Topic: Pokemon Sword & Shield

Liza is anime character and Charla is her Charizard

Ah yes, the iconic Liza and Charla from the anime... It’s amazing they’re not part of the main game canon already, with how well known they are.

I was about to post the same thing, but someone beat me to it. It's amazing how much I do recall of the anime; I stopped watching it midway through the Battle Frontier saga because the rights jumped from Warner Bros. to Cartoon Network in the US. I've only seen bits and pieces of the movies and episodes that have occurred since.

I can feel the customization and decorating system on Pokemon Sword / Shield.
Maybe more fancy outfits and hairstyle, furnitures like on ORAS, etc.

If they give us lots of character customization I hope they hold back on the story and treat Sword and Shield more like the earlier games in the series, where your just on an adventure with your Pokemon and occasionally running into bad guys who cause trouble. While I liked the story aspects of the last few games overall, I hated the fact that you were silent while everyone else spoke. At least in gen 5 they had some real interaction.

Speaking of gen 5, if they do go the story route, I really hope they build on the groundwork they had in gen 5. Actually let your character interact with others in a meaningful way. No more of the soulless blank stares we had in gen 6 and 7...

The characters in Gen 5 were small 2d sprites... They didn't really have a great range of emotions either.

@Heavyarms55 Agreed. B/W had some surprisingly realistic character interactions and relationships in it, and felt much more like a real story about actual people. The stripped-back, hands-off adventure approach of early games would also be cool.

Anything is better than Sun/Moon, where the entire game feels excessively linear, a cutscene of some sort activates every few minutes, and the characters aren't particularly interesting.

@Ralizah I didn't remotely mind the cutscenes in Sun and Moon. My issue was that you aren't really in the story. It's not the player character's story, it's Lily's story and you aren't even a supporting character. You never speak, you never have an impact. You aren't C-3P0 or even Wedge Antillies. You are Han Solo's blaster pistol, the weapon the real characters point at the bad guys. I don't think the player character has more than one facial expression in gen 7. Maybe 2, with the second being the time they fall off that bridge in the beginning, scene for a second.

They can have as many cutscenes as they want in my opinion, just make them good and make the player character actually relevant!

@Morpheel And yet they had more than the player character did in gen 7.

@Heavyarms55
LOL 😆
The protagonist on Pokemon games has NEVER talk nor even react with some conversations.
The are the witness of what are other characters doing.

Yeah... I don't really remember Gen 5 being any different in that regard. I remember it being the usual "NPCs do all the talking and development, and you just say yes or no sometimes".

Maybe a few examples could help my memory.

@Anti-Matter @Morpheel Of course the protagonist has never really spoken, but in Gen 5, especially in Black and White, N directly speaks to you and you have the opportunity to respond, which affect's how N reacts to you. Furthermore the way the supporting cast in general reacts to you and speaks to you gives a sense of personality to the player. The most specific examples I can think of are when N confronts the player in that electricity cave and again toward the end of the game, as well as the conversations between Bianca and Cheren with the player. Though you don't get to respond to them I got the distinct impression that Cheren respected the player's strength and Bianca admired the player. While N directly confronts the player, pushing him or her into the opposite position. It's not a great story, but the player is definitely a main character with some degree of personality.

In stark contrast to that, I can't think of anything in Sun and Moon that give the player character any presence. Worse, I distinctly remember a scene where a child's Pokemon was stolen and you just stand there smiling away while everyone else talks about what do to. All throughout the story it felt like you were just along for the ride with Lily's story, not your own, and worse, nothing seemed to happen because of the player, it was always because of someone else's motivations or choices that you did anything. Like, if these people weren't there, you'd still be living at home staring blankly at the wall.

But this has degraded too much into a gen 5 vs gen 7 comparison. My main point is, if they go with the story I want to them to go all in on a story and give the player a real presence, otherwise I want something more like gen 1-4 where you just go about your own business, dealing with the bad guys whenever you get dragged into their nonsense.

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy I personally didn't enjoy B/W all that much either. Loved the sequels though.

I'm currently trying to get back into Ultra Moon, simply because I've had it since launch and I really want to finish the main story at some point. Lately I've been very slow when it comes to pokemon, I have plenty of ongoing files, but I don't really have much time to play. Let's Go Eevee is also another one I have half started.

@Heavyarms55 Oh I see.

@Heavyarms55 @Morpheel I think it has to do with graphics. The more ''realistic'' or ''complex'' the visuals are, the higher your expectations are; and this can apply to anything really. Dragon Quest XI looked really off when the Japanese version was first announced and there was no voice acting at all. Yet, voice acting would've been out of place in one of the earlier entries.

If the graphics are really simple (Red and Blue), it's easier to project your own imagination onto the game, because so little is given to the player. But if the games are incredibly detailed, it's a lot harder to do so because there's little to work with. Everything is already given. I think you can make a similar argument about books vs films.

@Octane The graphics are a factor, but I would hold this opinion even if we went back to old school gen 1 sprites. The reason I didn't mind it much in gen 1, and 2-4 was largely because there was rarely, if ever, actual conversations going on. Sure trainers would make a comment at the start of a battle and a snide response when you kicked their butt, but that was largely it. Otherwise you projected your own story onto the game. It was easy to imagine interactions between largely blank slate characters across the board. But when you start giving personalities and motivations to some characters, but not to all characters, the contrast becomes much more glaring. At least to me.

@Heavyarms55 Oh yeah, that's very true as well. Maybe I shouldn't have said ''visuals'', but just the game in general.

Personally would prefer if Pokémon remained a story around other characters. Hopefully actually interesting or charming characters. Making it about the avatar is 9 times out of 10 really boring.

I have an idea.

Sword and Shield will feature a Charizard with a pink bow (as the new female gender) that looks like Charla from the anime as celebration of Liza and Charla returning in Sword and Shield anime.

That’s a good idea.

I can think of a thousand better ways they should spend their resources

https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/pokemon/images/0/0a/Charl...