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SwSh Why is the reception for Sword and Shield so polarizing?

CometCartoons

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Hey guys! As a long time fan of Pokémon, I am really excited for Sword and Shield. Now I may have been spoiled by the leaks but that just makes me even more excited. I have seen many reasons as to dislike this game despite not actually playing. So tell me, what is it about the game that makes you so angry or distasteful? Don’t be shy.
 
Basically, from what I've seen, people saw the success and innovation in the flagship Switch games for Nintendo's other two big franchises Mario and Zelda, and hoped for something similar with Pokemon. Instead, in their opinion, Pokemon not only failed to reach the level of Mario Odyssey or BotW with SwSh, but also took several steps backward without making up for it.
 
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Basically, from what I've seen, people saw the success and innovation in the flagship Switch games for Nintendo's other two big franchises Mario and Zelda, and hoped for something similar with Pokemon. Instead, in their opinion, Pokemon not only failed to reach the level of Mario Odyssey or BotW with SwSh, but also took several steps backward without making up for it.
I agree when I see something in the sword and shield that I disagree with I tend to keep in mind that is a game company that mostly stuck to doing handheld games for decades. Even with all their experiences they’re not gonna live up to all the hype. Just like sonic forces, it’s important to keep your expectations low with all new games that if the game sucks at least you’re prepared for it. It’s definitely better than being “OMG these are like the worst graphics I’ve ever seen in my life and the Pokémon designs are sooooooo ugly I think might die.” Know what I mean?

Cause we adults that find it harder to enjoy the series than we do as kids, and blame the games for it
I always believe people’s expectations are too high even for big game companies.
 

Note that this forum is much more optimistic about the games, however - So don't fear giving your opinion about this.
And i was just pissed with half of the pokemon being removed, yeesh. I will take the length of the game with an huge grain of salt, because a lot of the time people don't specify how much content they did.
 
For shiny hunters, this one is gonna be really important, you cannot see if your Pokemon is gonna be shiny or not in the overworld

Looking at the video (archived version) the OP provided as evidence for this, it looks like the player runs into an exclamation point right before the Pokemon so maybe it was just an insanely convenient random encounter. Though, the battle dissolve doesn't look like the battle dissolve for random encounters...
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If it's true that we cannot see shiny Pokemon in the overworld, that would be rather annoying, especially since LGPE had shiny overworld Pokemon.
 
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Given that a lot of them are presented with evidence from pics to outright videos, no. They shouldn't be taken with a grain of salt, what they are saying there is mostly true.
the graphical ones are the only ones that really have any significance. and even then the graphics could be explained away by the fact that SwSh was intended to be a more handheld-oriented release as opposed to LGPE, which was meant for the docked mode. (this has been backed up in Nintendo's reports where they stated that the then forthcoming Switch Pokemon game was meant to utilize the handheld mode.)

the rest are influenced by bias, deeply exaggerate the impact, or simply are bemoaning that something that wouldn't have happened anyways didn't end up happening.
 
the graphical ones are the only ones that really have any significance. and even then the graphics could be explained away by the fact that SwSh was intended to be a more handheld-oriented release as opposed to LGPE, which was meant for the docked mode. (this has been backed up in Nintendo's reports where they stated that the then forthcoming Switch Pokemon game was meant to utilize the handheld mode.)
And still looks worse than Ultra Sun and Moon a lot of the time, a 3DS game.

Let's be real here: these graphics of Sword and Shield aren't pushing the Switch limits, not by a long shot. In fact, they look dated. There are much better looking games that run well on handheld mode. Look at Dragon Quest 11, a game that plays in handheld mode just fine, and it looks miles better than Sword and Shield. These games are clearly being rushed because either Gamefreak or Nintendo or maybe even both somehow think this franchise needs to be a yearly release, thinking that's a good thing. Pokemon could go on a 10 years hiatus and the announcement of new game would hype a ton of people even with waiting gap that long.

And i'm still laughing at the fact that they made 140+ models of Lillie for the Gen 7 games instead of just having a few models and have the appropriate model load when it's necessary.
 
the graphical ones are the only ones that really have any significance. and even then the graphics could be explained away by the fact that SwSh was intended to be a more handheld-oriented release as opposed to LGPE, which was meant for the docked mode. (this has been backed up in Nintendo's reports where they stated that the then forthcoming Switch Pokemon game was meant to utilize the handheld mode.)
Irregardless of what mode SwSh was developed for, its graphics are underwhelming and not the caliber they really should be, in my opinion.

And still looks worse than Ultra Sun and Moon a lot of the time, a 3DS game.
I disagree. SwSh's graphics definitely look better than any 3DS Pokemon game.

Edit: Even without the black outlines, Sun and Moon still has inferior graphics.
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I'd say it all started with the dex cut announcement. The removal of pokemon prompted a lot of fans to start scrutinizing the game for other areas it was lacking in, because gamefreak /did/ give "better animations, content" etc as their excuse. And it all just kept snowballing from there.


Granted, I wouldn't say "everyone" hates it. A pretty sizable, vocal, group yeah, but there's still plenty of people on the other side as well
 
I disagree. SwSh's graphics definitely look better than any 3DS Pokemon game.
They look only better because they got an HD upscale, but they hardly look better than the 3DS games.

Edit: Even without the black outlines, Sun and Moon still has inferior graphics.
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Looks very similar honestly. When it should be leagues apart because the series is going an handheld console to an HD console.
 
And still looks worse than Ultra Sun and Moon a lot of the time, a 3DS game.

Let's be real here: these graphics of Sword and Shield aren't pushing the Switch limits, not by a long shot. In fact, they look dated. There are much better looking games that run well on handheld mode. Look at Dragon Quest 11, a game that plays in handheld mode just fine, and it looks miles better than Sword and Shield. These games are clearly being rushed because either Gamefreak or Nintendo or maybe even both somehow think this franchise needs to be a yearly release, thinking that's a good thing. Pokemon could go on a 10 years hiatus and the announcement of new game would hype a ton of people even with waiting gap that long.
with respects to the first part: no, not really. but i'll reserve judgement on that one until i can physically play the game rather than base it off of screenshots.

re: the second part: sure, absolutely. but then again, why are we really comparing Pokemon's graphics? because when have they ever really been cutting edge? they've pretty much always been yesterday's graphics, poorly optimized, today.

the reason they rush out the games is really a simple fact: the bulk of their revenue comes from selling stuff related to the games themselves, but not actually the games. can't convince people to buy more Eevee plushies if you don't conveniently push Eevee. with increasingly more work required (i know, that fact might shock some of yall), their margins are also likely dropping. it all comes down to business: the people who'd want them to spend more time developing the games don't make up enough of their sales to justify spending a significant period of time developing them. though that may potentially change with with they've said about SwSh's development.

And i'm still laughing at the fact that they made 140+ models of Lillie for the Gen 7 games instead of just having a few models and have the appropriate model load when it's necessary.
there's a reddit post that basically breaks it down that the whole "Lilliegate" situation is mainly a non-issue. linked here, for your convenience.
 
i know you can't really ignore that hardware power between 3ds & switch is a factor but frankly, no image of upscaled Sun & Moon means anything to me in comparison to SwoShi since in actual practice, Sun & Moon always looks like potatoes:

pokemon-sun-and-moon-08.png
 
Do I hate it? No. Far from it. I pre-ordered it, I will play it and I will enjoy it. Is it perfect? Far from it. Does it deserve constructive criticism in the hope of improvement in the future? Yes, definitely. Especially graphics-wise and in terms of difficulty.

Anyway, the new UI and its font isn't praised enough. It's sleek as Hell.
 
Pretty sure the people that are complaining really got their hopes up. I still remember the "Pokemon for the Switch!" ads on this very site with an edited screenshot of Breath of the Wild. People thought it was going to be Breath of the Wild: Pokemon edition from way before it was even announced. People thought the battles were going to be at least Stadium/Battle Revolution quality because it was a home console.

And then...it wasn't.

Which people thought was okay, or at least tolerated. But then came E3. Dexit was pretty much the straw that broke the camel's back. That's what caused people to go completely off the rails and nitpick everything from then on. Even problems that has been around for years like having less than stellar graphics, which lets be honest started back during the jump to 3D.

I mean...as someone who really likes Pokemon, this whole pre-release period kind of sucked. A couple times most of the arguments made me question why I even like Pokemon still. I'm still questioning it after the horrible turning animations from yesterday. All I'm hoping is that come the next games is that we can just get along like it's 2016 and Go just came out again.

Also I don't hate it, quite the opposite. This is just some observation I've made during the pre-release, which honestly should be called "the incident" at this point. The only thing i didnt really like was how the marketing was handled. Like there was enough new Pokemon to reveal maybe one or two a month without spoiling everything like they did with Sun and Moon. But marketing has nothing to do with the game, so I just really hope that questioning why I like Pokemon and all the arguments people have made don't ruin my enjoyment.
 
I'd say "Everyone hates Sword and Shield" is a huge overstatement. There's plenty of people that have no problem with it at all, and plenty of people like myself who enjoy some elements and are frustrated by others. The number of people who truly hate Sword and Shield is smaller than you think.

Above all, I'd say the issue is that SwSh is asking players to give up more without a substantial payoff for it. We have the Dex cut, online play being placed behind a paywall, and a price increase, so people expect these losses to have something to make up for them. But it really feels like we don't get anything to make up for these cuts.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like the new content we're getting in SwSh is:
  • The Wild Area
  • DMax/GMax
  • Camp
  • Trainer Cards
  • Customization expanded
  • New Pokemon, characters, region, items, moves, abilities

And this is all great stuff, but it's hard to feel like it really justifies the content loss. (Most past games handled new region, Pokemon, etc while still including all old Pokemon and moves, after all) Yes, it's difficult to update animations for all moves, but if you're going to go ahead and have animations like kicking for Headbutt, why not keep in old animations so players can still use the moves, instead of removing them entirely? Yes, it's difficult to make a new way to interact with hundreds of Pokemon, but if you'll reuse some old animations for them, why not continue to reuse old animations for Pokemon instead of removing them from the game? Yes, the Wild Area does involve a lot of work, but if you're still able to import code like item lists, why would cutting out old content help develop new features at all?


I'll copy+paste what I wrote from a similar question in another thread:

Overall, I would think SwSh was doing perfectly all right were it not for the cuts and price increases. I wouldn't say it was making full use of Pokemon's potential, because there would still be all of our missing things, but I'd say it was making the same growth I expect and appreciate out of a new gen-fun Pokemon, region, and characters, graphic improvement, fleshing out some established mechanics like customization and affection, and adding something interesting and original, like the Wild Area. (and sort of DMax/GMax-I'm split on my opinion there) But standard progress isn't quite enough for me to want to pay 20$ more, and it's definitely not enough when there's a lot being cut.
 
Please note: The thread is from 4 years ago.
Please take the age of this thread into consideration in writing your reply. Depending on what exactly you wanted to say, you may want to consider if it would be better to post a new thread instead.
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