I did not watch the livestream of the Presents today, it started just when I quit working. While I could have gone home a little earlier so I could have watched it, I decided to not do that. Also, 28 minutes is a bit too long for my tastes. I just watched the trailers afterwards, read about stuff on Serebii and the official site, as well as read through all replies in this thread.
On a side note, I wonder what happened to releasing things like trailers and regular news without a Presents/Direct? Feels like they have been doing that a lot less lately, especially for these games and L:A.
Anyway, here are my thoughts on several things that were shown today:
- It feels like graphics look better than in previous trailers, which is great.
- They show many familiar areas in the new graphical style, which is neat.
- Following Pokémon… meh. Unpopular opinion as usual, but I really don’t like this feature. I hope it can be turned off. Since that was the case in the SS DLC, I believe it will be possible here as well.
- Ball capsules and stickers are neat. I hope they are a bit more convenient to use here compared to the originals where I barely used them because I found them so inconvenient to use there.
- The Union Room exists for connectivity. It feels like a bit of a step back compared to more recent multiplayer gadgets. I find the original Union Room to be very clunky compared to modern stuff like the C-Gear, PSS, Festival Plaza or the Y-Comm. That said, they can of course improve it to make it better, and I hope they do so. I wonder why it needs a patch to be used. Though it could just be a day 1 update/patch as someone mentioned earlier. And there are separate local and online rooms, the online one needs NSO which isn’t very surprising.
- The games have character customization, which is awesome! One of the few things I really wish had been in OR/AS. And you can choose your skin color at the beginning of the game as well, great. It also seems like you can choose your hair color. Dawn looks so weird with blonde hair lol. It seems like the style shop replaces the Game Corner in Veilstone. Speaking of which, I am not surprised that the Game Corner is gone.
- Super Contests return. I am not a huge fan of how they worked in the originals (in fact, they are my least favorite minigame in the series), so I really hope BD/SP improve upon them and make them more fun. They look a bit more different at least. And you now use Ball Capsule stickers for decoration? Unexpected. It also seems impossible to max out all stats like you could in OR/AS because the “sheen” is shown here.
- The Underground seems to have been upgraded as well. Being able to meet wild Pokémon in certain areas is really cool. It varies depending on your Secret Base (and the statues, it seems). I wonder how that will work in full detail. It also seems like Munchlax is one of the Pokémon you can meet in the Underground, which is great as that means it will hopefully not be mythological like in the originals.
- The map looks neat. It seems like it confirms the Battle Zone is in the base games and not gone or just available as DLC later on, which was one of my fears, so this is great! Most places look the same as before, though it seems like Newmoon Island is missing (and it appears that Fullmoon Island has taken its place?) as well as Seabreak Path & Flower Paradise. I wonder if those will be available later somehow, through DLC or events. Spear Pillar is not visible either, but I guess they just want to hide it. And as someone pointed out, Pal Park looks different. Notably, it has caves. I wonder what they will contain? And what will Pal Park itself be used for?
- No Battle Frontier, just the Battle Tower. Unpopular opinion perhaps, but I am okay with this. On one condition: that this Tower isn’t nerfed into oblivion like the S/S Tower. Hopefully it is back to the standard challenge this time around. That said, I wonder how it will be. Will it have regular and super lines like the Subway/Maison/Tree? Or will it just have the super lines from the start like the S/S Tower? Will it have a Multi line? Will you be able to save battle videos? Will you be able to battle as many trainers as you want or in sets of 7 like the originals? What rewards will there be for beating the Tower? I guess we will find out eventually. If it doesn’t keep all the changes that the more modern Battle Facilities have added, it will feel like another step back, sadly.
- One other thing I thought about was if they might add the full Frontier as DLC later on? Not sure if it will happen, but it was something I thought about.
- Are HMs in the games? I personally hope not, I would prefer a Poké Ride or something similar.
- There are no overworld encounters in the main region, which is sad to see as I really liked those and I definitely prefer them over random encouters. They seem to be in the Underground though, which is cool.
- Team Galactic seems to be mostly the same as in the originals, which I am okay with.
- Glaceon, Leafeon, Yanmega, Togekiss… they showed a lot more Pokémon which were only in the Platinum Dex in the originals, further confirming that they will be using the Platinum Dex as a base, and that is great! But will those from the Platinum Dex only be available through the Underground? If so, then that’s a bit negative.
- One image of Bidoof showed it with its National Dex number, does that mean the games will have a National Dex? Or maybe a “National Dex” with the first 493 Pokémon? It seems like most/all Pokémon from Gen 1-4 will be in the games, but what about Gen 5-8? Will any of them be in the games? I personally hope so. I don’t think we have seen any of them so far, correct me if I’m wrong.
- The Underground map looks cool, much more varied which is neat.
- It seems like the Underground is the main area where you meet Pokémon outside of the regional dex, and that’s okay for me.
- I wonder if they will release an update for S/S and add the currently missing Pokémon that will be available in BD/SP. I also wonder if you will be able to trade/interact between S/S and BD/SP. The latter will get Home combability in 2022, so that’s at least something.
- Some Pokémon learn new moves, and it seems like some moves that were removed in S/S will return, such as Return (lololol). Will Hidden Power be back as well? I personally hope not as I never liked that move, I always found it too stupid and broken. I hope they will give Unown something else instead. Or make Hidden Power exclusive to Unown, or something.
- It says that more content will be added later. What does this mean? DLC like in S/S? If so, that could be great. I really liked the DLC for S/S and I think it can be really great if they do it for more games as well.
- I like how you get a Manaphy gift for getting the games early, it follows with previous games also having gifts early on. It means that if I end up getting SP, I should get it early so I can get the Manaphy.
Overall, I really liked the trailer and how much info was revealed today. My hype/interest for SP is considerably higher now compared to how it has been since the games were first announced. That said, I am still not sold on getting SP. Sad as it is to say. First, there’s the fact that I have played the original Sinnoh games so much that a faithful remake just isn’t super appealing to me. Plus, I still find them (or at least Platinum) to be playable and enjoyable by modern standards to the point that there’s no direct need for me to get SP, I can just stick with Platinum.
I am also burnt out on Pokémon, I have lost a fair bit of interest in the franchise and the series recently, and I really need a break from Pokémon. I have tried to take breaks I recent times, but it just doesn’t work. Something always happens which makes me start playing again. Last year, I had several breaks from Sword but I still played in the Subway in Gen 5 during February-September (and then I made long forum posts about it in November). This year, I have also had a long break from Sword, but I have been working on my own Project: In Wonder since March. Though I am currently 11/12 done with it and if I can wrap up the last phase of it within a month, then I can have at least a two month break until the release of BD/SP. So yeah, I am still unsure about getting SP, but things are at least looking much more positive compared to earlier. We’ll see what happens in the end.