The games transition to 3D on the 3DS is also notable in one sense, that the games can not always maintain consistent performance in-battle. The game is not doing anything visually taxing, at most needing to handle like 6 models on screen at a time in a mostly empty 3d space, and they ran like hell in the 3DS games. In my most current playthrough of X/Y the game slows down noticeably on a New 3DS XL as soon as you turn on the 3D slider, even in single battles. There's like 2 models on screen, what's so difficult about that? Now, I have not played through the Alola games on the New 3DS XL, only on the original 3DS (lol @ the Alola games performance on the OG 3DS though, its a joke and a half), but from what I tell from videos, say from the VGC Championships, when there is a lot going on it still chugs.Haha yep, that's exactly where I got it from lol.
Hmm yeah, I definitely agree with your points about the Pokemon models and animations and I completely overlooked that fact that technically DP were the first use of 3D in Pokemon. I can also see that moving to 3D is not inherently bad and I agree that, if Game Freak actually implemented it correctly, the Pokemon games could undoubtedly look fantastic in full 3D. It's just that they've not fully realised it yet, like you say, which makes me hesitant to think that it is still the correct direction. So you're right that I shouldn't write it off so wholeheartedly just yet. I think I'm also just a sucker for the graphical styles that I mentioned above, and gen five.
Aside from the issues from the shift to 3D in terms of graphics, style, and movement, the fact that the battles run poorly is a massive problem. It's the most glaring issues in these games in my eyes and honestly more important to me than the other issues with the games that people bring up. Smash 4 was able to reach 60fps in 3d on a standard 3DS, but Pokemon Y struggles to maintain something stable in battle in 3D. Sometimes I feel like i'm going insane looking at these games. Battling is the main part of the games and Game Freak did not get it to always run smoothly during the 3DS era, and it still crops up on the Switch games. Everything I may like about them is brought down by the realization that those games can't always stably run. It's honestly hard for me to fathom that this was not a larger issue with the 3DS games, and difficult to explain. If the game starts slowing down and dropping frames in a simple battle there's something larger that's wrong.
The main takeaway from me here is that I think Pokemon's 3D shift (on the 3DS games) is pretty poor (not withstanding the design issues that
ScraftyIsTheBest noted before) Battles, the main component of the game, experience massive slowdowns and poor performance while not doing anything that interesting. While writing this I had to check how Smash 4 ran on the original 3DS to make sure I'm not insane. Smash 4 runs and looks great, no slowdowns even with the 3D enabled. However in Pokemon Y my Farfetch'd squaring off against Korrina's Machoke causes the game to noticeably choke when the 3D is enabled, and experience random slowdowns when 3D is not enabled, even on a New 3DS XL. There should not be these framerate issues, and its inexcusable how the Alola games perform so poorly as they do on the original 3DS hardware.
After a brief check, Alpha Sapphire and Sun (the other 3DS pokemon games I have) have less framerate issues in battle on a New 3DS XL. There are still some slowdowns, in AS when the 3d slider is turned on (but less than Y), and in Sun in double battles (less noticable, more apparent with weather / terrain). However, this does not make up for the poor performance of Sun on a original 3DS, the battles are not doing anything complicated, but the instant more than two pokemon are on screen or a totem pokemon activates their aura boost the game slows down hard.
The mainland Galar region I find does not frequently take advantage of any verticality that the 3D space gives except for some tricks and spots that the fixed camera can hide. In the Crown Tundra, I feel like: "wow, there's a hill I can climb and an old dead tree at the top, gonna check it out," while in the mainland, its "wow, the Stomping Tantrum TM is "hidden" because of the camera. great." All the Galarian routes are something you see once and never think twice about because you have essentially explored all there is to explore. There's no use of the space to make it seem like I'm traveling a long journey to the next town with my closest pokemon pals, its more like I'm taking a short walk. Or the games could be capturing the true experience of traveling around the United Kingdom. Probably a short walk is all it takes right? (note: i've never been to the UK, any comments made here are in jest).- The route exploration and design is another key factor to me. Routes in the recent games are still in a top-down perspective and still designed from a 2D perspective. Mainland Galar in Sword and Shield has a lot of cases of corridor syndrome with many of its routes and the routes are just too linear and don't incentivize much exploration at all. On one hand, I think the Wild Areas, especially the Isle of Armor and Crown Tundra from the DLC, show a lot of promise and are a step in the right direction, and I think if Game Freak could go that route in designing future regions and routes I think there's a lot of potential to have an incredibly compelling Pokemon region to explore in 3D! Full on camera rotation and control stick movement, and dynamic environments and perhaps some interesting designs to make the routes more lively, dynamic, and explorable. HMs are an outdated mechanic, granted, but having ways in which you can bring a Pokemon with you and have it help you explore and navigate obstacles in an environment is still also something they could work on without having to use Hidden Machines. Sword and Shield's mainland Galar has shown that they still don't really know how to design good routes without that. There are perhaps other ways in which routes could become more dynamic and explorable and actually compelling to explore that other people could think of.
- Now granted, they don't need to be totally "open-world" and non-linear, and there can still be a linear progression between cities and routes, and there needs to be given that Pokemon is an RPG. But make each route in itself dynamic and create incentive to explore and make it feel truly alive in 3D and we could have some really great regions in 3D. Unova in particular has a lot of potential if Game Freak breaks out of their current mentality.
- With routes in general, adding on to the above they should arguably be more wider and cover more area to be a dynamic place instead of straight paths like before. The later 2D games like Gens 4 and 5 managed to deliver incredibly great and dynamic routes, especially BW2, despite their inherent limitations, and have more to do in them to accommodate 3D perspective. Cities especially need a good deal of buffing up to them. Add more to them, like have more notable attractions and buildings to draw more attention to them and have compelling, explorable buildings inside of them that make the world feel more alive in that sense.