Topic: Pokemon Sword & Shield

Im not looking forward to having my name permanently attached to starting this thread but..

Its gonna be weird having a region based on where I live. Cant say I particularly like the feeling.

Visually, looks good. Pokemon models are the same yes but thats because they are obnoxiously high polygon models, evidently with the intent of future proofing.

Surprised no release date though.

@baller98 You know the models in Lets Go are the same as on 3DS too right? Just textured and lit differently. The actual geometry has been the same since Gen 6.

Modders found in the files of Gen 7 that every model upscales to HD by default due to incredibly high levels of polygonal detail. Likely to orevent needing to remake models for each new iteration

My cousin sent me this right after the Direct. Found it kinda funny.

They've obviously stolen the logo from the Finnish police. Better call the cops.

Hmm. I wasn't blown away but I am happy for the mainliners so now they can hopefully stop complaining about Let's Go. Personally since it looks like random battles are still here to stay I will wait on the next Let's Go entry (I really hope that becomes the remake line). Let's Go fixed one of the tedium issues I had with the Pokemon series so seeing a return to the norm means I'll wait on reviews and or wait till the third version comes out for trading purposes. I will say scorbunny is cute even if the name is not. So if I do buy the game, that will be my starter. Otherwise, I was rather underwhelmed. Looking forward to Town though.

This. I feel like the series has been stagnant for such a long time. When was the last time this series showed actual ambition to do something significant and new with the genre?

New to Pokemon isn't enough.

Game looks great, a much bigger step up than I was expecting. Let’s Go was clean looking game. But this just looks beyond. Not quite on Yokai Watch 4 level but, close.

Now that Lets Go has done its job by getting me into the series, and now that I actually understand the game play hook and why it’s addicting, I can honestly say I’m excited for this game.

So I saw Nazca lines and soccer.

Is it like based on Perú?

Looked pretty damn good to me.

I was suspecting they wouldn't completely reinvent the wheel with this game, given that it hasn't had that long a dev period. I think it's only 3 years since Sun/Moon isn't it?

@Delibheel

Given the rest of its scenery, I think it's supposed to be england. There are a series of old hill carvings at various places in england. Sort of a weird custom that people have kept going for hundreds of years. I assume it's supposed to be a Pokemon version of this (this one's 3000 years old)

The graphics look kind of inconsistent. At times, like showing parts of the town look great at other times some of the textures like in the snowy mountain part look pretty bad and low res. I hope they improve those before release. I honestly would have preferred Let's Go Eevee and Pikachu style graphics over this.

Let's try to guess what kind of Pokemon based on England.
Possibly the theme about Royalty, Big Ben, Steel Pokemons until Mr Bean Pokemon 😆, Big Dragon, Cerberus Pokemon, Pokemon with looking like Elton John, Pokemon with Lady Diana looking, 5 Different Pokemons represent Spice Girls, Soccer Pokemon, etc.

Cerberus is Greek tho.

I'm almost sure Hawaii has no Koalas.

....Well that was..."bleh".

Interestingly this analysis was fairly spot on. King and Queen probably refers to how England has a monarchy, and Galar seems to be based off of England.

@iKhan Gen 5, which got them a ton of blowback. People keep saying they want Pokemon to evolve and try something new and when they did, they got a mixed reception. That's partly why Gen 6 and 7 backpedaled pretty hard.

In terms of the direct itself, it gave a lot more info than I expected, so I was pleasantly surprised by that. The game itself is basically Sun and Moon graphics in HD, which is what a lot of us expected. Game Freak has always been doing this — the even generations (Gens 4, 6, and now 8) are just prettier versions of their prior generation, while the odd generations (gens 3, 5, and 7) are the ones that change up the graphical style significantly and/or take a risk with gameplay/story. Makes sense since the even generations are usually the debut on new hardware, so that alone is generally enough to sell copies. The odd generations are on the same console so they need more improvements to be appealing.

I expect Gen 9 to adopt an open world approach or at least semi-Open World approach, but for now Gen 8 will hold me over nicely.

I like the grass starter the best, followed by the water starter. Not a big fan of the fire bunny but of course the final decision is based on the final evolutions. Froakie didn't stand out to me either initially but Greninja made Froakie a definite choice for me (if I had played X/Y).

@shadow-wolf I liked the water starter the best, the grass starter just seemed like a grass chimchar for me. But i guess it does depend on what the final evolutions are too. I also wished they showed the main legendary pokemon for the game too.

@EvilLucario I'm sorry but Gen 5 was in no way ambitious for the RPG genre, video games, or even handheld games. Linear RPGs have been telling deep stories on handhelds for decades.

Regarding gameplay, Gen 5 just compounded upon the series increasing linearity and handholding to the point that it stripped away any requirement for cognitive thought when you aren't in a battle.

Gen 6 had moments of brilliance, and moments where it definitely seemed to have potential. The most notable I can think of off the top of my head was Lumiose City. It was definitely confusing and hard to navigate, but I really felt like they were going in the right direction. If they improved the navigation and added camera control, Lumiose could be one of the best moments in the series.

@Knuckles-Fajita Models look fine, but I really hope they improve the stiff animation from X&Y and Sun & Moon. The N64/GCN/Wii games had better animations than the current ones.

@shadow-wolf Yeah, but the idea was that the games were going to be named King and Queen, and that's obviously not happening. Many countries have a monarchy as well, so it's hardly a connection

Speaking about the Legendary Pokemons on Gen 8, both of them probably will have Sword looking Pokemon and Shield looking Pokemon. They will be displayed on the cover of this game.