Topic: Pokemon Legends Arceus

I personally just think no voice acting, all text, makes a game feel cheap.

Also, I'm kinda annoyed at the fact that this game is supposedly set in the past, in a colder region, yet we have this little girl looking like she's from some futuristic anime, running around in barely any proper clothing. Why isn't this game consistent? The arceus phone was one thing, but this design looks absolutely stupid given the context.

@VoidofLight That's no excuse I think. VA should be good, period. But the fact that you don't expect them to handle it well says enough I think lol. Pokemon games are still years behind the rest of the industry. If you compare this to something like Horizon Forbidden West, or BOTW2 (and realise they're asking the same price for it, whilst probably outselling both) it's just outrageous.

Eh, the games not really in the same vein as those. I agree there's so much more they could do to make the series better, but this unfortunately how the series has always been. They usually take baby steps to get anywhere, given how they're scared of taking chances and ruining the brand. The fact that Legends even really exists is just baffling, given that Gamefreak usually never does something that leaps far from what came before.

Also, I don't think that not having voice acting = cheap. There's still tons of games that lack proper full voice acting in everything, and it's not really as awful as people make it out to be. It's just that people are so used to having series implement voice acting that when a series doesn't, it feels cheap to them. It's kind of like how the open world trend was, and still is. People felt like if games weren't truly open world like BotW on switch, then they were cheaper or weren't as good.

The one thing that puts me off about these games is the fact that they keep locking some really cool stuff behind the other games in the series. Legends seems to have the most bonuses that are locked behind owning games like Let's Go, Sword and Shield, and BDSP. I own all three, so the bonuses don't bother me as much, however it still feels weird how they're locking things like mythicals behind these games. Clothing, I get.. but mythical pokemon? C'mon..

The only thing I could really say about these mythicals is that they at least have proper events in this game, and aren't just handed through Mystery Gift like every other pokemon game. I hope they retain that in Gen 9.

@Pizzamorg oh, that's interesting saying. xD
But people how no one is saying that Irida (Pearl Clan Leader) is looks like as beauty from this era then era 200 years ago. xD

The thing about pokémon games that leads to so many heated discussions is how little we get to know about the development process itself. Earlier today I heard that Dan Salvato (creator of Doki Doki Literature Club and Smash Melee modder) was on Twitter asking why, despite being part of a high-grossing franchise, Legends Arceus looked like a Gamecube game - later clarifying that he didn't mean this as a diss, but as an indication that this could be a sign of a troubled production. And I kind of agree, though that didn't stop the usual inflammatory comments accusing the developers of laziness or apathy.
And that's the thing: we don't know what's going on in Game Freak's and the TPC's offices, so people start making assumptions based on industry trends and happenings. A lot of the "greedy exploitative company" discourse applies more to certain western AAA companies than to a Japanese company working directly under Nintendo (whose higher-ups receive significantly less compared to their western counterparts), but that's the immediate reference point we get.
We can't tell with 100% certainty if recent pokémon games aren't as visually impressive as their contemporaries because of passionless developers working under tight deadlines enforced by the people in charge, or if the developers have certain principles (like deliberately working with a small staff to manage things more closely or keeping tight deadlines to challenge themselves) that go against many fans' ambitions and expectations and the franchise's success gives them the liberty to keep doing things their way, or if it's a little bit of both.
We don't know, because they won't tell - and with how hostile some of the reactions have been (something we do know they are aware of), I don't see them opening up anytime soon.

I don’t get all the “graphics bad” criticisms, personally. Performance bad? Certainly, but I think there are much worse looking games on the Switch. Shield, for example, has some of the brightest and crispest visuals you’d find on the system and is supported by great art design. There are other games which may be more complex in terms of what the visuals are doing, but they usually come with muddy, blurry, visuals and their own suite of performance issues too.

If I looked at Legends compared to say a Series X/PC game at Ultra, then sure, but in the context of the Switch library, I think the complaints about the graphics are either overblown or they are confusing the term graphics, with more problematic things like certain animations or performance issues, but I don’t think those are really the same thing.

@BrazillianCara I don't get the people who make the argument of "iT's ThE wOrlD's BiGgEsT fRaNcHiSe, So It ShOuLd Be BeTtEr!", when they don't understand how franchises operate. The games aren't TPC's priority, and haven't been for the longest time. They make more money off the anime and the merch than they do the games, and that's where they sink the most money into. The games pretty much just exist for new pokemon and regions for the anime, and that's about all sadly.

Also, the gamecube game argument can easily be debunked when you compare Gale of Darkness, a game that everyone praised for being "Better looking than sword and shield" to Legends. Gale of Darkness looks drastically worse.

@Pizzamorg The only thing I can see that's not great are the muddy textures, which only seem noticeable in Legends if you look extremely close at them.

@VoidofLight Moot point, the games are incredibly profitable on their own. They're among the best selling games. So even if you ignore the 'rest' of the franchise, the point still stands.

@Octane But most of the money isn't even going towards the games themselves. That's my point there. Most of the money is going into everything other than the games.

@VoidofLight If they're not investing the money they earn from the games back into the games, then that's just plain stupid. Either way, it doesn't look good.

@Octane It's stupid, and I hate TPC for it, but there's nothing that could be done. No competition for the series that could aim to make them change, and sales probably won't ever dip far enough to make them change as well. I feel bad for the devs that have to deal with this, since they want to move onto better things, or want to give it their all, but aren't able to do so because of these stupid time restraints that are forced in order to keep merch and the anime flowing.

It's why I'm hopeful that Legends will be able to at least bring some form of progression or change in the series, and why I'm cautiously optimistic for it. I don't think it necessarily needs voice acting for it to be good, and I feel like the graphics are passable for the title. The main thing I just want is good gameplay, and tons of content.. which we haven't had since Black and White. This is the biggest leap that the series has had so far, and I feel like it'll probably end up not doing so well, due to the graphics, or due to it releasing in January with major changes to it's gameplay. I can see it being polarizing in the fanbase, since it already is. Poketubers are already ripping the game apart without playing it, like Verlisify, who keeps saying the game is horrible.

@Pizzamorg IKR? My only issue is that it looks a little muddy, and I hope it gets smoothed out later on, but thats about it, People are just hating just to hate, and most of them probably haven't played a pokemon games in a wile.

Yeah, it is kinda sad really. I bought into the backlash around S/Sfor years, when I tried the game out on my Sisters Switch I was clouded by all the negativity and ended up missing out for years on one of the best experiences I have had on my Switch.

As such, this time around, I’m not letting people drag me down about Legends. I am excited and don’t care about crybabies saying ***** stuff like “looks like a GameCube game”, like get the ***** out of here with that *****.

We can by all means focus on objective issues and by all means share subjective issues, but the 30 something basement dwellers need to accept the Pokemon game they have conjured in their head, tailored exactly to them, does not and probably will never, exist. So they can either enjoy these games for what they offer or just move on. Simply seething in a pool of toxicity, making usually hyperbolic statements and pretending they are facts achieves nothing but making everyone miserable.

I'll just never understand the sentiment that this game looks like a Gamecube game. I just looked at Gamecube games, and nothing on the gamecube looks like this.

I've seen people say Legends looks like a ps3 game, and I guess that's slightly more accurate, but the Switch itself is barely more powerful than the PS3.

@Pizzamorg Sword and shield is amazing, sure it has its setbacks here and there, but Its not at any means a bad game.

"looks like a GameCube game" People really said this? like what the hell? This looks by no means like a gamecube game, I will never understand that argument.

@Snatcher Yeah, the guy who made Dokie Dokie Literature Club said Legends looks like a gamecube game, and wasn't saying to throw shade, but asking because he wasn't sure why something like it was acceptable on the Switch.

And not only is it wrong… but it’s the bloody Switch. What game is he looking at on the Switch to the point where he feels like comparatively Legends looks like a GameCube game? Like what a nutter. The Switch is effectively a portable XBOX 360 in terms of power, this is basically as good as it gets without some significant performance issues or some insane optimisation.

@Pizzamorg I've seen people say BotW looks 10 times better, and that Legends should look like that... but BotW also had really muddy textures, and the world is also pretty empty looking in some aspects.

I've seen people say how SMT V is also better looking, but SMT V has apparent limits that Legends doesn't have graphically.

The only thing that Legends has that's a graphical issue is it's textures. The rest of the game looks perfectly fine, and performance-wise, it looks fine as well. There's slight pop-in in the gameplay we've seen, but it's not that awful either.

I just think people are saying it looks awful because it's a pokemon game, while they wouldn't really do the same for any other series. Yes, I get Pokemon makes tons of money, but so do other series. Not to mention, the dev team behind these games aren't really strong with HD console games, as Sword and Shield was technically the first mainline game on a console. Let's Go barely counts, given how it wasn't made by the main team at Gamefreak.