SM? Zygarde, Eternal Flower Floette, and the other bits don't really seem planned at all. It all just screams "we were planning Z but couldn't release it".

But yeah, I don't think they're coming back to Kalos. Their best opportunity to show off the Switch's power is going to be with a completely new game built from the ground up without any of the limitations of previous hardware. Whatever they were planning for Z is probably going to wait 10 years or so until they're planning remakes.

 

[SodiumChloride]

Eternal Flower Floette is apparently still in the game data in Gen 7, but Cosplay Pikachu's data was removed.

It's probably just lazyfreak forgetting to remove it
Like they probably just transfered the Gen 6 database and models to gen 7

 

[Oriden]

It's probably just lazyfreak forgetting to remove it
Like they probably just transfered the Gen 6 database and models to gen 7

Well it's a given that they transferred the database and models. There's no reason to build it all from the ground up when the models were just being reused anyway. But they did remove Cosplay Pikachu and you'd think with Eternal Flower Floette's model being known, they would have taken the opportunity to remove it if it wasn't ever going to be used.

 

[SGD]

It's probably just lazyfreak forgetting to remove it
Like they probably just transfered the Gen 6 database and models to gen 7

They gave Eternal Floette a Pokédex entry in USUM and altered Light of Ruin’s animation for Gen VII.

 

[TechSkylander1518]

Why go to the trouble of removing Cosplay Pikachu, then?

 

[Oriden]

They gave Eternal Floette a Pokédex entry in USUM and altered Light of Ruin’s animation for Gen VII.

I didn't even realize that bit- this is getting even more interesting. XD

 

[Cainhxrst]

I don't know, I feel like nintendo has cracked down on leaks recently
Smash never leaked before it was announced. We haven't had any major leaks since LGPE (well we did have smash leaks, but that was after the game was revealed)
Nintendo and TPCI are probably more self-aware when It comes to leaks now. USUM wasn't even trademarked until after it was revealed, and they will probably do the same for gen 8

there were rumors in advance talking about how smash game was getting announced and released in 2018 though. But I agree with you, we were blindslinded by USUM's announcement and I imagine they would want to keep a tighter wrap on things this time around given the anticipation surrounding gen 8. It is pretty interesting how they made the games publicly known in 2017 yet we haven't really had any leaks aside from Zell's info (whether that turns out to be true or not is a different story).

 

[SodiumChloride]

Well it's a given that they transferred the database and models. There's no reason to build it all from the ground up when the models were just being reused anyway. But they did remove Cosplay Pikachu and you'd think with Eternal Flower Floette's model being known, they would have taken the opportunity to remove it if it wasn't ever going to be used.

They probably didn't have it on their mind. They were making new forms for pikachu, so that was obvious for them to remove the cosplay pikachus because they were a waste of space. They probably didn't even notice eternal floette was there


And about the signature move, the animators probably just had list of moves taken from the database they had to animate and didn't think about whether they were used or unused

 

[Player Jables]

It's probably just lazyfreak forgetting to remove it
Like they probably just transfered the Gen 6 database and models to gen 7

They also updated its signature move animation from Gen 6 to Gen 7 tho..

 

[Oriden]

They probably didn't have it on their mind. They were making new forms for pikachu, so that was obvious for them to remove the cosplay pikachus because they were a waste of space. They probably didn't even notice eternal floette was there

Like @SGD pointed out, though, they gave it a pokedex entry and edited its signature move, so obviously they didn't forget that it was there.