honestly I thought the PMD models were remade (but of course largely based on the existing ones) kinda like a weird thing halfway of rumble and just the full models
but yeah this makes sense, im just dumb LOL
-
Welcome to Smogon! Take a moment to read the Introduction to Smogon for a run-down on everything Smogon, and make sure you take some time to read the global rules.
Unpopular opinions
- Thread starter antemortem
- Start date
but yeah this makes sense, im just dumb LOL
TBF, PBR definitely established this flatter saturated texturing and modeling style for Gen 4/some 1 mons. Some devs there went to Pokepark onwards dev
Rumble models were definitely used for Mystery Dungeon Wiiware, not GTI. It seems to specifically be made for Wiiware limitations, despite reuse on Wii U Rumble
Rumble models were definitely used for Mystery Dungeon Wiiware, not GTI. It seems to specifically be made for Wiiware limitations, despite reuse on Wii U Rumble
Ehh, I get the idea of future-proofing, but ultimately, that's why people went beyond mad about SwSh.
Ironically, I don't think the price tag was the issue.
It was all very symptomatic. They had that disastrous showcase explaining Dexit, and then when they showed the game...
- The Tree.
- Outrageously bad animations across the board.
- The same future-proofed models that were supposed to prevent this from happening to begin with
The whole point of Dexit was to divert resources into polishing the game, and SwSh was blatantly not benefiting from any of that.
I wasn't saying that it was, just that it was what made the controversy louder than it would've otherwise been. Lots of games release with scummy practices or horrendously bad graphics and have discourses that do not leave their communities whatsoever.
Totally agree with you. It had its flaws, but the fresh approach was actually pretty fun.
Last edited:
"Legends Arceus is actually bad and overhyped, it only looks decent in comparison to stuff like BDSP"
I wish I could be that generous to L:A. BDSP is real rough and I know it, but it looked good enough by comparison that I bought it within a couple weeks of L:A coming out.
I know it's not exactly an unpopular opinion to say L:A was good, but yeah, it was a really good game and does show that Pokémon can work with an open world, though granted the smaller scale definitely helps there. I mean it can't be too bad a game if some guys rip it off, stick ARK style base building to it, and then get PC untermensch to say Pokémon should change to be more like it.
Really though, I think the big thing with the issues they have with open worlds have to do with the scale and dev time. I mean the Wild Area in SwSh was added mid development because people responded well to wandering Pokémon in Let's Go, so there's only so much you can do for that on such short notice. Add in the short dev cycles that Pokémon games get despite the devs' ambitions growing larger and larger, and you end up getting many of the issues of the main games such as background graphics. Can you work those out and get the game running well? Yes, but not easily when you've got maybe 2 years to do it. And it's not like we haven't known some of the games can be rushed due to poor dev times. The 3DS era itself was pretty guilty of this. Frankly, you can tell there are aspirations of making the games AAA experiences while the production environment is lagging behind leading to what you have now.
Really though, I think the big thing with the issues they have with open worlds have to do with the scale and dev time. I mean the Wild Area in SwSh was added mid development because people responded well to wandering Pokémon in Let's Go, so there's only so much you can do for that on such short notice. Add in the short dev cycles that Pokémon games get despite the devs' ambitions growing larger and larger, and you end up getting many of the issues of the main games such as background graphics. Can you work those out and get the game running well? Yes, but not easily when you've got maybe 2 years to do it. And it's not like we haven't known some of the games can be rushed due to poor dev times. The 3DS era itself was pretty guilty of this. Frankly, you can tell there are aspirations of making the games AAA experiences while the production environment is lagging behind leading to what you have now.
Legends Arceus is like the opposite of open world though. Extremely strict story progression beats. You're generally free to go back and explore old areas as much as you want in between said beats, and which Pokédex tasks you complete to up your rank is flexible, but I don't see how that differs from choosing what Pokémon to catch or how to battle gym leaders in the main series.
is this you smallant?
No, the problem is Nintendo and their hardware - the Switch was old tech when it first came out and has suffered massively in the last couple of years across third party titles.
Scarlet/Violet was a massively ambitious game that had to be scaled back significantly and run deliberately poorly to work at all on the Switch.
You can see this from the Tera leaks. There was this YouTube video where the SV engine and its original intended graphical package was shown off and it was like night and day.
When Game Freak realised that the art style and the frame rate had to be cut back for SV, you could see in what came out little hints of frustration in the limitations that were set.
I am guaranteeing you all, the graphical upgrade to SV when Switch 2 drops will restore the base game to what it always should have been.
And there will be a mass reevaluation of Pokemon Scarlet/Violet, because it was the graphics and frame rate that were the biggest issues.
Switch 2, on the other hand, is running 120 frames per second in handheld mode, something absolutely unheard of prior to this year. Better than the steam deck in that respect. On a HD TV, Switch 2 games and anything with a graphics upgrade is going to look amazing.
Which is why, with all respect, Gen 10 - coming off the back of three extremely experimental titles for Game Freak and Nintendo (PLA, SV, PLZA) is going to slap incredibly hard IMO. They’ve worked out the direction, they’ve worked out what’s possible, they’ve had three years of fans complaining bloody hard about SV’s issues and how much we loved elements of PLA.
I have faith that Gen 10 is going to blow our tiny little minds…
(Of course, this could all be copium on my part…!)
Well, I'm not the kind who's extremely optimistic or pessimistic, but I do think Gen 10 has potential to be pretty great on the Switch 2. Not just because of the better hardware and because of how they've experimented with every game in the Switch era, but also because this current generation is a longer one than usual.
Sword and Shield and Scarlet and Violet were subject to the usual three-year cycle, which definitely squandered their potential. But at this rate, now that we know for a fact that Legends: Z-A isn't coming out until Fall 2025, which means it's the mainline Pokemon series game for this year, that means the earliest Gen 10 is coming out is 2026, and on the Switch 2. And the fact that they (to my surprise) made a Switch 2 edition for Z-A and are updating SV for the Switch 2 suggests that they've been given more opportunity to get their hands dirty with the Switch 2 and what it's capable of, and in general given an extra year of time Gen 10's debut games will have, these games will likely be in a better state than SwSh and SV ended up in.
While I am critical of where the Switch era games have fallen short, I do see great potential in them and this era has, in an odd way, been the most interesting era for me to witness because every game has shown some interesting concepts that I feel have the potential to be great when fully realized, and I've enjoyed every one of them in spite of their shortcomings.
I feel Gen 10 will, at the very least, be a real step forward in a notable way, and while it's debatable whether it'll blow peoples' minds, or if it'll be on par with the rest of what the Switch 2 can offer, I feel it'll really feel even closer to being the console-scale Pokemon game I dreamed of seeing since I was a kid in the late 2000s playing Diamond and Pearl, and be a game that really feels the part, even if I do think there may still be room for improvement.
Pokémon started to decline way before the open world era.
This is also very subjective, as you didn't point out what makes a good pokémon game in your opinion.
I'm not going to say all open world games are slop. Just 95% of them.
The obvious issue with Pokémon as an open world game is that Game Freak can't even make a split path without the level curve collapsing (Hi, Johto!) so how does that even work in an open setting?
I'll tell you how it doesn't, the way SV did it. Good lord what a mess.
> "open world," "nonlinear" game
> all NPC battles have predefined levels, railroading the player onto an obvious optimal path anyway
> all NPC battles have predefined levels, railroading the player onto an obvious optimal path anyway
It's not the hardware that's at fault, it's talentless developers that are. They put out masterpieces in the GBA, DS and 3DS eras on less powerful hardware. They can't figure out a way to put in every single pokemon on the Switch.
Furthermore, the game was more open world and encouraged exploration in the top down games than it ever has been since the jump to 3D sprites. As for what i think is a good pokemon game, it's one that focuses more on the pokemon and the lore of the given region instead of the people in it and trying to make them more important.
I don't begrudge people for wanting to hold a twelve-figure dollar franchise to higher standards, but don't fall into the trap of glossing over shortcomings that have always been there.
Mainline Pokemon games that happen to also be technically proficient well-optimized showcases of their respective platforms have always been the exception, not the rule. There's almost always some kind of cut corner you can fixate on if you want to, and if you go all the way back you have stuff like RBY that is so janky it's sometimes charming.
Mainline Pokemon games that happen to also be technically proficient well-optimized showcases of their respective platforms have always been the exception, not the rule. There's almost always some kind of cut corner you can fixate on if you want to, and if you go all the way back you have stuff like RBY that is so janky it's sometimes charming.
There is no way you could describe any Pokemon game in any generation as a “masterpiece” - they all have their flaws and there were games which did similar things better (the existence of Golden Sun and Golden Sun: The Lost Age on GBA pretty much sums up my feelings on the matter).
I am trying to think of what game could possibly be described as “open world” prior to PLA and SV. All the mainline Pokemon games had some level of restrictions that prevented “open world gaming”, which I think we should be clear, the earliest actual examples of this in terms of video games are considered to have the following:
- Open Worlds should at some point in the course of the game give the player controlled character or team the option to move freely within the setting of the game.
- The OW should project the feeling that events and landscape continue to exist and function even when the player is not there.
- The OW should feel continuous and physically logical within the construct of the game universe.
- The plotline should be relatively non-linear at the least incorporating sidequests which must be sought out within the OW. These elements serve to flesh out the world and propogate the illusion that the player is an actor in this place.
- The player controlled element should be an agent of the OW (e.g. a hero, team of heroes).
I mean, can we really argue Gold/Silver/Crystal is about the Pokemon and not Silver/team Rocket/Lance…that Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire is not about Max and Archie…that XY isn’t about Lysandre and AZ…that most Pokemon are’t designed as tools for the main bulk of the game’s battling scenarios? I don’t think we can.
There's a reason why people speak so fondly about gen 4 games and were mad with how Gamefreak botched the remakes. Gen 3 was close to perfect but i doubt many people would disagree that gen 4 was probably the best pokemon generation to exist. The story was well thought out, the legends in the game made sense and the overall gameplay was great. I know i'm breaking my rules a bit here but you don't hear anyone talk about any other character like they do Cynthia from back in the day.
Pokemon doesn't need an open world, it needs structure and a bit of exploration instead. Finding one's way through the caves is a part of the journey. Give me that rather than these open fields full of nothing and cities with buildings that I can't enter and explore. That being said, nothing is preventing anyone in older generations from grinding out a few levels to go on the path they want. The suggestions you're making for a pokemon game make it where it's not a pokemon game anymore.
For all the "hopium" you had I was busy playing and loving the game and saying "They made an open world Pokemon that works" and I stand by thatThis just makes me sad thinking of the time before Scarlet and Violet were released and my clown ass was huffing that hopium that you could fight all the gym leaders in any order finally without there being an obvious path level-wise. Maybe one day...
I hold the position that an open world is just a metroidvania devoid of content. If exploration is supposed to be the focus, then make the actual exploration engaging and challenging. If the goal is to allow for events to be done in different orders, make those orders feel distinct by having those events be encountered with significantly different ability pools depending on order. Heck, that last point is done better by a stage select screen from games a decade before I was born than any grand open world I've had the displeasure of playing.
you misunderstand open worlds, and for a while I did too
open worlds aren't about pushing exploration. they're literally, quite simply, about aura and giving a feeling to the player
the point of an open world is not actually to change how the player plays the game. elden ring plays almost the exact same as dark souls except you travel between micro levels and then big levels between the areas. but it's all more memorable because it's in an interconnected world and you got to go to each piece yourself
this doesn't make elden ring not "gigantic dark souls level but with less density of content", but it also makes it "dark souls but fucking AURA."
this is what open world critics don't understand. it's literally just cool. that's it.
why does new super mario bros bother to have 8 world themes when at least 5 of them in each game play the same way? why do games bother to hide that they're a game and push towards immersion? why do games sometimes have an hour long cutscene?
because it's art and art is about inspiring a feeling and not the player doing a mathematically correct assessment of what is positive gameplay and avoiding negative gameplay, and that the human brain is not objective. if the human brain was objective then we would only play roguelikes and call of duty, games that generally are kinda just optimized towards dopamine