Video: Game Freak Introduces The Characters Of Little Town Hero

Looking at the trailer it's now pretty clear that the minister and their aide are going to be either the main antagonist or the one assisting them

I'm digging the art direction

The music doesn't seem particularly great to me.

Nice framedrops.

I'm still on the fence about this one. It looks nice but, I'm gonna be waiting for some reviews first, I think.

Are you even able to free roam in this game? It appears as though you can’t. I’m really starting to think this was a cellphone project that got moved over to switch.

I am getting it. Good for Game Freak. For bringing us something different. I will also be getting Pokemon Part 8467. They make great games that I have played 8467 times. With always the same outcome.

Yeah im gonna skip this one.

I haven't purchased any of their games since Pokemon X and i haven't really enjoyed a single one of their games since Pokemon Pearl.

After the backlash they've been getting for the upcoming "Can't catch them all" Pokemon game, I'd rather just hold off and see how things pan out on all their products before giving Game Freak any of my money.

@Yosher JRPG review score guide:

8: Good for fans of the genre.

8.5: Still would say only genre fans, but damn good for genre fans.

9: Either pushes genre in some ways or does something new that even non fans should give it a try. Or is so good at ‘for fans of the genre’ that it’s a shining example that should be the ones non-fans try.

9.5: Also the soundtrack and presentation are amazing.

10: It’s Chrono Trigger.

Looks nice but from what I have seen from the characters it looks like someone copied a book called "how to write generic Jrpg heroes 101" and called it a day.

@Yosher same. I'm interested but will hold off for some reviews.

Judging by all trailers to this point (including the original E3 reveal), this apparently features two monsters the entire game, and you will be allowed to attack them with only a single spinning jump flame punch.

Seriously, I was interested in this game at first, but
now it's really glaring and odd that they have recycled the same handful of gameplay snippets for every single trailer

Looks like garbage.

I'll wait for a review before picking this one up.

@Yodalovesu Did you not see that terrifying sheep? I get not showing us everything but every new trailer so far is just a different order of the same clips. The only thing it is doing to me right now is wanting to replay Azure Dreams.

Well it's got every cliche

Passionate shounen lead, childhood female interest, goofy looking friend, and THE RIVAL.

Pretty boring but perhaps the game play is the true gem here. It'll be interesting to know see more about it in the future.

This game for me is one of those, “Oh this game looks interesting, but i’ll wait for reviews on it.” There are some ideas I like about this game, but at the same time nothing has really convinced me into buying it. I’ll just wait for reviews.

@Yodalovesu They're doing the same with Pokemon sword/shield, GameFreak just adore their little secrets and reveal as little as they can get away with in trailers.

On one hand it doesn't spoil much of the game, on the other, it's hard to get hyped when you don't know anything about the games...

Each trailer has made me less excited for this game. I may get it after reviews come out but there are other games that are coming out around the same time that will occupy my time

No one’s going to comment on how the main character lives with only his mother and has a “rival”? I’m trying to work something up but can’t think of anything witty enough.

What little we saw of the combat actually has me interested, namely that the town itself seems to work as an ever changing party in your battles. But I don’t know how accurate this is and I want to wait for the game to come out rather than pre-buying.

@MysticX OK, I guess you're right. The character names and descriptions are definitely new info exclusive to this trailer

Nothing too exciting, hopefully there's some hidden surprise in store or I may had to give it a pass.

I was really looking forward to this game, but it seems, even with their A team, GF is using the same generic bootleg-like attack animations they've been doing in the past 3D pokemon games. And with the few information we have so far on the actual gameplay, I'm gonna jump on the "waiting for reviews" bandwagon before buying. The OST however is absolutely amazing, props to Toby Fox and Hitomi Sato for the arrangements.

tbh the only thing sticking out to me with this game is how hard theyre pushing toby fox's name in trailers. which yknow what fair enough. the art is nice, but gameplay isnt really doing much for me

@Snakesglowcaps my initial thoughts exactly when this game was first presented!

This game better be 9.5/10 for hurting the game that was supposed to be the best Pokémon game to ever exist

@Tantani You do know that A) Game Freak has ALWAYS worked like this, aka split into two, and it's been the exact same situation during the development of EVERY Pokémon game, as well as B) Due to the fact that the team working on Sword/Shield and the team working on Little Town Hero being two different teams, Neither of the games have hurt each other, right?

I'm excited about this game. It looks original and fun.

@Blizzia a) they always had 2 teams but like most studios they have their “A team” the team with the developers with the more experience developers and with the more resources from the studio
And the “B team” the younger less experienced developers
Usually the A team work on a new generation of Pokémon while the B team working on the side project, the B team than take the new generation game game and do a rather quick upgraded version using the same assents as before
This time the A team worked on the side project and the B team worked on the new generation of Pokémon

And you can easily feel the lack of experience and even efforts on the games (at least from what we saw on the trailers)
The project was to big for the B team to handle

They should have pushed Town to a later date and give us a god damm AAA Pokémon title with every Pokémon in it and every big battle feature that the series had (including Mega and Z-moves) as options and more, they are swimming in resources and it is not exactly the biggest game ever made, they should have brought enough people to finish the game

@Tantani On the contrary, the trailers show excellent growth in terms of bringing the series forth both graphically and in terms of expression of the franchise.

If the B-team is indeed the ones working on Sword/Shield, they're doing one hell of a job. The games look absolutely beautiful and beyond the lack of all Pokémon, I can't find any faults with it yet really.

Even I find the decision not to bring over all Pokémon absolutely nonsensical, but beyond that, there's been nothing to pick at. It's as AAA as it gets.

Still on the fence for Little Town Hero. Will check out reviews when they arrive.

they sure put toby's name in big letters, usually see that kind of promotion from a kickstarter dev separated from their franchise

I'm not sure where people are getting the idea that the creation of this game is somehow at the cost of Pokemon. It's not at all uncommon to have multiple teams working on different games all under the same developer.

It's beginning to look like their biggest selling point is "LOOK WE HAVE TOBY FOX" and that really doesn't make a 25€ eshop only game with almost no real information that much more attractive...

Honestly, for all their Toby Fox hype, the music sounds a little... generic? I still don't understand the gameplay or really much of anything about the game other than seeing the same three monsters in every trailer.

Also, the in-game footage combined with Toby Fox's music just feels a little, dare I say it, static. Their 2D game Giga Wrecker seemed a lot more dynamic in comparison. Sound familiar? Seems like Game Freak struggles with 3D games in general.

Nice game, but nothing really excites me...

@Blizzia
Most of the assents were just ported from the 3ds (although we are lied about that it isn’t and everything is from the ground up)
The open area aspect look ok although the graphics are comparable to Wii games instead of being on the lvl of BOTW or XC2 graphically

The Pokémon in the open are are just walking around aimlessly

They are claiming to “not have enough time” to bring the all the Pokémon when it is actually a decision that was taken at the start of development of the game to save money on development (oh no, more money on development for a game that cost less than 50 million to create and earn 600 million at bare minimum), if they really didn’t have time they should have brought more developers to help on the project

They took away mega and z-moves which made them from fighting elements to timed gimmicks
And so on

I am pretty hyped for the game regardless but I am really annoyed with their lies and disrespect towards the audience who buy their games
Considering how much money Pokémon is making, it won’t be a problem for game freak (who get money for every Pokémon merchandise and game that is being sold and anything Pokémon that makes money) to build more teams to work on Pokémon or at least expend the current team to give a game in the lvl we deserve, while this game look almost like a port from the 3ds to the Switch with updated graphics and an added element of open world in certain parts....

So Pokemon in different clothing...

@Tantani

"Most of the assets were just ported from the 3ds (although we are lied about that it isn’t and everything is from the ground up)"

Wrong. They were unable to port the old assets so they had to rebuild it from the ground up. This is pretty common, porting isn't just a 1:1 job, issues are almost always present.

"The open area aspect look ok although the graphics are comparable to Wii games instead of being on the lvl of BOTW or XC2 graphically"

Yeah no, untrue. Just check out XC on the wii. This is well above that.

"The Pokémon in the open are are just walking around aimlessly"

I'll give you that - although what did you expect them to do? How much did you need? Should they nibble on apples or what?

"They are claiming to “not have enough time” to bring the all the Pokémon when it is actually a decision that was taken at the start of development of the game to save money on development (oh no, more money on development for a game that cost less than 50 million to create and earn 600 million at bare minimum), if they really didn’t have time they should have brought more developers to help on the project"

A decision to omit certain material due to a lack of time taken at the beginning of the project is the norm. You forget that they need to set a project timeline and they need to stick to it. Simple as that.

Doesn't mean its a good decision. But you'll rarely find a company who doesn't make such a huge decision at the beginning of a project.

"They took away mega and z-moves which made them from fighting elements to timed gimmicks
And so on"

Just like they've taken away other gimmicks present over time. That's what they do. Remove old stuff, put in some new. Rinse and repeat. This is nothing new, so why complain about it now?

"I am pretty hyped for the game regardless but I am really annoyed with their lies and disrespect towards the audience who buy their games"

They haven't lied, so yeah, no need to be annoyed at that.

"Considering how much money Pokémon is making, it won’t be a problem for game freak (who get money for every Pokémon merchandise and game that is being sold and anything Pokémon that makes money) to build more teams to work on Pokémon or at least expend the current team to give a game in the lvl we deserve,"

Definitely true. They should upgrade their dev teams to twice their current size, no doubt.

" while this game look almost like a port from the 3ds to the Switch with updated graphics and an added element of open world in certain parts...."

Can't agree here, I'd go as far as say you'd have to be blind to have this opinion.

@Blizzia
1) bro, every model and movement is exactly the same as sun and moon, look on the many 1v1 comparison on YouTube

2)just look on the Zelda games from the god damm GameCube, anyway I talked about XC2

3)I expect them to look alive and even engage with each other.... but this is not a big concern to me, just a missed opportunity

4)they are swimming in money, they could easily hire more devs or suspending Town for a while and complete the Pokémon project the right way in time

5) the only time they “reversed” the battle system was from gen 6 to 7 with them taking out the option of triple/rotation battle
Other than that, they never changed the battle system back from what it was

6)they lied, a lot.... sadly....

7) glad we agree

8)same as point 1

Ehh, I'll pass on it.

This is one of those games where I will definitely need a review since the game itself doesn't look super appealing to me. The combat especially is putting me off. I hope websites like Nintendo Life can change my mind.

@Dpullam I think being a download only is why I may skip it. Got my Switch not long ago and thought how convenient digital downloads are..then I lost $30-$40 on a clunker of a game I cant sell it...i can't even give it away. I'll never do that again. Physical only from now on.

@wazlon can't get a physical copy. May skip it. It only took one time spending $30 on a bad game and having no physical copy to trade in or give away to realize digital is not the way to go.