While I am cautiously optimistic about this game, what we have seen so far very much worries me. No, it has nothing to do with the graphics, per se, but rather the world itself. I know this may be early footage, but the world simply feels so lifeless and boring. We don't ever really see more than a handful of Pokemon on screen at once, and you never see anything alive that is not right up close to you. Don't know if that is a draw distance thing or not, but it just makes the game feel empty.
I think that comparison image to Breath of the Wild posted previously does a fantastic job of showing how mediocre Legends looks in comparison. An open world game lives and dies on the quality of its world. What made Breath of the Wild so amazing is that whenever you got to a new hilltop, you could look around and spot a dozen places that look interesting, and that you want to go check out. Just looking at that gif above, I can see all sorts of neat cliff faces, rock formations, hills and valleys, all of which either look interesting in their own right, or look like places where that could be hiding something cool. But when I look at the Pokemon side of the gif, I see boring fields with a few trees. There is not a single individual location that stands out to me and says "come here and explore!" The most interesting parts are far in the distance, but I can't really tell if that is because they are actually interesting, or if they are just too far away for me to tell otherwise. Oh, and despite all of this, the Breath of the Wild image also makes its world feel so much larger. The things in the distance are not only more interesting looking, but they also look further away. That one gif gives you the feeling that you could easily just lose track of time exploring. The Pokemon image on the other hand, makes you wonder what the point of exploring would be.
And I must say that this feeling I get isn't helped by the fact that the images of a town that we do have feature exactly zero NPCs. If you want to make a world feel dead, all you have to do is create an environment where there should be people, and then don't put any people in it.
I don't want to be totally negative, and I am really hoping that this game turns out great. But I also don't want to jump on the bandwagon of "its new and different for Pokemon, so that automatically means it should be compared to some of the best games of all time." This game looks like it has issues, but it also looks like a fun new direction, and I really hope it turns out well.
I think that comparison image to Breath of the Wild posted previously does a fantastic job of showing how mediocre Legends looks in comparison. An open world game lives and dies on the quality of its world. What made Breath of the Wild so amazing is that whenever you got to a new hilltop, you could look around and spot a dozen places that look interesting, and that you want to go check out. Just looking at that gif above, I can see all sorts of neat cliff faces, rock formations, hills and valleys, all of which either look interesting in their own right, or look like places where that could be hiding something cool. But when I look at the Pokemon side of the gif, I see boring fields with a few trees. There is not a single individual location that stands out to me and says "come here and explore!" The most interesting parts are far in the distance, but I can't really tell if that is because they are actually interesting, or if they are just too far away for me to tell otherwise. Oh, and despite all of this, the Breath of the Wild image also makes its world feel so much larger. The things in the distance are not only more interesting looking, but they also look further away. That one gif gives you the feeling that you could easily just lose track of time exploring. The Pokemon image on the other hand, makes you wonder what the point of exploring would be.
And I must say that this feeling I get isn't helped by the fact that the images of a town that we do have feature exactly zero NPCs. If you want to make a world feel dead, all you have to do is create an environment where there should be people, and then don't put any people in it.
I don't want to be totally negative, and I am really hoping that this game turns out great. But I also don't want to jump on the bandwagon of "its new and different for Pokemon, so that automatically means it should be compared to some of the best games of all time." This game looks like it has issues, but it also looks like a fun new direction, and I really hope it turns out well.
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