Topic: Pokemon Sword & Shield

Understatement of the year right there.

I'm excited to see Nuzleaf and Bisharp return. Still waiting on... basically all the Pokemon I wrote down at the start of this I wanted to see back. Alolan Marowak, Shinx, Alolan and Regular Sandshrew, Hawlucha, Absol, Oddish, Cranidos, Houndour, Clauncher, Joltik were the lines I wanted above all else, and we've only had Hawlucha and Joltik confirmed so far.

@link3710 I just my sweet sweet boy Tropius back. I'm assuming they just forgot he exists when Sun and Moon were being developed. #JusticeForTropius

@jump First off, most, I said. Never was I claiming it was universal excitement. Second, resetting the metagame is a valid point, except this is probably going to be the freshest such a metagame will be in forever, as no longer will the same strategies be in use across multiple tournaments.

I never bought their excuse for the reason behind the 'mon cut either, but it's their choice, and I've accepted that. Yes, other fans can raise points as to why they want every creature in the game and why the comments Game Freak have given were total bunk, but at what point does it cross the line from meerly raising those objections to what I called it - taking it as a personal insult?

Yea, I was in middle school when Pokémon fever first gripped the U.S. Blue and Red came out, the tv show was on... that was a good time. But total confession: I haven't played a SINGLE Pokémon game to any real length since Blue/Red. I picked up X or Y (can't even remember) for my 3DS but barely played past the second town or something like that.

I don't know. I'm gonna give Sword a try. We'll see what happens. Maybe I really get into it once again, maybe not.

You literally said " for new and old fans alike", where's this most at?

Well, I do find it funny they are insulting their dedicated fanbase's intelligence by telling them there's too many animations to create when the game shows animations that are clearly not new. In any case it doesn't really matter if you feel like they are taking it as personal insults or merely objecting, people can complain about things if they want especially if they have invested years of time and money into it.

@jump Yeah, I understand that. I just wanted to backup why I felt that way. In a way, I felt the same way with EA's Star Wars Battlefront even if I did buy it at launch (I think my exact words were "a Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare clone in a Star Wars skin, that's completely reinventing the formula instead of building on what came before"), but that's obviously not on the same scale. If I had a problem with the new trilogy of films, that'd be closer to this situation, I would think.

@DarkRula I personally don't have a problem with the limited dex. Heck, I think there are too many going by what we know already at this point. The ratio old vs new Pokemon is way too high, assuming there are going to be around 100 new mons. Anyway, I do wish they put more effort into the animations. It's all the same from 3DS games, and the idle overworld animations don't look impressive at all (especially stuff like Wingull). The worst thing still is the stupid flying animations of Pokemon like Tropius and Salamence, still a leftover from the sky battle in XY, but they never bothered to fix it. It's a game that sells 15-20 million easily, they can afford it. But yeah, I did pre-order a copy, for only €50 mind you, that made the choice a little easier. I'm just a little disappointed, because there's so much potential, but the games feel so sterile and safe; every single time.

@Octane And that's the exact sort of thing I mean when I say they feel a generation or two behind on other games. That's why I also mention Genius, as while they only had battles to work on, everything about the GCN games and even Battle Revolution looked a lot better than what Sword/Shield offer. Still doesn't stop them from being good games, but I wish that they were better.

@DarkRula I'd be over the moon if we could get HD remakes of XD and Colosseum, as unlikely as it sounds. Or y'know, better yet another sequel to those games in a new region. Considering the main series games don't seem interested in expanding the difficulty or telling an interesting story anymore, they could at least continue those games as a subseries focused on that section of the fan base.

@link3710 As long as they keep it double battles. I personally liked the limited selection of Pokemon too. Made the game a lot harder when you're using Noctowls and Ledians to fight pseudo legendaries.

@Octane Mhm, that's exactly what I mean. Those games used limited Pokemon selection in a good way, were designed to not allow easy grinding so that the level curve could be set perfectly, and had those great challenge CDs. And double battles are probably my favorite format too. Though I'd like to see a sequel have Rotation Battle, Triple Battle, and Inverse (Double) Battle segments too.

@link3710 I think rotation battles would look really silly in 3D. But I wouldn't mind if they experimented with those.

Yeah, the battle CDs and battle bingo in XD were great.

@DarthNocturnal You can always do Mt. Battle in that case. That's still challenging. I don't think I've ever had to grind in Colosseum.

Rotation battles would look pretty natural. Just make the pokemon walk.

Anyway, didn't gen 6 have them?

XD improved on Colleseum in basically every way, including level curve, yeah. That's the one that's endlessly replayable in my book.

I mean, Invadeel is right, we already did 3D rotation battles, but they were silly looking (the Pokemon stood on giant circles that rotated them). To do it proper would require new animations to do it justice, but considering the game should have a reduced roster size and improved animations all around, something around 200 or so Pokemon (more than XD, but not that much more) should be totally doable. Just have a Pokemon from the side run forwards when it's time to do their move, and let the other two walk to their new spots.

Honestly, the idea of them making the core series more casual focused and making XDesque spinoffs for the core crowd actually really appeals to me. I don't mind the core games not having good postgame content or stories if we actually got that content elsewhere. It's mostly the disappearance of games like Stadium or Colleseum, Mystery Dungeon, Ranger or anything that explores Pokemon in interesting ways lately that's gotten me so down on the series as a whole. Like Masters was fun for a bit (and has a few things the main series could take notes on for all it's faults), but the story was so bleached clean that I had to stop.

@link3710 I personally prefer Colosseum.

XD went a bit over the top with its story and locations; those giant Cipher bases in the desert and on that island. I prefer the more ''realistic'' take of Colosseum. XD also focused mostly on Kanto Pokemon, but those models had aged the worst compared to the rest IMO. Gen 2 and 3 models were definitely better. And the stupid 10-year-old main character...

@Octane I could see that. Colleseum told the better story (Wes and Rui needs to be remembered by TPC at some point), but XD's QoL enhancements make it for me.

There was an article inquiring about a fish and chips Pokémon, and I have some ideas, and I thought I'd share my comment here as well...

Galarian Magikarp
Type: Water/Ghost
The Dish Pokémon
The possessed plate Pokémon. The plate houses the restless soul of the since departed (and flayed) Magikarp with delicious free range Exeggcute mayonnaise and fresh Exeggutor cream. Served with deep-fried chips made from young Pyukumuku. Its exclusive ability is Beguiling Aroma which reduces the foe's Special Defense by one whilst simultaneously causing confusion at the start of their encounter; and its signature move is Just Desserts, a Dark-type move that causes the user to faint, and recovers the health of all targets whilst badly poisoning them; a delicious and deadly combination. Galarian Magikarp cannot evolve, however, if a normal Magikarp from another region levels up with Galarian Magikarp in the user's party, then it can evolve into Galarian Gyarados.

Galarian Gyarados
Type: Water/Dark
The Deceiver Pokémon
A distraught Magikarp that has evolved into Galarian Gyarados to avenge the (delicious) fate of Galarian Magikarp. Galarian Gyarados has shed its skin to use as a disguise, while its true form lies beneath its shed skin and resembles a skinned fish (resembling unagi nigiri). Its ability, like Mimikyu's, is Disguise, with its shed skin taking the initial blow in battle. Its signature move is Shish Kaboom, a Dark-type attack similar to Tri Attack, which hurls projectiles at the target, healing up to 1/4th of the target's health, whilst guaranteeing to inflict them with either freezing, burning, poison, or paralysis. Galarian Gyarados also has a second signature move, Cold Revenge, a water-type move similar to Acupressure, but decreases a target's random stat by two stages.

fish and chips pokemon, water and grass type. since chips are made from plants.

@StableInvadeel Gen 6 didn't have Rotation and Triple battles sadly.

Instead we got...Sky Battles...oh and that one guy for Inverse Battles