Video: Digital Foundry Delivers Its Verdict On Pokémon Sword And Shield

Oh, this will be interesting.
So what I'm seeing is that they didn't improve much graphically. They just fixed the lighting and gave us more of the same.

That may sound decent but we were promised something that would be an upgrade thanks to the smaller workload after removing so many Pokémon and such. This isn't showing that to be true.

Nothing I've seen so far has justified the $20 price increase.

I can already tell Digital Foundery is going to get a ton of flack for this video. Just saying the words that Sword and Shield has a consistent Framerate will get someone right furious.

As long the game is not crashing during playing, i will digging in no matter the flaws inside as long still tolerable.

Been likin it more than Sun and Moon tbh

@Anti-Matter What a high bar you’ve set for the biggest media franchise on the planet. This is part of why Gamefreak doesn’t put much effort in anymore.

Man, if I cared about Pokemon I'd be upset too. Fortunately I've plenty of other games that're actually good on my Switch

@justin233
I am a casual Pokemon gamer so i don't play the games very hardcore. I don't ask much from Pokemon games, as long the games looks quite interesting for me and not crashing during playing, i'm already content. But i still try to finish the games as possible as my responsibility.

@Anti-Matter I'm with you on this one. I grew up during the height of it's popularity, but because my parents never let me get into Pokémon, I never developed a huge affection for it like others have. I'm more of a casual Pokémon fan, than anything else.

For me, as long as the game plays well, I don't care about the graphics that much.

I think the texture work is the most disappointing aspect of the game for me (from a visual stand point). The art design is strong though, which somewhat masks it.

It's fair that you don't like the game, everyone is entitled to that.

But the degree of beating a dead horse is insane. One thing no one is entitled to do is to demand others conform to your dislike (or like) for something.

You don't like it? All the power to you. Move on, enjoy something you do like, and let the rest of us do the same please.

When people think: "If I don't like it, it's terrible and everyone should hate it!" is beyond conceded.

@fancypants
Nah they just locked it to $50 physical DLC.

How did DF NOT use a bike in the wild area and see it the frame rate plummet to what feels like zero? There are moments where the game freezes for like 3 seconds. It’s so bad, it’s the worst made game I’ve played on the Switch.

@Heavyarms55 Yep it's really sad. I've noticed comments as innocent as 'Really enjoying it so far' having 5+ downvotes.. What's that all about!

@fancypants to be honest I think people are treating game freak the same way they would if say: EA was in charge of pokemon and pulled the same stunt.

@OorWullie
They can downvotes us as many as they want, but it will not change our decision to enjoy Pokemon Sword / Shield games with just the way it is quality.
They need more sugar of love to calm down their saltiness.

Saw video, agreed with it. I find it hard to believe that with the revenue stream that is Pokemon go, they couldn't afford to hire another 100 devs than their current 200 ish employees. They said 1000 people were involved at one point or another. If half of those were devs the game wouldn't have received the cuts that it did. More if it could have been polished, optimized, etc. Maybe even more Pokemon could have been included. That is not the case with a large majority of that 1k being other groups like marketing, PR, and so on. Don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying the game but I can't help but feel they it's a missed opportunity to really make Pokemon franchise shine on a very capable system. They phoned it in after the let's go series.

@fancypants I'll have to take your word for it, havent played it yet, but will pick it up along the lines sometime

My verdict : fun, but holds your hand and is extremely easy. Graphics are terrible.

@MegaMari0 do you think gamefreak should have poured all attention into pokemon instead of splitting and working on Little Town Hero at same time ?

Slowpoke approves.

@Pirlo_ze_sniper not at all. It's a good idea to diversify, seeing as how their golden goose is Pokemon and it would be nice to be known for something more than simply Pokemon. However, just like Nintendo had a warchest to weather any financial storms, I'm sure game freak has one now with a chunk of the 2 billion they received from PGO up until now. Heck, Niantic made 60ish million this year. While I didn't see any figures for gamefreak, with that kind of cash more of it could have easily been dedicated to development efforts. I feel they were being a little too fiscally conservative with this effort. Again,I'm enjoying the game, they can develop other IPs, but if you have the financial resources for the biggest media franchise in history, why not try making it the best it can be?

They reused stuff for parts of the game that they said they would be improving. And those “improvements” were the reason they gave for cutting over half the Pokémon

#GamefreakLied

was very hesitant to buy due to the hate but it is actually quite a fun game

@GetShulked it makes sense. The game didn't go into full production until late 2017. That means between that time and it's release November 15th they didn't even have 2 years of full development. Anthem, a technically more demanding game on more powerful hardware was rushed at 18 months of dev time and launch was dismal to say the least. You can't launch a game that quickly without taking shortcuts and maybe even pushing your employees hard...

Game looks great, but there are definitely some pop-in issues. The cities and gyms have some fantastic designs, while routes and the wild are rather standard. Level design still feels very tile by tile seen throughout the series, and hopefully the next game they make they explore a little more free-flowing level design.

I didn’t really get excited over Dynamaxing pre-release, but it really has a nice weight to it. Overall I see why they had to make cuts in areas like total Pokémon available, there is such a wide range of animations for every move and Pokémon.

It is Pokemon after all not Cyberpunk 2077.

It's hard to find the appearances remotely appealing after playing recent switch games like Luigi's Mansion 3 or Link's Awakening. I'd go as far to say that even many Wii U titles looked better, and it's not a hardware issue either when you take a peek at BOTW

@Galenmereth Oh for sure, and with such a range of combinations for each move and Pokémon, I get it, you can’t have every Pokémon to interact with every move differently. The moves themselves look really great imo, and the unique animations for certain Pokémon, including Dynamaxing are fun as well, and there is enough variety that visually I have yet to be bored of combat.

@OorWullie Because everyone takes praise or criticism of the game personally.

If you say the game is good, you get called a shill, a sheep, a fanboy.
If you say the game is bad, you get called toxic, a whiner, entitled

There are even people who will COMPLAIN about the other side without directly replying. What hurts most about all this controversy is that each side insists the other does not care about pokemon, and that only their own side are the real fans, when in reality, both sides really do care, but in different ways imo

I don't really get the hate for the graphics.

It's a very clean and sharp looking game, partly thanks to the 1080p (this btw. costs a lot of hardware ressources in and on itself).
Colors are very vibrant as I want it to see in such a game.
Attack animations are very much a few steps up from what we have seen on 3DS (I am not talking about how the Pokemon themselfs are animated here, but the attacks themselfs).
A lot of general animations are also better, less in battle, but in the world.
Polycount in general is decent enough.

Yes, a lot of the textures are bad, espacially for the ground but that is actually true for most Switch games on the market.
Just look at BotW for example, that game is supposed to be looking beatiful, but the textures are clearly even worse on avarege, yet no one even talks about that. An "The graphics are really bad in that regard" kind of talk is easily possible with every single Switch game up till now.
It's really like some people are basically search for something to be upset about.
Or, and I think that is the main issue here, you just subjectively do not like the graphical style of the game, which is fair, but well, not very objective. If I read something like Luigis Mansion or Link's Awakening as positive examples, I am starting to wonder if people realize that these games are far less hardware demanding for abvious reasons and can therefore invest more into details...

I am one of the people that really disliked SuMo, but, to me, this game is clearly a lot better than that. In every regard.

And about the criticism: If you don't like a game for some reason, that is fair of course, it is always fair. The problem in this case is people giving nonsencial "reviews" (EVERYTHING IS HORRIBLE, because of these two things I don't like...), people downright attacking gamefreak, people downright attacking people who just like the game... And so on.
Because of people like this (and there are A LOT of them right now) the fans that actually like the game, like me, are getting tired and hit back, obviously. That is what fuels this entire conversation about these games right now...

This would've been my first Pokemon game in nearly a decade had its "Breath of the Wild" moment been realized. Maybe next time.

In the time when we have Mario Odyssey or Breath of the Wild quality, This graphically upscaled and cutted content product a pitty shame according to the Switch Power. I understand fans are upset and angry. Dev Team were lazy and set the bar on a very LOW level. It smells just a milky cow. You know how I mean. They getting Huge salary and good circumstences at work. They have Money. Start to work Hard then. Gameplay and the empty areas are Shame. Do DLCs or updates but repair that Huge mistake, what the game is. Next to other titles on switch. Bye Gamefreak

And btw.: Yes I do realise that people will scratch their heads reading my comparison with BotW, but I chose this example very intentional.
Some things in that game look like hot garbage, probably worse than in any other Switch game. There are framerate problems as well and it has lower resolution on averege.
Yet the game is (rightfully) regarded as beautiful.
If you do not understand how that could be, this is something you should think about.

And another thing: I remember not being the only one thinking people will hate this game, even before it was even announced.
Why? Because expectations were insanely high and unrealistic.
You want a Pokemon BotW? Do you remember how long BotW was in development? Do you remember how long Pokemon could have been in development, max? Do you see the problem here?

Honestly, as much as I love BotW, I sometimes feel like this game has completely screwed expectaions of some parts of the Nintendo community.
I am not even sure if BotW was even commercially successful, simply because it was so long in development and must have cost a fortune to make. They are probably trying to change that with BotW 2 reusing the same engine.

Oh yeah, the obligatory NL article on the latest DF video, so that we can have a little more arguing in the comments section.

Can we move on now?

@Kalmaro,

To be honest they do state right from the start this game does represent a generational leap fro the 3DS titles, and of course it should do, those suggesting it looks the same as the 3DS titles are incorrect, although you can tell the developers are used to working on handheld hardware, this will improve as they get more used to working on a system will less limitations on future titles.

Now could it be better?, yes less pop in better textures in places without a doubt, but one thing this video does lay to rest was the leaker claiming far worse performance, as it is now pretty clear he was not using the actual game or his copy was hacked in some way.

Watching this video I still love the art style of these games and the dex cut does not bother me as much as it does for some, the Pokemon themselves do look very clean, and as I have said before the cartoon look is perfect for the target market audience, now this will always cause issues for the core fans as they will always want more, the models and animations are always going to cause some issues although it's not like the 3DS ones were trash in the first place, this seems to be a slight upgrade if any with the animations, but the Pokemon themselves look great to my eyes, overall I am pleased, as I said room for improvement but more than happy with this.

@astrofan1993,

I think people tend to forget that is's never been the developers main aim to push the hardware, the 3DS games were never the best visuals on that system, as other games looked better, they have always tried to give a solid Pokemon experience, and I do like the way this game streamlines the whole experience and trims away some boring stuff, the dex cut will not please everyone but I feel the main buyers will have little issue with this and will love these games.

@Kirgo,

Correct, that is the main issue, core fans were expecting some type of uber graphical showcase which was never going to happen, at heart this was always going to have a similar art style and look as the 3DS tites, but as I said this is still hands down the best looking Pokemon game ever, of course it could look better, but if you take into account it's main target demographic I feel they have got the look and feel just perfect, abeit with some technical issues that are not game breaking, the trouble is the core fans wanted more.

@OorWullie Yup. Tons of us are having a blast with the game despite its flaws. But there is a crowd of people who, like, take offense to that. Like, how DARE someone like something they don't? How DARE people have fun with a game that doesn't meet THEIR standards, which are apparently the only ones that matter.

I'm 100% in favor of critiquing the game, heck if the internet weren't already drown in critiques for the game, I'd be mentioning it too. But there's a lot to like too, and few people are talking about it - because we're busy playing it.

@Galenmereth I still believe it is primarily the vocal minority whining. But while I highly disagree with you negative view of the game. Thank you for at least playing it before attacking it.

@gloom is your internet connection turned on? The Wild area issues are lagging not frame rate struggles.

Long time Pokémon fan here. Like, I still remember when I received my VHS from Nintendo Power that was pretty much a sales pitch for Pokémon Red/Blue, the toys and the show. It pulled me in and Pokémon has been a part of my life since.

I've been following Sword/Shield's news since the initial announcement and reveal. I remember during the Nintendo Treehouse presentation when they brought up how not all the Pokémon would make it. I knew from that moment this game would be contentious.

Regardless, I still went for it on Friday. And for all the hate, the flaws, and negativity swirling around this game, I'm still enjoying it. Though I've loved most every prior Gen and entry (IV and V didn't get a lot of my attention at the time because the DS didn't interest me until the 3DS released) I never considered myself a "hardcore" Pokémon player. In spite of my experience, I was always more casual. Still am.

The presentation is nice. The Wild Area feels like a small window of what I've always wanted the Pokémon franchise to eventually become. The new Gen VIII creature designs are cool. I'm even digging some of the music and visuals. I'm not terribly interested in Dynamax or Gigantimax, and in ways I wish we could just keep Mega Evolutions, but I can see them wanting to try something new.

With all my things I like about the game, I do understand why those on the other side find these games repulsive, and have such hostility towards Game Freak. Something about the game feels... I dunno. I guess my best description is when I played No Man's Sky for the first time. Some of the things that drew me into it were present, but other things were missing that shouldn't have been and the whole experience felt like a missed opportunity. The only difference is that I never finished No Man's Sky (not yet), and I intend on finishing Shield.

With all of the complaints said, the one I'm not getting so far is the one about the game being short. I've put over four hours in so far and I only just recently got my first badge. I've been having no qualms with taking my time, looking for hidden items, seeing what Pokémon I can find, etc. I'm doing my best not to rush it.

TL, DR; I'm personally digging Sword and Shield so far as a long-time, casual Pokémon enthusiast, but I acknowledge the game's (sometimes-massive) flaws and get why people aren't liking it.

At least it's 1080p but it's another example of a Nintendo 30 fps game. I'm tired of hearing excuses on other releases how third parties are lazy porters when Nintendo can't do 60fps themselves.

>as low as 864p in docked
>20fps
>"holds up nicely"
🤣

I remember people telling me that the footage is not final and it would be no way that GameFreak would release it at this state.
Like they had huge expectations and thought that GameFreak would step up their game.
Now they are still defending the game. I have completely lost my trust in both game reviewers and people telling other to stop worrying. I bet many reviewers in game magazines are getting paid by gaming companies. They are just like the 0/10 review bombers. Both gives ratings you cant trust.

Firstly, before purchasing Pokemon Sword, I have never ever in my 31 years gaming played a Pokemon game. Not one.
And I am really enjoying this! Okay, so it doesn’t exactly take much brain power and is a pretty leisurely and fun experience.
That said, the graphics are inexcusable for Switch. The pop ins are awful. It had to be said that developers have been lazy in production.
But that aside I’m happy I’ve bought the game and as far as enjoyment goes, it is great and ultimately playability will always mean more than graphics to me!

@Anti-Matter Ahh, I understand now. It is not the responsibility of the devs and publishers to put resources and time into making a finished game, but us as the consumer to finish the game no matter what sorry state it's in. Thanks for the enlightenment...

@fancypants
Honestly, the way other people are carrying on about this, they'd be forgiving Game Freak for murdering Mew in front of children.

@Kalmaro The upgrades are all gameplay based. The reduction in Pokemon gave us the most consistently well balanced and designed generation in over a decade.

I guess the issue is that I was just expecting more, like a lot more. The Switch is a significantly more capable machine than the 3DS ever was and while the there is an obvious jump here, it just ... it's not the leap, I was hoping for or honestly expecting.
I hoped this could entice to go back to Pokemon after all these years, but from my view, this is game for fans. My nostalgia is just not strong enough, esp. not after X/Y, to even bother giving it a chance. Everything about just looks basic.
It would be fine if the Switch were the WiiU, where a title like this would stand-out even more than it already does, but the Switch has so many alternatives to offer at this point, I just don't care.

Maybe future entries will take more advantage of the additional system ressources, but this definitely plays way to safe for me, and not just mechanically.

@sixrings Nintendo made this game? Wow. First I've heard of it...I thought Game Freak made it.

In the interest of really being informed on what game I'm discussing (and having a case of FOMO), I took the plunge and bought Shield digitally at about 2:30 this morning, lol. Knowing full well if this is a case of Game Freak being extremely lazy and disappointing, I am sending the wrong message with my purchase. So far? They're Pokémon games. Which isn't necessarily a definitive opinion either way as I only played about half hour.

I will say I see some of the graphical complaints and they're very apparent early on. The game looks absolutely stunning at moments and in parts. But then your outside in your village and it looks like amateur hour at other points. Which is inexcusable for a company as experienced and big as GF.

Other stuff will have to wait until I've put more time into it.

But I just want to touch upon and kind of clarify the issue of the National Dex. Which when you really look at it isn't really the issue of the National Dex being in the game (it wasn't in Sun and Moon after all). But just having access to all of your Pokémon in the game was the bone of contention. As I said before, I've kind of made peace with it not being a thing in this game. But I do think it's a valid discussion only because GF chose to make comments on it and to this day, the real reasoning behind culling the Pokémon count aren't entirely clear. I don't buy the idea that it became overwhelming for newbies with Sun and Moon being a prime example of a game not having an in game National Pokedex anyways and therefore, casual players wouldn't even know there were other Pokémon to obtain outside of the Regional Dex.

I’m a casual fan of this series, I’ve not played all the titles but would pick ones up here and there as I saw fit. This one I was interested solely in the fact that I could play it on the big screen. I had some enjoyment with this one but my biggest problem is how easy it is. I wasn’t even trying to power level and before my first gym, I was one shotting my enemy, and these were trainers that I’d just met. Each gym was a breeze to the point I could just click On the same attack over and over and destroy my rival mons. I’ve never had this issue in the past and luckily I got a refund on this game. This has been my biggest disappointment on switch and I know gamefreak could’ve done better.

@johnvboy But it does have bad performance. Not game breaking but they point out that it's worse than the Let's Go games.

That means they they actually took a step backwards or at the least, did not make things better... Which they promised they would.

This is a little disappointing especially when you look at how well Luigi’s Mansion 3 looks and performs!

Switch Pro please nintendo!!!

I get the felling the game is going down well!
Well what I mean is everyone in the feed has bought a copy so millions £¥$€ will be pouring in at gamefreak HQ.
With this type of success why change?
What was really needed was for it to achieve low sales forcing a new direction......similar to Star Wars Solo where ticket sales were boycotted and Disney needed to lick it's wounds and make a course correction.

@Indielink The most well designed and well balanced? I don't think I've seen evidence of that. The Pokémon look like the 3ds models from before but with better lighting. I haven't heard too many people say that the games were better balanced yet.

@sixrings Nintendo can and has made 60 fps games. Not sure why you think they haven't.

@Heavyarms55 You keep mentioning this group of people who are attacking other people for liking the game. Im not seeing more than maybe one or two per article tops. Most people are mad at the developer, not gamers.

Where are you finding all of these people? I do want people who bought the game to enjoy it. I also believe that we could have a better product if more people chose not to buy the game.

@Galenmereth fair point, and bit of a disappointment! I really enjoyed ‘Let’s Go’ but I’m not going to bother with these two.. for now!

@Yorumi I know I am! /sarcasm

The way things are now, they probably should have stuck to 2D.

Maybe something like what Octopath Traveler did and have 2D sprites in a 3D world.

@Kirgo To compare this game to BOTW is an insult to BOTW...You're part of the problem, and why Pokemon will never reach it's true potential.

If these were still sold at 3DS game prices I might still have been able to live with all the garbage these games pull. No way do these games deserve that premium price increase. Even if it is the highest grossing media out there. No wait, ESPECIALLY because it's the highest grossing media out there.

And, fine as it may be that there's still lots of people who are still able to enjoy these games, I can't believe so many people swallow this right up just because it's Pokémon. I'm glad people can enjoy these games but I can't help but feel that the success of these games will just tell Game Freak they're doing a good job and that they won't improve at all... and that thought just makes me sad.

Most fun I've had playing a pokemon game in ages and I've played them all, let's be honest if all the pokemon were in the game then no one would be complaining and the fact the models are similar to the 3ds ones wouldn't of even been an issue but just because they decided over 1000 pokemon would be too much (which it is) people are picking at things just to bash this game

I'm actually enjoying the game, I think it's another fun Pokémon title, I understand the concerns people have and tbh I'm happy people are so passionate about these things as it means A. They still love the franchise and B. Chances are Nintendo will take note and put more effort into the next game.

Win win, people can still enjoy the game and the vocal fans can push for a better next entry (likely we'll see improvements with the 'crystal' version of sword and shield.

For me X,y and the ruby/sapphire remakes have been the best, sun and moon didn't really hit the spot for me either

I get that the game could look better but some people act like it's so disgusting looking that they can barely play it. I can only presume that they haven't played a Pokemon game before because surely if S&S is so offensive looking then the graphics on a GB, GBA, DS or 3DS would have made their eyes bleed.

Why do you guys keep reporting on Digital Foundry anyways? Last I checked they’re not the only ones doing these kinds of things. I thought this was a news site?

Keep in mind a lot of players know very little about game development or programming in general, as evidenced by comments about developers being “lazy” or “lying”. When you take in to account that this is Gamefreak’s first foray into a Pokémon game on console, it’s quite a successful first try, and hopefully it’ll be a learning experience that will help them grow with the next game.

I wasn’t going to pick this up after only playing through less than half of let’s go and getting bored. That’s the only Pokémon I ever played. Got a great deal on it though and picked it up for my kids to play. Looks pretty cool from what I’ve seen, and I’ll probably give it a shot after I finish a few other things. I can understand why long time fans are waiting for the series to have its Breath of the Wild moment, and also justify the higher price for Switch, but without all that baggage it just looks like a fun JRPG.

@Kalmaro,

The let's go games are very basic in the looks department, so they should have no performance issues, this have a more going on imho.

@TheLightSpirit Red and Blue didn't hold my hand and had some pretty complex dungeons and puzzle solving. I beat the game multiple times and completed the dex sans Mew. Are kids just stupid these days?

@TYRANACLES gyms in pokemon games have always been easy because they are one type gyms so you can easily plan type match ups before battling them, do you expect a fire gym to easily beat a team of water types? No, of course you're going to breeze through gyms

I've breezed through every single gym in every single game, it's just basic knowledge of type match ups

@Yorumi
"Aren't you all glad gamefreak cut so much content to bring us high quality graphics and animation?"

YES !!
Absolutely Yes !
I have the game now.
I have played for 2.5 hours just now.
Just look at my new avatar.

I agree to a certain extent that kids have been and are the main focus of the series. But that's not entirely true and I have been playing Pokémon long enough to confidently say that while many things over the 20 years were made easier for a younger audience, there was some strategy in the story and in battles that provided some challenge to older players. I'm not suggesting we are entitled to anything or that we (meaning older players) should entirely be catered to. But to suggest there hasn't been any substance for more sophisticated audiences in a Pokémon game is not entirely true

@UmbreonsPapa,

There are of course older players, the core fans have stuck with the series for ages now, but I do feel the main audience is much younger.

@QueenKittenWrite If you only see the fact that I have compared these games at all and didn't try to understand what I was talking about, then I daresay it is you, who ist part of the problem on why the fanbase gets so ridiculously toxic.

But it is not like I wasn't expecting this response. This really just proves my point for most people that remember how both games look in detail.

Well I was waiting for more reviews and things before making my decision to get the game......
Dragon Quest is a solid buy.
I love pokemon, but I just can't support this game. I'm glad people are enjoying it.
I just will put my money in other places, like Luigi's Mansion 3 (which is AMAZING btw. Love the cute interactions and characterizations of Luigi ) and I'm excited to start the new Dragon quest game

@johnvboy I will concede that. They tried to do more with Sowrd and shield and I don't think they were ready at all and it shows.

@Anti-Matter oh man that sarcasm

@Kalmaro I'm speaking from a gameplay standpoint. This is my opinion from about ten hours in game, a lot of time on the SWSH Leaks Reddit pre launch, and a bunch of time in the last two days on Serebii. Almost every single new Mom has a viable stat spread/interesting ability/strong movepool. Even the Raticate equivalent has some potential in competitive play. And the designs themselves are some of the best we've ever gotten.

I agree that the game is lacking ambition and technically weak. This could have been so much more than it ended up being. I also agree that GameFreaks PR for this game was pretty horrible. But underneath all that is still a strong game.

@Indielink Believe me, I held no doubts about the game being fun or selling well. I just think it could have been more fun and sold better if they put in more effort and didn't take shortcuts.

And charging $20 more for it? No thanks.

@Matroska,

Dips in performance from time to time, which games do not have this?.

I read/heard (can't remember) someone who phrased the problem with the new Pokémon games in a nice way: basically, Pokémon will always be fun. The core concept of catching cool-looking creatures and going on a journey with them is and will always be appealing and enjoyable for everyone. The problem is that this allows Game Freak to phone it in, and it seems they figured this out sometime during the 3DS era. All they need to do is design some new creatures (and not even necessarily that, given the many remakes) and write a short story, and a new Pokémon game is ready to ship.

@playstation_king while this is true, not to this degree tho. For me to have Pokemon in my party that are nearly over leveled to the point that they’ll ignore my commands because I haven’t gotten the next badge is a bit much. I wasn’t out there grinding, just catching a handful of monsters and battled two trainers on the way, much sparse there btw on the amount of trainers on routes. This game just feels stripped down compared to others. Not worth my money.

Game Freak really needs more time for these games, these kinds of issues (as well as the issues with Little Town Hero) makes me fear that there were massive crunch periods during development just to get it out for the holidays.

That goes against what Nintendo's want for their own development team, even though Game Freak isn't 100% owned by Nintendo, their actions will still be reflected through Nintendo. So I really hope this isn't the case.

Regardless if it's true or not, I still vouch for longer development time for these games. If longer periods of having no Pokemon games hurt the franchise, then bring back spinoffs, it's been three and a half years since the last non-mobile Pokemon spinoff.

@fancypants "Your side"? I don't think you've taken the time to really look at what we are saying.

Otherwise, you wouldn't lump everyone together.

They need to do a comparison with the recently ported Digimon games.

@Galenmereth I mean.

What did you expect from a sheep that thinks it's a tumbleweed?

Joke aside it IS a bit silly when their roll animations (used with tackle) could have done the job.

But perhaps it would have been too much microtweaking of a single pokemon's animation to give it the needed "oomph"(I mean, there IS half a thousand of the buggers and so many possible moves they can EACH acquire through leveling/breeding/moves masters/TMs/TRs and so on) so they probably went with the one already flagged for "strong physical impact" attacks.

@playstation_king literally I see the gyms more as extended tutorials on Types matchups than anything else tbh.

Which is fine. One has to recall that this is a game that's still meant to be "6 to 12 years old's first RPG" so the more complex challenges/etc will always be outside the main story and into the post-game or literally within it's multiplayer community.

For more advanced players, gyms can thus be seen more as a series of XP folders as you get your initial teams started.

@Mick939 I actually wonder if we'll get a "crystal" for S&S though. Like, i'm not even sure we'll get "Ultra" either(US/UM in fact felt more like a stopgap for them to tide things over while working on Let's Go to get some Switch experience before starting on S&S?)

It's possible but some people have felt like Gen4 remakes might be the next pair of games in Gen8, since S&S' pokedex might even apparently be lacking a fair deal of the gen 4 pokemons?

Of course Gen8 might become the end of "traditional" Gens featuring multiple pair of games in a single gen and we might instead see an extension of stuff akin to the 3DS eshop where older games are instead remasterized in their "original" form but updated with Bank(or maybe soon Home) support and the like.

@Kalmaro The $20 increase is from an increase in development cost for developing for a home console instead of under powered handheld and switch cartridges prices being a lot more than the 3DS

@Seacliff honestly I feel like spin-offs might indeed return simply because even on a platform like the Switch, development is more complex than the low requirements of the 3DS era. So spin-offs might be a lower risk way to get even more experience of the Switch environments.

I was thinking that with the eventual release of Home, a return of a Colloseum game as a form of "100% battling national league" game could be a neat way to reintroduce the national dex while still allowing core games to be developped with only regional dexes.

At the same time it feels unlikely in the age of even core games now featuring online competitions(thus making the point of a 100% battling-focused colloseum game moot) but side games might indeed be good fillers especially since distance from the core games make them easier to delegate to other studios, keeping Game Freaks' hands free.

@Floki The cartridge cost I agree with but the development cost I'm having a harder time believing, not with all the corners they cut.

@TheLightSpirit or just maybe they could have a difficulty mode besides baby mode.. this game feels even easier than previous Pokémon games..you’re part of the problem why gamefreak has been so stagnant for years. They shovel crap in your hands and you tell them “please sir, can I have some more?”

@Kalmaro Even with the "cut corner" overall development cost would have increased simply from the move to a home console like the switch vs the 3DS cause they would have redo all the their tools, engine, get new devs kits... etc

@Floki I'll have to take your word for it. I do believe that costs would have to increase but not by the margin they are charging us.

That and, with all the money they are making they wouldn't even need to increase the cost much.

I had the game bought for me (mainly because I wouldn't buy it myself) and honestly the graphics aren't as bad as people are making it out to be. Yes some of the texture work is basic and could have used a little more detail but the game runs solid, the battles aren't lagging, and some Pokemon animations have been improved (idle animations mostly). Now some Pokemon animations look crap (wailord looks like a giant blue stiff bullet and double/tripple kick makes the Pokemon pop up and down in place while a foot print appears on the for) but most of the new Pokemon animate well and look good and maybe the back lash will grab the higher ups at the Pokemon company and gamefreak by the balls and help them notice that we want a bit more quality out of the games. Also the difficulty seems to be okay as long as I don't power level and catch too many pokemon at once. Gym battles feel rather cool and I like giagantmaxing (mostly because it is like megas) and don't care for dynamaxing (because they just turn into blimps) but the mechanic works and at least it is locked to just gym battles and raid battles (which are decent enough and give breakable tms called trs). I hate the guys back pack options and that guys don't have more hair options and you can't use the girl options on guys (at least for hair). I also want to look either like Yakuza or a greaser and the game hasn't given me the option yet so instead I am ginger with black souless eyes to make up for it

@Kalmaro We're actually really lucky that it only an $20 increase in price. Game development as a whole have become really big bloated and expensive, and game prices should increased years ago

You do realize that the money they make back from these games aren't all pure profit. A lot of it goes back into development cost, paying for all the advertising/PR, paying employees...etc

EDIT: Also $60 game is also shared between retailers, publishers, the companies that handle distribution... etc

@Floki that sounds like they were too ambitious for their own good then and passed the costs to the consumers.

@Burning_Bacon "Also the difficulty seems to be okay as long as I don't power level and catch too many pokemon at once."

You should never have to tone down how many Pokémon you catch in a Pokémon game to make it more fun.

@TheLightSpirit That's usually because they have more going for them than the battles.

@TheLightSpirit Absolutely, I won't argue that. I'm just aying that final fantasy games also have a lot of other stuff going for them too, so the battles being dull doesn't hurt them as much as, say, Pokémon... Which is all battles and not much else.

I think it's possible to make a good game that's all battles. Monster Hunter has been going strong for a while now.

i just started playing yesterday, and i love the visuals and animation, way way better than Ultra Sun. So i don't know what people are complaining about, they must be comparing it to other games and other consoles.

there may be gameplay issues, but in terms of graphics i have zero complaints.

@WiltonRoots I assume since Nintendo owns something like 49% of gamefreak that they could help them get the game running better if they knew how. I don't think they know how though.

@Simonmoskovits I don't think it's a fair point "it's not the hardware... it's a poor developer" is cut and paste on all these threads from Nintendo loyalists. As a Nintendo fan Id like a Pro model please.

@BlackTalon2 so better than 3DS graphics. High standards we have around here.

@sixrings well, apart from a wii and a 3ds, i don't have other consoles and i don't buy PC games either, so what else is there to compare to?

It looks and plays fine.

Honestly.

@sixrings Game Freak makes the games. Nintendo only publishes them as was pointed out above.

I have quite a few hours under my belt now in Pokemon Shield and I must say that its overall a very enjoyable game.
Some areas look absolutely fantastic and a lot of the new animations are a huge step up from the 3DS games!

That said, there are still a lot of animations that have not (yet) been upgraded. One famously is "Double kick" for example.
It's just downright lazy, since there is already a good kick animation in the game, which they could have just copied.

So really. The animations thing is kind of a mixed bag, where some animations are just right over the top awesomeness, while others are still dissapointing left-overs from the DS era. /shrug

@Mgene15 in what way does it hold your hand ? Because I hate the way sun and moon had us following a marker all the time with no freedom. Can’t beat the original games in my opinion for freedom to explore

@astrofan1993 Much the same here, it's a pokemon game, was hoping for something grand but was not holding my breath.

To be fair, I was more excited by the commercial they've been using (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMjKiC1l_yA) to promote Pokemon S&S than the actual game. It would haven been interesting if the game had been that mingling of graphics.
Oh well, maybe we'll get a (3ds)-app fo switch to and then we'll get all of the previous games.

@fancypants
I've never threatened Game Freak once, nor did I sympathize with those who did.
Basic human decency, however, does not equal utter adoration for Game Freak, which is what I've seen from the other "side".
I'm in the middle ground, leaning towards the more negative reactions. I'm no graphics snob either, but Digital Foundry's impressions were spot on. There's nothing that comes even close to justifying the Pokédex cut, and yet they're being hailed as utter saints.
It's nothing worth threatening death for, but it's not worth day-one purchases either. To me, it's all been a major #u€k-up on all parties involved in the creation of the game.
I'm still clinging on the hope of a partial U-turn bringing the Pokédex to at least 700-800 pogeys via patches. Two past sets of starters and some legendaries have already been found in the game, there's no reason for the game to come to a full screeching halt post-release when something as "stupid" (Nintendo purist-wise) as, say, Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled is still keeping its momentum with mostly free DLC.
Heck, even on a more purely Nintendo side of things, look at Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Sakurai worked himself nearly to death just for "everyone" to be "here", and continues to do so throughout the stellar DLC we're getting. I see pretty much no reason for the game to be - no, to stay - the way it is, when the games contain hard proof of reused 3DS models, just to make sure that future games get away with making the return of certain Pokémon a selling point.

@electrolite77 137 comments at the time and you only found 3 that's bad. That's about 2% of the comments here. That's not too bad really.

Where does one draw the line between criticism and attacking?

@Kalmaro honestly I haven't been a fan of the 'exp from catching Pokemon' mechanic that came about with gen 6. Pokemon let's go had problems with it to the extreme because that was just about the only means of exp outside of trainers and I decided to shiny hunt Nidoran at the beginning of that game. Honestly if the exp gain from catching was like a 3rd of what it is, I would be okay.

@Burning_Bacon They need to remove it and exp share for the team... Or just let you turn it off so you can customize your game experience.

@Kalmaro they aren't going to. The built the game around the exp share which is why the routes seem to have fewer trainers. Honestly in any Pokemon game you can over level yourself and sweep everything in the game, it's not just a problem in this generation, it's just been easier to do since gen 6

@Burning_Bacon I dunno about that. In older games you'd have to rotate Pokémon since your team would be unbalanced if you didn't. Now you can stick someone in the front who's strong and everyone else gets pulled along.

35 hours in over the weekend, I'm enjoying the game for the most part. However I gotta say this game definitely performs pretty poorly at times, and a lot of the graphics are really not up to snuff for a switch game performance and graphics (and lack of voiced lines) have been the most disappointing parts of the game so far.

@Kalmaro yes but at the same time in the older games you could also just only use one Pokemon and have it get all the experience and have it one shot everything anyways because super effective moves don't matter when your Pokemon is level, a level 50 Blaziken will tear apart a bunch of level 25 water types.
In general Pokemon games have never been that hard to beat unless your a kid who has no ounce of strategy or you try and stay in the games level range and don't blow past it. They are designing the Pokemon games since 6th gen to not require any grinding for better or for worse

@Burning_Bacon I want to disagree with you but there's no denying that your starter starts getting absurd if you only use it.

In a way, I can kinda see how this new system let's you just use whoever you want as they will all be about the same. It should still be an option though.

@Yorumi VGC rules change on a per tournament basis. The 2019 World Championship allowed anything not Mythical. The only rule pertaining to the Bank was that the Pokemon had to be born or bred in Alola. So while you couldn't use the Tyranitar you've had since gen 2, you could bring it into the game, breed it, and use its son.

@Kalmaro I feel like there was a lot of pre-launch hysteria about how awful the games were going to be. And that included negatives from a gameplay perspective. Much more negativity than one would expect from a lack of effort. You would have thought that GameFreak killed all of our babies by the way some people on this site were reacting. It's weird, I definitely expect more and I also think that 60 bucks is a lot given that the leap was much smaller than it should have been, but I'm also really enjoying it. Darn you Pokemon.

@Snaplocket Definitely strong. This generation is gonna be a good one competitively.

@Kalmaro it would be nice to have options but that's just too much for gamefreak to program. I would like a difficulty switch, the option to control the sound of the game from the start instead of having to get an item, the ability to have male or female hair on either model but alas, gamefreak is 10 years behind the times and is wondering if people like using the second stick to move the camera right now

@Indielink honestly I don't blame people for freaking out. Everything online points out the faults and none of the positives. Yea I have big issues with the game, dexit being a major one, but as a Pokemon game, it feels better than x and y. So far at least.. it could get worse .. then you will hear me complaining more

@Burning_Bacon I was super negative to most everything for a long time. Visuals, Dexit, Drednaw being another Water/Rock type...It wasn't until the datamine that I flipped and started being excited. I still have issues with the visuals and overly samey structure but I am still happy to play it.

I will be ready to lead the riot if Pokemon Spear releases next year as a 60 dollar game though.

@electrolite77 and I'm happy for your kids.

@Yorumi There is a lot that we have to take in consideration when talking about how much a game need make to be successful, and to at least break even.

XCX wasn't successful, and you can tell that from the answer the developers gave when people asked about a sequel or a port. The main answer was money. They didn't make enough from the game to warrant a sequel or even a port.

A lot of those games you mention are $60 or at one point was $60. Warframe is free, but the developer is making revenue from the in game purchases. MMO doesn't make their profit from the initial game price, but the from the in game market. Even if the game is niche. There will be whales that will spend millions in the market place

If a $60 Pokemon game sell 1 million that revenue is split between Nintendo, Game freak, Creatures Inc. the retailers (Walmart, Gamestop...etc), the companies they worked with to bring the game to the market place. The more the game sells the larger the cut per share.

Games like Subnautica only have to deal with the 30% cut that steam, Microsoft, sony.. etc gets

@Yorumi MMOs are long term profit. Of course the $60 cost of GW2 would pay for the servers for decades cause the operational cost would decease over time. As for that other game which isn't out, so we don't know if there is gonna be in game market place.

XC2 was created not cause XCX was successful. It was created cause XC and Xeno games as a whole are successful. I' not dismissing the quality of the games. Those game are the product of a team with experience in what they do.

This goes back to what i said earlier as consumers we have gotten lucky that the prices of game have stayed $60 for so long. Developers are delivering content on massive scale. But we are still paying the same $60 that we've been paying for several decade

Sure the quality of the new pokemon isn't the leaps and bounds that people want. But the work and cost have increased 50% simply from the jump from a handheld to console cause that how technology works unfortunately

@Floki All they did was upscale models. You didn't even have to work for that. If you look at emulators for 3ds that turn on anti aliasing the models look like you would find on the Switch. Much cleaner and smooth.

Not only that but the models are the same, that's already been proven. All they really did was change the lighting.

@Yorumi @Kalmaro "All they did was upscale models"

Y'all do realize that they are completely developing for a new system. This game started development after Sun and Moon, and would have required a entire rework of tools for a completely different architecture

"But-but Let's Go Pikachu and Eevee"

Was a way test the redone engine before the Sword and Shield released, but from the digital foundry analysis they redone the lighting, and unless they planned for the wild area early in development. They would have need to do more engine Back-end work to support the wild area online MMO raid area

"Costs are related to total content delivered and the quality of the effects, not the console it's made for."

Unfortunately that not how it works. Game cost also take into consideration the type of platform that game is being developed for and that can reflected back in cost.

@Floki There is no evidence that any extra development work went with these models. All they did was fix the shading and add anti-aliasing. That's some very basic stuff that anyone can do in 2 minutes. The shading may take longer but that hits everything equally. You don't have to touch a model to fix shading.

The costs added to the game does not appear to be reflected in the content delivered. They removed a lot of stuff to give us a game that does not look much better at all and is buggy.

@Kalmaro @Yorumi Are y'all that upset over some models to completely ignore 95% of the comment.

Have y'all even actual tried the game? Or y'all just going of the information from angry people online?

@Floki I could care less about the models. I'm not mad that they used 3DS models. I mad that they didn't use all of them and then lied about why they didn't.

Not everyone is okay with financially supporting a company that lies to them. Especially when they claimed to be reworking models and dropping Pokémon to make better models and animations.

Both of those were proven not to have happened at all. How does my playing the game change any of that?

@Kalmaro So basically you are mad about model issue. It still haven't been proven that they lied. And I'm talkin' actually proven, not just pulled wire mesh of pokemon models cause that isn't telling the whole truth.

After 15 hours in the game while I agree that some model and animation do look bad. There are also a set of animations and model that look really good,and better than the 3DS ones. This is coming from someone who only played the 3DS game through an emulator with with AA and at higher resolution cause the pixelated mess that was the 3DS made me sick to my stomach.

@Floki As of right now, we know that they discussed needing to remake models.

We have wire mesh data showing that models were not changed. I'm not sure why the pulled data showing that wiremesb data looks identical does not prove this.

Im not even saying the models looks bad, they look just fine, just smoother and with better lighting. The problem is that they aren't better since we know that they are 3DS models.

If you want more evidence, you can just look at what gamefreak themselves said as well as the people who worked on the game. https://serinemolecule.tumblr.com/post/189149423633/my-quest-to-understand-the-pokemon-rage-over-they

@Yorumi "the games look like upscaled 3ds games"

I don't know what upscale 3ds games you were playing. The 3DS games even on a PC emulator with AA and 4x time the resolution of even a the switch doesn't look as good. As for performance issues. The game runs at console quality 30fps with small dips in the wild area when connected to multiplayer. The game even runs at a high resolution than majority of games on switch.

@Yorumi That depends on what you expect from a flagship title. Not all flapship title have to push a system graphical. A flagship game should makes use of the features offered by the system. BOTW and XC2 was a graphical master pieces for the system. But imagine quality, performance, and battery life in handheld mode suffered heavily for it.

Pokemon SW/SH have found a balance in image quality, graphical fidelity, performance, battery life cough should be the main focus of all games made for switch cough. While using the online capabilities, HD Rumble, and motion controls features of the switch. The game even take in account the color of joy cons connected to switch by changing the color of joy cons on the switch in the players room.

Wow it turns out the game wasn't worth its price and now people are disappointed. Who could have predicted it?