Topic: Pokemon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon discussion

@Haru17 GameFreak didnt make Pokedex 3D Pro. Creatures help with the modelling.

I think that in terms of overall world design and in-game models, Gen 4 is my favorite. Gen 5 is a close second, though the human models had slightly odd heads. ...I may be slightly biased here too since I absolutely loved Nimbasa's design in BW 1/2. The theme park theme and Join Avenue still stand out in my mind.

When I was younger I disliked Gen 5, but now I feel mostly indifferent to it. I recall loving Gen 6 due to the 3D models and because of me having access to internet during the time, so I finally got into trading online and such. It made that generation a very fond thing for me, and also I loved Yveltal.

I've enjoyed basically all generations of Pokemon.

@BLP_Software Yeah, but would you answer my question?

Completely removing old pokemon from a new main game would be a huge mistake, you would have millions of angry attached fans for each one of them.

They tend to reuse models for older pokemon, they were still using the N64 models way into the Wii era, and the new models are higher quality than they need to be, because they'll reuse them for as many years as they can get away with.

Even with the 2d sprites... Most of the back sprites for older pokemon in gen 3 were taken from gen 2, games within the same generations usually only got new sprites for the pokemon in the local dex, and most of the older pokemon in gen 5 reuse their basic sprites from gen 4.

Pokemon is not a series where you can completely cut ties with its past, just like that. They are way too deep into their own swamp for that.

Also, Kalos had the largest amount of returning pokemon ever. Like less than a fourth of the pokemon in the local dex are new.

So they just make mediocre games forever? What do they do in 10 years? It's unsustainable, your 'people will be mad argument' makes no sense — people are already mad.

@Haru17 I think the big issue isn't the small amount of new Pokemon, it's the unnecessarily big Pokedex they want in each game. Kalos ended up with 450 Pokemon in the regional dex, swamping the 70 new Pokemon they introduced. Alola was a bit better with 79 new ''Pokemon'', and 300 Pokemon in the regional dex, but many of those were UBs and legendaries.

I can live with 100 new and 150 old for example. But they feel the need to make the regional dex as large as possible these days. Meaning that many Pokemon are exclusive to one route, and if you don't look for them, you may as well never see them (except in trainer battles). On top of that, many of the new Pokemon in SM were also rare or extremely elusive (Mareanie), meaning your chances of even encountering them in the wild were even smaller.

I think that a smaller dex and more focus on the new Pokemon already goes a long way.

@Octane Yeah, Sun and Moon went out of its way to hide the actual new content. I just want to play a Pokemon that feels completely new and has much much much better designs than fifth gen. I'm tired of seeing Johto Pokemon around the world, why are they there? Is nothing endemic in this world? What about the new region feels special and unique to compel me to experience it?

@Haru17 I think that in their mindset; more = better. It can be, but in many cases old Pokemon overshadow the new ones. But I haven't seen many complain about this, so I don't think this is going to change anytime soon. I think RSE and DPP were fine in terms of their ratio between old and new, so I hope they will return to that format some day.

@Octane A Pokemon game like Sapphire or Diamond is all I want from the series. Well, and to be more creative and try new things out, but I could settle.

To some degree I think the issue with new Pokemon vs. old Pokemon is unavoidable because having 100 new Pokemon per gen seems to be unsustainable to them at this point, so that much we're probably going to have to put up with. That being said, they could definitely do a better job with the balance, having slightly less Pokemon and the new Pokemon be more common could really help them stand out more. But at the same time, I don't want them to regress so far that the dexes become heavily imbalanced like some of the older ones and certain types are lacking, such as how DP had a whopping 2 Fire types, one of which was the starter. They still should have enough options for everything. So yes, the dex could use some improvement but it's a careful balance. I think 200-300 Pokemon with at least 6 families for each type and a fair balance between generations is doable.

Also, seconding more games like RSE and DPPt. Golden age of the series IMO.

@Haru17 I did. They outsource it just like the outsource networking to Nintendo. Creatures made 3D Pro and where do you think they get the models from?

The models are significantly higher poly than they have any right to be and as I said, theyve been found to look great at 1080p. Given they used N64 right up until the Wii, does it stun you that theyd prep for the future?

@Haru17 You would like Black and White. Nothing but new Pokemon.

Here's the issue as @Octane said its not an issue of not introducing enough new Pokemon. Its an issue of them having the new ones be uncommon in the areas they are found (XY are notorious for that) and having a regional Pokedex that overshadows them.

I think 300 is fine, as that is what both B2W2 and SM had. In the former that meant it was an even half and half split and in Sun and Moon the new ones werent as infrequent.

Now XY had 450. Thats an issue. Even I think thats bad. But they simply cant just flat out remove old Pokemon. They had enough backlash for locking all old Pokemon to the post game in Black and White.

@BLP_Software It's just such an outlandish explanation. What normal person would guess that the sixth generation of Pokemon games got its models from some random eShop app? Why were X and Y so barebones in terms of new Pokemon and endgame content if they had someone else make all of the 3D models for them?

And it is about the number — Pokemon has always been about that. At least have 100. Black and White was admirable in that it tried to create a whole new world of Pokemon, but so many of them were just lesser designs so it was hard to get attached to even a full party. They're probably my least enjoyed Pokemon games as a result of that ugly art and weird copying of gen 1's concepts.

@Haru17 Well thats what happened im afraid.

And its a design decision by the team to not introduce loads of new Pokemon.

And heres the thing. If you design another 150+ new ones like in gen 5 you have the same problem. Not an overload of new but an overload of meh.

I couldnt tell you why XY were so barebones. Apparently early on the theme of friendship, evolution and beauty was decided upon. They spent 18 months designing Xerneas and Yveltal. Had to make a new 3D engine. Model all the human characters. Outsourcing the Pokemon (Even on the overworld the model quality is GLARING between the two) is a logical step and you can tell they did. Look at the world or the humans and look at the Pokemon even as they walk around the world. Night and day.

You seem to be under the impresion that eshop apps are some kind sub-software that can't and shouldn't be taken seriously by developers. Anyway, the models were not made for the app, they were made for everything. They just happened to have their debut in the app.

X and Y were so barebones because Game Freak claims that younger players don't care about harder post game content like battle frontiers and stuff. In other words, they are generating their own drought so they can make the triumphant return and sell lots of games when good post game returns. Like Nintendo with Earthbound.

That's not what they're saying, and they've probably had those artificial droughts for a while. They're making them barebones because they want Pokemon to be a stripped down mobile-esque game. Basically, they're being cheap and cash grabby like Nintendo was with the NSMB games.

@Bolt_Strike They're not including meaty postgames because most players don't care about them; simple as that. Plus, GF has been pretty heavily pushing online multiplayer and VGC.

Not really. Read closer at what they said in that interview.

Q:We noticed ORAS had a lower difficulty level compared to previous Pokemon games. What bought you to this decision? Any chance that future games will have the possibility to adjust difficulty level as seen in Black and White 2?

A:What? How come you've already played the games? hearty laughter [the games were supposed to come out in Italy the day after the interview] We created a "balanced" game that was suited for our time and age, where everyone is very busy and young people have various means of entertainment. Using smartphones and other devices they can access a great number of games, so the time they dedicate to a single game is less than in the past. The player can choose to keep on playing after the main story and continue to the post-game, where the difficulty rises and there are much more difficult Trainers and challenges to overcome.

Q:Why wasn't the Battle Frontier in the remakes?

A:This question is connected with my previous answer. We didn't put the BF in ORAS for this very reason. Interviewer's note: In short he means that they didn't include the BF because only a very small part of the players would have fully appreciated and made use of this feature; nowadays players get bored and frustrated more easily and they aren't interested in things that are so demanding/challenging.

The bolded part is key here, they're specifically pointing to smartphones as their reasoning behind the decision. So they're looking at mobile and thinking they need to make the games more like mobile to be profitable (which isn't exactly true).

That's not really a substitute for the Battle Frontier though. The thing that made the Battle Frontier stand out was the unique battle styles, which the competitive scene does not have and are flat out missing from the recent games.

I actually believe the second answer is more relevant to this discussion.