Topic: Pokemon Sword & Shield

From what I remember, the most disliked thing in oras was that they didn't include the battle frontier, and instead they did the cruel joke of teasing it, while copy-pasting the kalos battle mansion instead.

Like, literally, I think it even uses the same trainer types and art. None of the ones from Hoenn.

@Morpheel
One thing i really miss from Alpha Sapphire / Omega Ruby was Character customization.
X / Y was quite good in those Chibi form and character customization.

I can kind of understand why they removed that, since you're meant to be Brendan/May, and they wanted to keep them recognizable.

They could've offered clothing at least, I guess.

Even the battle maison can be kind of explained by them wanting to keep the mode compatible with XY, but it doesn't make it seem any nicer in the eyes of a battle frontier fan.

@Morpheel Are you suggesting they had to make new models for the new Mega Evolutions and the clothing?!?

Uh?

I get the clothing, but what do you mean with new models for mega evolution (they did add new ones as far I remember).

One could argue they did this with Let's Go ;p

Though more accurately this was XY. 450 strong regional dex.

72 were new.

The problem there was the new was buried heavily by often being the rare encounters per area.

personally, i love gen 5, but that’s definitely because it was my first game. but i wish some people would give them a chance! (i’m not calling anyone out here, nobody specific) like yeah, some of the pokemon are redundant, but switch them up every once in awhile! options are nice, and just because it’s similar to an old pokemon doesn’t mean you can only ever use the old one and the new one sucks.

@Grumblevolcano Right. That was it. It would be preferable to have the remakes based on the 3rd version. They didn't do that with previous remakes either and I don't expect the next remakes to be based on Platinum either even though it's quite different from Diamond and Pearl. At least they add some extra stuff like the Delta Episode and Sevii Islands.

@Yorumi I think I worded that poorly. I should have explained in more detail.

I'm not talking about standard animations. I know what models and animations are. I'm talking about the kinds of animations some people seem to want. A Pokémon makes contact with the other Pokémon with their move and the other reacts to it accordingly. Let's say a Mankey runs towards a Poliwag, jumps on it and scratches it. Doesn't sound all that special? Well, what if the opposing Pokémon were an Ursaring instead? The Mankey can't jump on it the same way. It would need to take the opponent's height into account and possibly some other stuff too to not make it look too awkward. Maybe a bad example since Mankey doesn't have to jump to scratch an opponent but I believe that's how it attacked in the anime.

Currently they have it like this: idle animation plays -> chooses attack -> attack animation plays -> defending Pokémon's damage taking animation plays. Most of these animations don't care about things like positioning. Though I think there are some exceptions. Something like a Hyper Beam hitting a different part of Pokémon. That needs some calculation. Or maybe they have a predetermined spot on each Pokémon? I don't know. But that's more of the kind of stuff I'm talking about.

I haven't played Pokémon for a while so I don't remember if the Pokémon have more than one "getting hurt animation" but even if they do have multiple, who knows how that thing is programmed. Is it easily expandable or hardcoded integer value that says a Pokémon can have only so many animations. This extends to stuff like spawning particles and other visual effects.

Who knows how much work this would actually amount to but it's something that would have to be done regardless. I think they'll just use what they have for now and make a more customizable animation framework later once they overhaul the whole battle system. At least I hope they'll do it at some point.

@Morpheel The only Battle Frontier I bothered with was in Platinum so it's not a huge surprise I forgot about that thing as well. I don't think I ever visited the Battle Maison in OR/AS.

@Yorumi Yeah. I don't think they ever specified that they were talking about battle animations, did they? Maybe they have more cutscenes and stuff? I like that they've at least given the player character a bit more personality through the animations. They can emote now. I guess I'll judge their statement once the game comes out and I see what they've done... or haven't done. Though to be fair, I've probably forgotten about the whole thing by then. I don't really care all that much.

@Late I'd guess those complaining about the animations would want Fire Emblem Echoes style animations for Pokemon. Pokemon has way too much moveset variety for that to be feasible though.

Yeah, same. I guess it's a testament to how broad-reaching the games are when they can get people who who seem to prioritize very different aspects of the games and still come out as loyal fans after all these years. I feel like I'd go mad if I tried to treat Pokemon as a competitive multiplayer game, but clearly there are plenty who see it as such and want to see that aspect refined. Some people see Pokemon with similar niches as a problem, but I love it - there are different species that cover similar niches the world over, so I see it as a nice touch, further blending fantasy and reality that I've come to love so much from the franchise.

Different strokes for different folks, yet no matter what, we're all riding the same boat.

@Yorumi People were upset with the animations even before that, the cut Pokemon comment was just adding gasoline to the fire. That's pretty much what the cut Pokemon situation did, it escalated the other complaints about the franchise.

Haha, I’m a whiner myself tbh. I remember criticizing how a lot of the Pokémon models are still very static and lifeless in battle and how unappealing many of the attacks looked in S/M. Especially all those kicking attacks. They really need to stop using those ugly foot prints to signify kicking attacks.

It’s always strange how they’ve stayed the same since Gen 6 for the most part. In Let’s Go they gave them a bit of their color back and now they’ve very slightly changed the models for some of them in SwSh. I like them in Amie/Refresh though. They tend to look a lot more appealing in their.

Yeah, at least they've been getting a bit more coloful with time. I remember back in gen 6 I really disliked the dullness of those models.

@Yorumi While it doesn't affect me as the only time I've transferred Pokemon between versions has been for completing regional dex in gen 1 and 3 (e.g. transferring Red/Blue exclusives to Yellow) and getting a good team for Mt. Battle vs. 100 in Colosseum to unlock Ho-oh, I feel the Pokemon franchise would be much better if they stopped doing annual games and had expansions instead.

Each expansion which would have new areas to explore, story content, etc. could have Pokemon not in the base game (you can transfer returning Pokemon in the expansion from Bank/World without owning the expansion) and the full national dex gets built up that way.

Expansions in Pokemon aren't fun, just like how Kanto in gen 2 wasn't fun. Post game in general isn't very fun IMO

Only if they do some Mt. Battle thing, or a Battle Frontier.

@-Green- I remember being so excited because I thought Samurott would water/fighting fully evolved and since I really love that typing but and consistently disappointed by how mediocre Poliwrath is, I super bummed when it was pure water... Then with Emboar being the 3rd fire/fighting in a row... Serperior grew on me fast once it could be obtained with Contrary - such a cool ability! But even then, it's really a one trick pony...

Although Emboar can randomly learn scald, which is fun.

@Octane I've liked most of the Post-game content throughout the years...

@Knuckles-Fajita I liked XY mostly. Just wasn't a fan of the bad guys because their motivations were silly and very nonsensical. I mean, by comparison Team Magma and Aqua wanting more land or more water sounds logical.

It’s pretty simple, kill everyone off and repopulate earth.