Topic: Pokemon Sword & Shield

@-Green- Chances are they'll reveal something next week. I really hope it's on par with other big Nintendo games. I'd be disappointed if it looks, feels and plays like an uprezzed 3DS game.

Yeah me too. I love Pokémon but the games have been stagnating in recent generations imo. Maybe it’s my old age though 🤷‍♂️

Would still love to see it surprise me

I’m more concerned with map design and content. The recent games are painfully linear and light on content that the games feel like a chore. And when you look at games like BotW and Odyssey making huge open worlds with an unprecedented amount of freedom and packed to the brim with content, it makes Pokémon feel like a preschool effort. Pokémon seriously needs to take a huge leap forward with this game for it to even remotely feel like it belongs on a console, they are so far behind the curve it’s not even funny.

I don't care about the story; so I wish they kept it to a minimum, especially with the characters being the equivalent of an emotional flatline, with an awkward smile once in a while. At least hire a decent story writer. I just want the battles to look like the Stadium/Colosseum games; because I still think those look a lot more lively than the static animations of the 3DS games. More than anything else, I'm all for a bit metagame overhaul. There's a power creep going on, so I wouldn't mind a hard stop like there was between 2 and 3; reevaluate the current metagame and improve on it.

And a hard/classic mode; one-use TMs, old EXP. Share, etc.

This is basically my wishlist for the Gen 8 Pokemon games:
-Not full on open-world, but have the region be easily the largest one to date with lots of large routes and cities. A guy mentioned this earlier but having the game like Xenoblade and Xenoblade 2 would be ideal where your on a linear structured quest but your allowed to roam free in massive routes and complete smaller side-quests along the way.
-Please have more than 100 Pokemon. While I know some people will use the quality > quantity excuse (which I do partially agree with), one of the most exciting things about the Pokemon game is seeing all the new Pokemon which gets heavily dampered when the roster of new Pokemon is so slim and you're bumping into older gen Pokemon about 75% throughout your journey. I think the perfect, and most reasonable, number would be between 100-110 new Pokemon.
-Have the gym leaders/E4 members more actively involved in the stories or give you the option to hang out with them once you've either beaten them or finished the main campaign. HG/SS and BW did this in spades while XY completely butchered this. It's not a major requirement for me but it would be nice to see the gym leaders/E4 members act more like real people and not just an obstacle to overcome on your journey.
-Far better post-game. If your a Pokemon fan you've probably heard about this request a million times so I'll keep it really short. Give us much more to do than just participate in the battle tree (which is already a heavily watered down battle frontier) and complete a smaller side story you'll be able to beat within 2 hours. This can range from major content such as exploring a past region and post-game dungeons or more slice-of-life features such as contents and playing mini-games in a new facility.
-Make the games more challenging. SM and US/UM are a step in the right direction and offered some genuinely challenging moments, I hope the Gen 8 games take those challenging moments and make them more abundant in the main quest.
-Better online service. If we're going to paying more for the online features now, GameFreak better step up on their online game and giving us something more navigational than the Festival Plaza and MUCH more robust than the pathetic online service of the 'Let's Go!' games.
-Move away from the 2.5D approach and finally embrace a full-on 3D approach for the mainline games. Give us full control of the camera so that we can witness the region in all it's HD glory. I personally think this a really important requirement in conveying that Pokemon has finally move on from the handheld games and is now embracing its status as a console game.
-Last but certainly not least. NO MORE GEN 1 PANDERING. I'm fine with there being Gen 1 pokemon present in the region and the occasional node to Gen 1 landmarks/lore but I don't want Gen 1 taking up about 60% of the content in the game.

@Tsurii Well, the gameplay, specifically the battles, is pretty much one of the main reasons I like the series. It's like chess, except it has way more depth and rules, yet there's also a kind of simplicity. That's what I like about it, and I haven't found any other turn-based RPG that does this better.

The issue with Pokémon’s story is that it is consistently among the most cliche and underexplored side of narratives. Which would be more bearable if it wasn’t so in your face about it sometimes. If they’re gonna keep it simple, atleast make it unabtrusive. Or if they want to push the narrative make it actually good. Lily’s arc was cute but completely dull and predictable, and she was basically the most upfront about it. Pokémon can afford to do far better.

@Bolt_Strike Unfortunately, I think GameFreak is proud to be behind the curve. Just look at LGP/E.

I know that at this point I have my standards set too high. After playing two open world games, I now have that expectation from any game that calls itself an adventure game. Anything else is archaic and will certainly feel elementary. Really, it's actually immersion breaking to not have an adventure game be open world at this point.

Meanwhile, GF just barely crossed the true 3D (as in not 2.5D) game design barrier with Sun/Moon. Not only are they not open world, the environments are so small and narrow. If Generation VIII is just more of this outdated quasi-N64 level design (or less, if we're thinking of LGP/E, but please lets not think of them) I may need a break from Pokemon.

I'm not quite sure what I want from a new Pokemon, to be honest.

In part I really want simplicity. I really appreciated the stripped-down nature of LGPE - personally I feel that recent games have been a bit bloated with dull and unnecessary elements. I also really appreciated the streamlining of the story. I'm not against story in a Pokemon game, but I found the dialogue in SuMo to be [i[really[/i] drawn out (not to mention the gating of almost every area with pointless cutscenes).

In many ways, however, I really want the series to go further. Try something new. Really surprise us. I would be quite happy if they decided to reboot the series, tbh (not really likely with the success of Let's Go, but we can see...)

A Gen8 for me would feature a more dynamic camera for battles - like in Colosseum/Gale of Darkness - and also the colosseums from those games. I'm not saying to get rid of the gyms, but there are plenty of rulesets in the games you could play around with in colosseums for those who don't see themselves going online for battles.

Also a return of contests. They were some good events to play, and would probably look a whole lot better in a full-3D environment. And speaking of environments, a full-3D world that has no hint of the 2.5D design that has plagued the series since it went 3D.

It's completely unrealistic but I'd love to see a Pokemon game where you start in a new region and then via expansion packs eventually explore every previous region. Naturally as the 3DS is dying the expansion packs would start at Sinnoh and go in this order regarding release date:
Sinnoh
Unova
Kalos
Alola
Hoenn
Johto
Kanto

Kanto was arguably the worst part of the gen 2 games. Once you reach a certain level; fighting more low-leveled trainers and backtracking through old routes becomes more of a chore than a pleasure.

I'd rather have separate games tbh. How would level progression work past the first region? Raising pokemon is only really interesting up to lv 50 of so...past that point they're fully evolved and have learned their moves.

I personally like the idea of Let's Go being a way to reimagine old games, and new games going in a while new direction.

I want to see more effort and attention paid to multiplayer and competitive play.

Keep this stuff as part of the post game or limited to competitive modes but:

I want the preservation of abilities, EVs and IVs but I want the ability to control all these things improved. They came close with the super training in gen 6, but that was still to tedious and RNG based with things like reset bags and the mini-game aspect itself. VGC tournament play often results in very specific meta-game shifts with highly specialized and strategic EV sets. For example, having just enough HP investment to live a hit from a standard Terrakion's close combat, or a Landorus' rock slide. The ability to control these EVs more specifically, for multi-player, without having to have 17 different Tyranitar (for example) would be ideal.

Going further, I really want the return of the battle frontier and coliseums to provide more single player and co-op competitive modes.

I actually like breeding Pokemon, but I would like it to be further streamlined. One of the few changes from Let's Go that I really loved was the ability to access your "PC" anywhere. While I think this might be broken in the story, it is absolutely a thing that should be post game. That way you can drop freshly hatched eggs and grab another without having to go in and out of a building and to a PC.

In terms of the single player experience, if we are going to have a story again, like we have had in gen 5, 5.5, 6 and 7, I want them to drop the silent protagonist thing. I am sick and tired of games where you're just a flower on the wall, a silent weapon for the real character to throw at the bad guy. I'm in the room and some kids' Pokemon was just stolen by Team Nuke, I don't want to just stand their silently smiling like I have some kind of massive mental problem, or like I am higher than a kite! However if they want to tone down the story somewhat and make it more of a create your own fantasy thing, along the lines of the original Red and Blue that's okay by me too, and a silent protagonist makes sense. In either case I want more optional side quests though and some king of log to keep track of them, like a journal your character writes or maybe a "blog".

As a final wish: I am pretty cool with most new Pokemon designs, but no more bipedal Fire type starter (final evolutions) please! If I am real greedy, I'd ask to change up the formula entirely and go with Dark/Fighting/Psychic as the starter types. I know it isn't quite as balanced, since Dark is immune to psychic, but it comes pretty close. I'd really be okay with any other 3 types so long as they resemble this sort of combination.

Also as an absolute MUST: Pokemon Bank support must come to Switch, letting us continue to bring our collections with us, as we have been able to do since the GBA days!

@Harmonie I'm not so sure about that. I think their philosophy may have changed recently. Remember, they thought the Switch would fail because everyone would abandon it for mobile. Instead, it's been selling like wildfire. Additionally, they seem to be paying a lot of attention to BotW's success and they've mentioned it several times. I think LGPE was probably designed with the mindset that they wanted to transition to a more mobile style of play, but now that they're seeing large scale console games succeeding, 8th gen may be designed to transition more in that direction.

But yeah, if that's all wrong and this is still more casualized linear BS, I'm pretty much done with this series. I might buy DP remakes if they don't screw them up too badly, but beyond that I'm not buying another game until they can prove they can make a big boy game fit for a console.

Hopefully they make it so we can change IVs and easier ways to get Hidden abilities.

The journey to acquire a Gogoat with the right IVs and Hidden Ability took well over two days and includes me replaying through XY. Absolutely crazy stuff

I actually enjoyed the Sevii Islands in FR/LG for the most part. It introduced something new and had some interesting (IMO) areas. If only some of those islands hadn't been locked to event only Pokemon....

Whitney's Miltank is the first thing that comes to mind regarding bad difficulty pacing in Gen 2. Meanwhile the Kanto situation in Gen 2 is pretty much a case of you decide the difficulty, if you're sticking with your Johto team of course it's going to be extremely easy but change your team and you can make it harder.

Difficulty is hard to get right in Pokémon, but BW2 I felt hit a good spot. The gym leaders and such were generally higher leveled than you and the scaling felt about right. They could always give trainers more unique team to facilitate team strats, but that doesn’t fit Gamefreaks style most of the time. Although US/UM did show some of that with Totem Pokémon and other battles iirc.

Black and White definitely did difficulty right. I wouldn't describe the games as difficult, but they didn't feel like a push-over, either.

In general, I don't understand why Game Freak doesn't just allow players to choose a hard mode by default. Combine somewhat higher levels with the smarter trainers from the Let's Go! games and you'd have a reasonably good difficulty curve right there. Include an easy mode with dumbed down AI for kids.