SwSh Why are people saying the graphics are "bad"?

[Kallyle]

His reasons were-

1. Graphics
2. Balance, which we know isn’t a reason. GameFreak managed to make an unbalanced game with the most limited roster yet. These are the same devs which created Mega Rayquaza, Mega Mewtwo and Ultra Necrozma back to back.
3. It’s too cold in Galar for my Typhlosion to survive.

I feel free as a paying consumer to see these reasons and question them when they’re proving to be bullshit.

All of those were secondary reasons though. The main reason was because Game Freak dreaded reach over 1000 Pokémon in one game, which I think is the stupidest reason ever.

 

[Desdar300]

I doubt Dynamaxing's the problem, they would've backed out the moment it started causing problems

That would depend on how far along the idea was.
The new policy seems to suggest that they don't want any older ideas or mons holding them back from making new ideas.

 

[BlueWaves]

I don’t think graphics are bad per se, it’s just they could be a lot better. The shading and depths of the shadows are oddly placed, so the characters look they are floating. I won’t give my final opinion until the games are officially launched.

 

[Bolt Strike]

As far as we know that we haven't seen, according to Joe Merrick, Pokemon do have celebration animations. He has said he has seen a clip of you and your Pokemon celebrating after defeating Nessa in the demo, so every Pokemon likely has a celebration animation. They also likely have had to create tons of animations for this game's version of Refresh, which supposedly has toys you can use to play with your Pokemon, which could require unique animations. Its possible also that all Pokemon have overworld animations and possibly animations for cutscenes.

If celebration animations are the reason behind the cull, I really have to question their priorities. Is having something so superfluous really worth losing half the dex? I think most people would agree that wouldn't be a worthwhile trade.

New animations for refresh is a little more understandable since that's for actual gameplay purposes, but I don't think people are really clamoring for more Refresh.

You are oversimplifying the first point. He never said better graphics were the reason for the pokemon culling. At least not as how you are putting it. The game is a huge step up from its predecessors in many things and thus requires more time. Putting all pokemon in the games is not something they can do within the time constraints they have. And hence to not delay the games, they had to cut a few pokemon from the games. The time limit was the primary reason.

Who said they needed those time constraints in the first place? No one's holding a gun to their head and saying they have to spend 3 years on their games. Console games require more time to get right so they should you know, spend more time developing them. Any "time constraints" they have are completely self-imposed.

 

[Kallyle]

New animations for refresh is a little more understandable since that's for actual gameplay purposes, but I don't think people are really clamoring for more Refresh.

I actually want Refresh to expand the amount of interaction you have with your Pokémon. More specifically, something like what Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance did with its Dream Eater companions would be ideal.

 

[Desdar300]

If celebration animations are the reason behind the cull, I really have to question their priorities. Is having something so superfluous really worth losing half the dex? I think most people would agree that wouldn't be a worthwhile trade.

New animations for refresh is a little more understandable since that's for actual gameplay purposes, but I don't think people are really clamoring for more Refresh.



Who said they needed those time constraints in the first place? No one's holding a gun to their head and saying they have to spend 3 years on their games. Console games require more time to get right so they should you know, spend more time developing them. Any "time constraints" they have are completely self-imposed.

Idk know about that since a lot of those animations can be seen in various trailers as well ( Like Grookey IIRC)
I think that Maxxing is the case ( And I'll say that until the Blue Seagull comes home) but I just hate that we have to deal with people finding random Bootleg apps to beat a dead horse

 

[Bolt Strike]

I actually want Refresh to expand the amount of interaction you have with your Pokémon. More specifically, something like what Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance did with its Dream Eater companions would be ideal.

Do you want that more than you want the National Dex though? I can't imagine many people would.

Idk know about that since a lot of those animations can be seen in various trailers as well ( Like Grookey IIRC)
I think that Maxxing is the case ( And I'll say that until the Blue Seagull comes home) but I just hate that we have to deal with people finding random Bootleg apps to beat a dead horse

They're just regular Pokemon blown up and slowed down, I highly doubt that's the reason.

 

[Desdar300]

Do you want that more than you want the National Dex though? I can't imagine many people would.



They're just regular Pokemon blown up and slowed down, I highly doubt that's the reason.

It sounds simple but I don't think all the mons would transfer over smoothly.
Something like Dynamax Ray or Zygarde ( And it's two forms) sound like a nightmare touchup on

 

[Kallyle]

Do you want that more than you want the National Dex though? I can't imagine many people would.

That’s a no. I more so want it as a compensation for that screw up.

I’m just pointing out that there are people who do care about Refresh.

 

[Esserise]

Come to think of it, didn't the Totem Pokémon in SM have entirely separate models rather than just blowing up the existing ones to a larger size? I don't know the technicals of it, but I seem to recall a file dump that had duplicates next to each of the Totem Pokémon (aside from Wishiwashi, whose Totem didn't end up being bigger anyway) and, weirdly, Zygarde's forms. I kind of remember it causing some debate and making some people think that Zygarde would be a Totem Pokémon, with other people contesting that on the grounds that Wishiwashi didn't have a double but we knew it was a Totem because of that fucking great trailer.

 

[Ambrose7]

If celebration animations are the reason behind the cull, I really have to question their priorities. Is having something so superfluous really worth losing half the dex? I think most people would agree that wouldn't be a worthwhile trade.

New animations for refresh is a little more understandable since that's for actual gameplay purposes, but I don't think people are really clamoring for more Refresh.



Who said they needed those time constraints in the first place? No one's holding a gun to their head and saying they have to spend 3 years on their games. Console games require more time to get right so they should you know, spend more time developing them. Any "time constraints" they have are completely self-imposed.

And I never claimed otherwise. In fact if you see my older posts, I've always said it would be better if they would take a break.

That said I'm sure it's not so simple. Nothing as serious about holding a gun to the head but we don't know what's the relationship between Nintendo and Gamefreak when it comes to Pokémon releases. And as many have said before, there's merch, tcg, anime and all to consider as well. In a weird way, Pokémon is too big now to consider delaying. I wish they would though.

 

[Desdar300]

Come to think of it, didn't the Totem Pokémon in SM have entirely separate models rather than just blowing up the existing ones to a larger size? I don't know the technicals of it, but I seem to recall a file dump that had duplicates next to each of the Totem Pokémon (aside from Wishiwashi, whose Totem didn't end up being bigger anyway) and, weirdly, Zygarde's forms. I kind of remember it causing some debate and making some people think that Zygarde would be a Totem Pokémon, with other people contesting that on the grounds that Wishiwashi didn't have a double but we knew it was a Totem because of that fucking great trailer.

Yes each Totem had a separate model in the coding.

 

[PkmnTrainerV]

As far as we know that we haven't seen, according to Joe Merrick, Pokemon do have celebration animations. He has said he has seen a clip of you and your Pokemon celebrating after defeating Nessa in the demo, so every Pokemon likely has a celebration animation.

Wasn’t that found to be the Pokémon's special attack animation though?

All of those were secondary reasons though. The main reason was because Game Freak dreaded reach over 1000 Pokémon in one game, which I think is the stupidest reason ever.

They never said it was a reason. They just said that there’s going to be 1000 Pokémon including forms after SwSh (which is already the case if stuff like Arceus plate forms is considered).

 

[Ambrose7]

Wasn’t that found to be the Pokémon's special attack animation though?


They never said it was a reason. They just said that there’s going to be 1000 Pokémon including forms after SwSh (which is already the case if stuff like Arceus plate forms is considered).

While not directly they did mention the more than 800 Pokémon thing back in E3 threehouse video just before announcing the Pokémon culling though.

 

[Esserise]

Hi

Masuda reiterates that with the shift to the Switch, the amount of time needed to make the graphics more beautiful and the animations more lively has increased. Another aspect is the fact that the Pokemon series has reached over 1,000 Pokemon (including form changes), and as such, apart from the graphics, balancing for new Pokemon with new abilities has become very hard. This is the reason behind the decision this time, and they have judged that it will be hard for all the Pokemon to appear, even in titles going forward. This was a decision that had to be made sooner or later, according to Masuda.

According to Ohmori, even in Pokemon Sun & Moon, bringing in every Pokemon was something barely manageable, and with Pokemon Sword & Shield and the need to redo models, and so they had to make a decision. However, Ohmori says that despite this, the Wild Areas and story will have quite a bit of content to make up for it.

They didn't just mention that "1000 Pokémon" thing in a vacuum as some kind of PR boast. It was said in relation to their decision to cut the Dex - and of course that's part of it; we know they've been concerned about it for a while now and the whole issue they talked about was the time it takes to animate each Pokémon and make them expressive. A higher amount of Pokémon would obviously mean that more time needs to go into that.

 

[Tsutsayosdi]

Come to think of it, didn't the Totem Pokémon in SM have entirely separate models rather than just blowing up the existing ones to a larger size? I don't know the technicals of it, but I seem to recall a file dump that had duplicates next to each of the Totem Pokémon (aside from Wishiwashi, whose Totem didn't end up being bigger anyway) and, weirdly, Zygarde's forms. I kind of remember it causing some debate and making some people think that Zygarde would be a Totem Pokémon, with other people contesting that on the grounds that Wishiwashi didn't have a double but we knew it was a Totem because of that fucking great trailer.

It's the Lillie model thing in a different application. It saves processing power to just make a copy of the original Pokemon model, size it up and add the aura effect and then use that separately for the Totem Pokemon rather than use the file for the original Pokemon and apply the size increase and aura during executables.

 

[El_]

Didn't care about the graphics that much till e3, as I've stated in other threads. To be fair, the recent trailer does look cleaner compared to past ones, but that also needs to translate to game-play features. I'm not all that impressed with the Wild Area as it stands, nor the Pokemon animations, over-world itself, and Dyna/Gigamax.

Are they a step up from the previous title visually? Sure. So was nearly every other single main series title. But there's the thing. These are console games now which cost MORE than those other titles with LESS content. I bolded that, because it seems as if people are constantly forgetting this. You'd have a better argument if these were 3DS titles, but they aren't. They are Switch titles, and should be compared to the offerings of other Switch titles, unless people want to seriously argue that they are actually ports in disguise. This is also why people expected more from these particular games, bc y'know, they are console games and the other Switch titles were mixing up their past formulas in order to bring out that console's game-play potential.

Game Freak themselves also pointed to animation reasons as for more... controversial decisions of said cut content. It's obvious to me that was the Dyna/Giga gimmick they may have been alluding to, and I don't think it was worth the cut. So far, I just don't think these games warrant the higher price point that puts them on parity with the other Switch titles. If there is seriously little to no post-game as some leaks suggest, then they certainly don't warrant it. This graphics debate cuts both ways, a lot of us are really just sick & tired of feature after feature being removed, and slapping a higher price point on top of it is akin to a slap in the face.

 

[Esserise]

These are console games now which cost MORE than those other titles with LESS content. I bolded that, because it seems as if people are constantly forgetting this. You'd have a better argument if these were 3DS titles, but they aren't. They are Switch titles, and should be compared to the offerings of other Switch titles, unless people want to seriously argue that they are actually ports in disguise. This is also why people expected more from these particular games, bc y'know, they are console games and the other Switch titles were mixing up their past formulas in order to bring out that console's game-play potential.

Wouldn't the pricing of the games have less to do with the amount of content relative to other games and more to do with the cost of development resources (which now have to account for the games being in HD, as well) and production/publication of the physical game? That is to say, I don't think that BOTW costs $60 simply because they thought, "Look at all this lovely content we've prepared for you, our dear players! ", but rather because that's what Nintendo have determined will be competitive in the market while still giving them the most profit in return for what had to come out of their end in order to produce and manufacture the game. And I would think that those statistics, particularly in regards to manufacturing Switch games, would be similar for Pokémon.

 

[El_]

Wouldn't the pricing of the games have less to do with the amount of content relative to other games and more to do with the cost of development resources (which now have to account for the games being in HD, as well) and production/publication of the physical game? That is to say, I don't think that BOTW costs $60 simply because they thought, "Look at all this lovely content we've prepared for you, our dear players! ", but rather because that's what Nintendo have determined will be competitive in the market while still giving them the most profit in return for what had to come out of their end in order to produce and manufacture the game. And I would think that those statistics, particularly in regards to manufacturing Switch games, would be similar for Pokémon.

Considering it's just up-scaling past models in HD for the most part I can't see why that would cost so much more. BOTW was (lets assume for now) far larger a game than SwSh looks so far as well.

The Switch can run that game smoothly and even Witcher 3, so yes, things should really have been stepped up on all fronts. I'm not just comparing games for no reason, I'm just highlighting what the Switch is capable of. Up-scaled (HD) 3DS models should not be seen as an acceptable upgrade. Honestly, I'd say the same for Let's Go.

 

[Kallyle]

Wouldn't the pricing of the games have less to do with the amount of content relative to other games and more to do with the cost of development resources (which now have to account for the games being in HD, as well) and production/publication of the physical game? That is to say, I don't think that BOTW costs $60 simply because they thought, "Look at all this lovely content we've prepared for you, our dear players! ", but rather because that's what Nintendo have determined will be competitive in the market while still giving them the most profit in return for what had to come out of their end in order to produce and manufacture the game. And I would think that those statistics, particularly in regards to manufacturing Switch games, would be similar for Pokémon.

I know that's the main reason, but I think what @El_ was trying to get at was that higher pricing comes with higher expectations for games. Consumers want to purchase something they feel is worth that price. The average person isn't going to think of how much it costs to produce these games; they want what they expect of the games they buy, especially when said games have a higher price in comparison to similar games in the franchise/genre.