SPOILERS! Pokemon Sword & Shield Pre-Release SPOILERS - Check Post 2!

trubbish

Banned deucer.
IGN's. Some guy was like "I'll buy 3 copies of Sword if these babies won't shut up about GameFreak"
This is the behavior I don't understand. Why do so many people have this blind loyality to Game Freak? I get that they made this game franchise that is very near and dear to our hearts... but thats all the more reason you should be outraged! We should demand quality of the things we like, right? Am I just a lunatic?
 
But tell me, at what point will the games go 'too far?' Would these textures, the rehashed mechanics and cut content and reused models fly in any other game series? What does the series have to do for everyone to turn around on it- like Bioware's Anthem? Do we have to wait until TPCI forces in microtransacations and season-pass DLCs? Pokemon Lootboxes? I worry we won't know until its too late.

/rant.
The weird thing about this game is... that all of what you complained about is common place. There is not one game that doesn’t do any of those things you listed. Model recycling is the norm because it can take weeks to make one. Splatoon 2 recycled most of the game’s models from the first. Smash Bros Ultinate recycled nearly the entire cast (Mario and a few others got an update though) and all Wii U stages are direct ports. BotW 2 is straight up reusing the map and all character assets from what we have heard. Etc. it’s normal.

Example:
Wii U: https://www.ssbwiki.com/images/5/5c/BowserJr.Pose2WiiU.gif
Smash Ultimate: https://www.ssbwiki.com/images/5/5c/BowserJr.Pose2WiiU.gif


I truly believe people hate Dexit so much that they just don’t want to see anything in this game as good because that indirectly says that dexit is okay. When they first dropped the trailer I was expressing disappointment about the reused modes but everyone was like “eh whatever” until the dexit announcement. I feel there’s a connection there.
 
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IGN's. Some guy was like "I'll buy 3 copies of Sword if these babies won't shut up about GameFreak"
I didn't find any comments on the review page so I checked twitter instead. I shouldn't have done that... Apparently watching a livestream of someone playing the game says less about the game than a written review with some pretty pictures according to defenders.
 
I just skimmed through the IGN review and the Eurogamer review.
The IGN review sounded like an ad. Calling the games the best Pokémon games ever and barely mentioning anything negative. I have a hard time believing that it deserves 9.3 while ORAS got 7.8.
It was surprising to see a review as critical as the Eurogamer one. No score yet though.
Eurogamer doesn't give numbered scores, their system goes.

Essential: A game that the reviewer feels must be played and experienced by everyone. (Example)
Recommended: A game that the reviewer feels has a few flaws that hold it back from greatness, but is still a great game all the same. (Example)
Neutral / no rating: A game that isn't bad per se, but the reviewer still doesn't feel they can recommend to players. (Example)
Avoid: A game that the reviewer feels is an absolutely terrible game that should not be played by anyone. (Example)

Overall it's had mostly positive reviews from what I've seen, IGN gave it a 9.3, Gamespot gave it a 9, GameXplain give it a "Like" (similar system to Eurogamer) and Nintendo Life gave it an 8. I'm still going to play and enjoy it, it wouldn't be the first time I've played and enjoyed games that a lot of people hate (Fire Emblem Fates and Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword come to mind). I've avoided the comment sections for these reviews, as most of them are usually just bashing the reviewer for daring to disagree with the commenter. One guy in the IGN comments section (I think for Death Stranding, can't remember for sure) was claiming that game reviews should be objective, even after multiple people showed him/her why that wouldn't work.
 
This is the behavior I don't understand. Why do so many people have this blind loyality to Game Freak? I get that they made this game franchise that is very near and dear to our hearts... but thats all the more reason you should be outraged! We should demand quality of the things we like, right? Am I just a lunatic?
My own opinion, nothing that has to be shared, is:
Let's just play the game and see how it is.
I'm not following GF blind just because of Pokémon, but I have no doubt that Sword and Shield are going to be very good games, if not, again, personal opinion, my favorite games so far.

Personally again, I can't cry about quality, which doesn't mean there is everything fine with the games. From what I've seen so far, the games look better then any Pokémon we had so far, the new Mons seem very nice, atmosphere is on point, etc.
Sure, we'll lose most of the Pokémon through the dexit, even some of my all time favorites (see ya next game, Volcarona), but that doesn't make the games itself bad.

Again, my point, criticzism is important.
But can we all take a break from the rage, calm, excuse me, the fuck down and play the games ourself?
 

trubbish

Banned deucer.
Let's say quality isn't demanded by making death threats on socials.
I never said it was, but good strawman.

The weird thing about this game is... that all of what you complained about is common place. There is not one game that doesn’t do any of those things you listed. Model recycling is the norm because it can take weeks to make one. Splatoon 2 recycled most of the game’s models from the first. Smash Bros Ultinate recycled nearly the entire cast (Mario and a few others got an update though) and all Wii U stages are direct ports. BotW 2 is straight up reusing the map and all character assets from what we have heard. Etc. it’s normal.

Example:
Wii U: https://www.ssbwiki.com/images/5/5c/BowserJr.Pose2WiiU.gif
Smash Ultimate: https://www.ssbwiki.com/images/5/5c/BowserJr.Pose2WiiU.gif


I truly believe people hate Dexit so much that they are unable to see anything as good anymore because they don’t want to see anything as good. When they first dropped the trailer I was expressing disappointment about the reused modes but everyone was like “eh whatever” until the dexit announcement. I feel there’s a connection there.
I understand asset re-using is big in the industry. Though, I mean, none of the games you listed have been using the same models (for anything as big as THE POKMEON, atleast) for as long as Pokemon has been. I mean, X/Y were released in 2013. And we can't get another model of Pikachu? Re-using assets is fine, but I don't think we should become so complacent that we become fine with incredibly low standards. And lets not forget all that has been added to the games you listed to heave them over the games they re-use assets from. Smash Ultimate, for example, has every character in it... where as Pokemon has less than half...

And to your point about dexit, I sort of agree. I think people were ready to just brush off the games as 'eh, its JUST pokemon,' but, for many, the dexcut WAS that breaking point as I was referring to in the above post. I personally do not think the dexcut is necessarily bad, but it should mean the rest of the game is fine. I can justify model re-using for games that go beyond what they are re-using the models from, like Smash, but Pokemon is literally re-using the models while also CUTTING other models. It would be like if Smash Ultimate cut half the cast, but for every other character they just ported it over directly from Smash 4. Do you see how that could piss people off?
 
And to your point about dexit, I sort of agree. I think people were ready to just brush off the games as 'eh, its JUST pokemon,' but, for many, the dexcut WAS that breaking point as I was referring to in the above post. I personally do not think the dexcut is necessarily bad, but it should mean the rest of the game is fine. I can justify model re-using for games that go beyond what they are re-using the models from, like Smash, but Pokemon is literally re-using the models while also CUTTING other models. It would be like if Smash Ultimate cut half the cast, but for every other character they just ported it over directly from Smash 4. Do you see how that could piss people off?
To offer a different view...

90% of the issues SwSh has, were already present in basically all of their previous entryes, often in worse ways.

People just let them go because "its pokemon".

The Dexit situation and expecially how horribly it was handled just exploded a mine that was already going to explode at some point. Lot of Switch players are adults who are demanding a price = quality scenario, and the game just went *up* by 20 € price.

SwSh might still end up, as IGN said, the best pokemon games to date, but not because they're good, but because in fact all the games were trash, just people weren't willing to complain before this.


That said, as I said, quality isn't demanded in the way people are doing. Taking off the rage over the employees and anyone who is remotely interested in them has been a disgrace.
I myself have been insulted on smogon boards upon daring to say I was looking forward to play the games at some point since I still think they'll be fun nontheless. You can understand how this gets nothing done.
 
The weird thing about this game is... that all of what you complained about is common place. There is not one game that doesn’t do any of those things you listed. Model recycling is the norm because it can take weeks to make one. Splatoon 2 recycled most of the game’s models from the first. Smash Bros Ultinate recycled nearly the entire cast (Mario and a few others got an update though) and all Wii U stages are direct ports. BotW 2 is straight up reusing the map and all character assets from what we have heard. Etc. it’s normal.
I agree that reusing assets is fine. I think the problem is that GF used remaking models and improving animations as an excuse to cut Pokémon. It appears that the animations and models are still the same (other than improved textures and maybe something I've missed). I don't remember people complaining about that in Gen 7.
 
I understand asset re-using is big in the industry. Though, I mean, none of the games you listed have been using the same models (for anything as big as THE POKMEON, atleast) for as long as Pokemon has been. I mean, X/Y were released in 2013. And we can't get another model of Pikachu? Re-using assets is fine, but I don't think we should become so complacent that we become fine with incredibly low standards. And lets not forget all that has been added to the games you listed to heave them over the games they re-use assets from. Smash Ultimate, for example, has every character in it... where as Pokemon has less than half...
Okay, I didn't want to write more to this discussion, but you're bringing Smash in as example, so, here we go ...

Yes, Smash Ultimate has every single character in it.
But there is the thing ... according to Sakurai himself, this won't be the case for following Smash titles. Especially, he said, that maybe never again a Smash title could be as big as Ultimate.
Also, Smash is maybe one of the worst examples for your argumentation. Smash doesn't drop once every year, or even every two. Smash is a title that stands there as long as the console is there.
 
Ahhh... reviews. Clearly people in this thread have formed their own opinion based on leaks, misinformation, etc. and whichever side of the coin they fall on will be reinforced by their “preferred” review. I’ll be playing Friday instead of overanalyzing other peoples words, see you all on showdown.
Gonna see you there. Hope you'll enjoy the game. c:
 
The weird thing about this game is... that all of what you complained about is common place. There is not one game that doesn’t do any of those things you listed. Model recycling is the norm because it can take weeks to make one. Splatoon 2 recycled most of the game’s models from the first. Smash Bros Ultinate recycled nearly the entire cast (Mario and a few others got an update though) and all Wii U stages are direct ports. BotW 2 is straight up reusing the map and all character assets from what we have heard. Etc. it’s normal.

Example:
Wii U: https://www.ssbwiki.com/images/5/5c/BowserJr.Pose2WiiU.gif
Smash Ultimate: https://www.ssbwiki.com/images/5/5c/BowserJr.Pose2WiiU.gif


I truly believe people hate Dexit so much that they are unable to see anything as good anymore because they don’t want to see anything as good. When they first dropped the trailer I was expressing disappointment about the reused modes but everyone was like “eh whatever” until the dexit announcement. I feel there’s a connection there.
Till we knew about Dexit, most people had a “meh, they’re alright” view of the models and graphics. It’s not what we play the game for. Dexit has warped everything into a micro lens inspection of “well, what did you spend time on GF?”. Suddenly every asset needs to be justified and explained. IMO its a really unhelpful view going forward. If the next games have all the Pokémon, but worse models, animations, plot, etc. people will still be toxic. Enjoy the games if you want, or don’t.

Anyway, there’s a whole thread dedicated to Dexit and most of these posts should be carried over there if we’re going to be going into any more of a back and forth on this.
 
This is the behavior I don't understand. Why do so many people have this blind loyality to Game Freak? I get that they made this game franchise that is very near and dear to our hearts... but thats all the more reason you should be outraged! We should demand quality of the things we like, right? Am I just a lunatic?
I’m personally willing to cut some slack for the first “real” Switch game. After all, first games in new consoles tend to have the trend of having many flaws that could make them look “mediocre”.

Just take a look at DP, the first DS games, and see how many flaws they had: poor type selection with very few Fire (only two lines: Chimchar and Ponyta!) and Electric Pokémon — which is more glaring with characters like Flint and Volkner, who have stuff like Lopunny and Octillery to compensate for the lack of variety — among things; horribly slow Surf speed; obnoxious save times, with the system taking forever every time you take out or store a Pokémon in the PC; the slow battle system, with the health bars taking forever to deplete; backtracking after backtracking; and so on.

However, come Platinum and most of those flaws are fixed, with the game having a wider variety of Pokémon, animations and saving being sped up, and other fixes. This, to any extent, led to HGSS (a widely acclaimed game) and BW, which both take from DP and blow their limitations out of the water by truly taking advanced of the capabilities of the DS.

SM as well did this to an extent, managing to push the 3DS to its limits with its graphics and improving on many of the things that XY did wrong.

What I’m saying with this? Well, that I’m looking at SwSh as the first experience of Pokémon on the Switch (no, I’m not looking at LGPE, that’s more a spin-off than anything!), with hopes that future installments will both take advantage of the things that ShSw did well, consider the general feedback and improve on them to create better Switch games.

Of course, we don’t know how things will go from now onwards, but I’m carefully optimistic.
 
I never said it was, but good strawman.



I understand asset re-using is big in the industry. Though, I mean, none of the games you listed have been using the same models (for anything as big as THE POKMEON, atleast) for as long as Pokemon has been. I mean, X/Y were released in 2013. And we can't get another model of Pikachu? Re-using assets is fine, but I don't think we should become so complacent that we become fine with incredibly low standards. And lets not forget all that has been added to the games you listed to heave them over the games they re-use assets from. Smash Ultimate, for example, has every character in it... where as Pokemon has less than half...

And to your point about dexit, I sort of agree. I think people were ready to just brush off the games as 'eh, its JUST pokemon,' but, for many, the dexcut WAS that breaking point as I was referring to in the above post. I personally do not think the dexcut is necessarily bad, but it should mean the rest of the game is fine. I can justify model re-using for games that go beyond what they are re-using the models from, like Smash, but Pokemon is literally re-using the models while also CUTTING other models. It would be like if Smash Ultimate cut half the cast, but for every other character they just ported it over directly from Smash 4. Do you see how that could piss people off?
All of the games I’ve listed have reused models. I assure you of that. ;) You can check out and compare them on themodlersresource if you want. I’m sure they have some models there. Pop them into Blender and play spot the difference. You have blender or Maya right? It sounds like you know 3d modeling very well so I assume you do.

I know the Pokémon are important. I expressed I was disappointed seeing the recycled models, but the Pokémon aren’t the only part of the game. The artists have to make humans, new lighting systems for a console, wind and weather effects that interact with trees and flags and the player’s clothes/hair, and they have to build a gigantic world with no shortcuts. On the 3ds you can cheat and have top-down towns but on a console that doesn’t fly, so the artists do have to sculpt ever hill and valley and ocean in the background of every location. No more “only 3 cities show a background.” Shortcuts.


Speaking of shortcuts... every game takes shortcuts. Smash Bros ultimate had to cut nearly all of its alternate modes like event matches, home run contest, and more. BotW’s shortcut was only making a few dozen models and recycling them, which is why it only had like 4 enemy classes resulting in the whole game being Bokoblins. But... You can’t do that with Pokémon and only have a few dozen high quality enemy classes.

I think if they cut he wild area, camps, and only had a basic campaign then Dexit wouldn’t have to happen. But they chose Dexit as their shortcut because I guess they thought those other features would add more to the game than keeping the full dex. Maybe it did, maybe it didn’t. Guess I’ll find out next week.

I really wish they were so afraid of DLC though. Is it that hard to add like 100 Pokémon every few months? It would breath life into the game after launch and make everyone happier.
 
This is why I don't trust reviews
Basically yeah. Watch let's plays or read customer reviews to really figure out if you want a game. Most video game review sites get early access to games to play and write reviews prior to release. If they shit on a franchise too hard they might just find themselves without early access games anymore.
 

trubbish

Banned deucer.
Okay, I didn't want to write more to this discussion, but you're bringing Smash in as example, so, here we go ...

Yes, Smash Ultimate has every single character in it.
But there is the thing ... according to Sakurai himself, this won't be the case for following Smash titles. Especially, he said, that maybe never again a Smash title could be as big as Ultimate.
Also, Smash is maybe one of the worst examples for your argumentation. Smash doesn't drop once every year, or even every two. Smash is a title that stands there as long as the console is there.
Sorry if this comes off as rude but..... whats your point?
I cited Smash Ult as an example because it was used to defend model re-using. I understand that not every game in the future will have every character. BUT, I would also fully expect them to update the the models we ARE getting back, with new animations, movesets, etc.

I think its very interesting in about a year or two we went from "future proofing models for the future isnexciting and hype" to "wow this is super lazy and not putting in effort"

Gamers really dont understand how gamedev works...
I dont know anyone who thought the fact the models were futureproofed was exciting.
Besides, you're missing the point. The fact people are upset about the models being re-used is because they were SUPPOSED TO BE FUTURE-PROOFED and THEY ARE ALSO CUTTING MORE THAN HALF OF THE POKEMON. Do you see how people can be upset that- not only are we losing so many Pokemon- but we the ones we ARE getting have not been updated in any meaningful way.

I’m personally willing to cut some slack for the first “real” Switch game. After all, first games in new consoles tend to have the trend of having many flaws that could make them look “mediocre”.

Just take a look at DP, the first DS games, and see how many flaws they had: poor type selection with very few Fire (only two lines: Chimchar and Ponyta!) and Electric Pokémon — which is more glaring with characters like Flint and Volkner, who have stuff like Lopunny and Octillery to compensate for the lack of variety — among things; horribly slow Surf speed; obnoxious save times, with the system taking forever every time you take out or store a Pokémon in the PC; the slow battle system, with the health bars taking forever to deplete; and so on.

However, come Platinum and most of those flaws are fixed, with the game having a wider variety of Pokémon, animations and saving being sped up, and other fixes. This, to any extent, led to HGSS (a widely acclaimed game) and BW, which both take from DP and blow their limitations out of the water by truly taking advanced of the capabilities of the DS.

SM as well did this to an extent, managing to push the 3DS to its limits with its graphics and improving on many of the things that XY did wrong.

What I’m saying with this? Well, that I’m looking at SwSh as the first experience of Pokémon on the Switch (no, I’m not looking at LGPE, that’s more a spin-off than anything!), with hopes that future installments will both take advantage of the things that ShSw did well, consider the general feedback and improve on them to create better Switch games.

Of course, we don’t know how things will go from now onwards, but I’m carefully optimistic.
I understand that the next switch Pokemon title will be better but why are we so complacent that we are OK with accepting a shittier inferior game because "oh they will fix it soon." We shouldn't accept a lack of quality!

All of the games I’ve listed have reused models. I assure you of that. ;) You can check out and compare them on themodlersresource if you want. I’m sure they have some models there. Pop them into Blender and play spot the difference. You have blender or Maya right? It sounds like you know 3d modeling very well so I assume you do.

I know the Pokémon are important. I expressed I was disappointed seeing the recycled models, but the Pokémon aren’t the only part of the game. The artists have to make humans, new lighting systems for a console, wind and weather effects that interact with trees and flags and the player’s clothes/hair, and they have to build a gigantic world with no shortcuts. On the 3ds you can cheat and have top-down towns but on a console that doesn’t fly, so the artists do have to sculpt ever hill and valley and ocean in the background of every location. No more “only 3 cities show a background.” Shortcuts.


Speaking of shortcuts... every game takes shortcuts. Smash Bros ultimate had to cut nearly all of its alternate modes like event matches, home run contest, and more. BotW’s shortcut was only making a few dozen models and recycling them, which is why it only had like 4 enemy classes resulting in the whole game being Bokoblins. But... You can’t do that with Pokémon and only have a few dozen high quality enemy classes.

I think if they cut he wild area, camps, and only had a basic campaign then Dexit wouldn’t have to happen. But they chose Dexit as their shortcut because I guess they thought those other features would add more to the game than keeping the full dex. Maybe it did, maybe it didn’t. Guess I’ll find out next week.
I'm going to break your post into different sections because I am having a hard time understanding what you are trying to say.
"All of the games I’ve listed have reused models. I assure you of that. ;)"
I never said they didn't.


"I know the Pokémon are important. I expressed I was disappointed seeing the recycled models, but the Pokémon aren’t the only part of the game. The artists have to make humans, new lighting systems for a console, wind and weather effects that interact with trees and flags and the player’s clothes/hair, and they have to build a gigantic world with no shortcuts."
And its for this reason that I am OK with the dexcut, so that they can spend more time making the gameplay and the world more interesting to explore. However: they did not. Atleast from what they've chosen to show us in the trailers. That is MY main argument. That even with the shortcuts, they game looks. Not great.
 
Till we knew about Dexit, most people had a “meh, they’re alright” view of the models and graphics. It’s not what we play the game for. Dexit has warped everything into a micro lens inspection of “well, what did you spend time on GF?”. Suddenly every asset needs to be justified and explained. IMO its a really unhelpful view going forward. If the next games have all the Pokémon, but worse models, animations, plot, etc. people will still be toxic. Enjoy the games if you want, or don’t.

Anyway, there’s a whole thread dedicated to Dexit and most of these posts should be carried over there if we’re going to be going into any more of a back and forth on this.
Probably because no one plays Pokemon for the graphics, they play for the... Pokemon.

When you remove Pokemon claiming it was done for graphical improvements it's completely valid for us to be critical of the graphics.
 

Pyritie

TAMAGO
is an Artist
SM as well did this to an extent, managing to push the 3DS to its limits with its graphics and improving on many of the things that XY did wrong.
I don't think this is a very fair comparison -- while the DS games did improve with each new game, I disagree that the same thing happened on the 3DS. Pretty much every game there felt like "it's okay but could be a lot better", and USUM was a huge letdown compared to B2W2.

I also disagree with gen 7 pushing the 3DS to its limits. Look at something like the monster hunter games (4U or generations) for that.
 
I thought it was well known since the beginning that the regular models were reused. The question was whether the Dynamax Pokemon were brand new models, or just upscaled models with clouds.
 
Sorry if this comes off as rude but..... whats your point?
I cited Smash Ult as an example because it was used to defend model re-using. I understand that not every game in the future will have every character. BUT, I would also fully expect them to update the the models we ARE getting back, with new animations, movesets, etc.
Because you said, and I quote, that there's every single character in Smash Ultimate, while this isn't going to be the case in the future and complain about Pokémon don't get new models while they do.
Also, my question at this point would be, how do you want to improve the model of a Pikachu, to use your example?
What would you change on existing Pokémon models? Because I, again, personally, can't think of a way to improve them that much.

And you don't sound rude, no worries. It's a heated up discussion and as long as you don't call me names or something like that, we have no problem ^^
 
Model recycling is the norm because it can take weeks to make one. Splatoon 2 recycled most of the game’s models from the first. Smash Bros Ultinate recycled nearly the entire cast (Mario and a few others got an update though) and all Wii U stages are direct ports. BotW 2 is straight up reusing the map and all character assets from what we have heard. Etc. it’s normal.
I think the problem is in the fact that, I think that gamefreak did say that they were making completely new models. The other games didn't say that and when we found out it was fine, but having the developers lie to us is extremely heartbreaking.
Edit: I didn't think about all the other stuff added other than pokemon. But still the connotation during the interview/talk seemed to be about pokemon, and gamefreak has always had to make new trainer models, new town models, and other things for the 3d games and still had all the pokemon in the games.
 
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