Hang On, Competitive Pokémon Fans Are Liking Sword And Shield's National Dex Cut

While the cut Pokemon does suck for most, I could understand balance being hard with 800+ Pokemon now lol.

"Hang on..."

Hang what on? Competitive players from the start said they'd like a smaller dex because of balancing. This isn't a revelation, Nintendolife.

Honestly I began playing 2v2 casual against legendaries of all thing and i'm actually flaggerblasted by how much mileage i'm getting in my team ever since the inclusion of a Persian of all things when most guides in past generations considered it, as far as I can tell, a "trash" pokémon

They're not saying that the Nat Dex cut is good in general. They're saying that without the cut, Dynamax would be even more unbalancing than it already is. Which is fair, but then why not just leave out Dynamax instead?

I haven't played a Pokemon game since HG/SS so the dex cut was like a soft reboot to me.

And I think a lot of people like myself are okay with that.

At least we can all agree something in Dexit:

Landorus Therian is gone 🦀

No need for a hang on.

I've said from the beginning that a smaller dex is a good thing. Doesn't mean that their ''better animations'' excuse is any less bad though.

I've always thought that that argument came from the more casual fans that didn't get to play with certain Pokemon during the campaign.

I'm afraid less content is hardly ever a particularly good thing in a $60 product, no matter how one might spin it. These titles are on a system that runs The Witcher 3; they should be expanding in development scope, not shrinking. I would add that removing content to address balance issues is not a solution — this would be like removing a powerful Smash Bros. fighter to improve victory odds for other characters. Separate from the Pokedex cuts, it's also telling Smogon have chosen to disallow this generation's battle gimmick in competitive play. Development resources are being spent creating features many players are opting to not even use. Very hairy games in many unique ways, unfortunately.

Dexit isn't a tragedy, the tragedy is that they didn't do it sooner.

Wow Nintendolife, just can't resist picking at people who didn't like the changes, can you?

I said it once, I'll say it again, you could have just BANNED the Pokémon from competitive play instead of removing then completely.

@NoxAeturnus

Exactly, but of course Nintendolife has to try and spin it somehow.

I don’t transfer Pokémon in, so the national dex was a non-issue for me. I agree that the balance in the many Pokémon that they did have was excellent!

@Kalmaro

And that's something they've done in the past as well. But no, Ryan Craddock needs to find a way to spin "Therian Landorus would be busted if it could Dynamax" into "Competitive Pokemon fans are liking the dex cut"

Never mind the many competitive players who have spoken out against Dexit, in far less uncertain terms than the ones being twisted into Ryan's narrative here.

I still don't understand was scyther was cut? Both his and his evolution have some connection with the game titles, making him(and possible a new evolution) perfect for this installment. However he was left behind for what? He's not even competitive (that much)

My other favorites primeape and houndoom are gone also, so with no option of getting them, I have no reason to buy the games.

Also people who bought into poke bank must be pissed.

Do you write all these Dexit articles just to trigger people and get hateclicks? It seems to work every time I must say.

@Fido007 Thank you, fellow Scyther fan! Them getting cut hurt the most lol.

To be fair there are rulesets like Regional Dex only in past games.

Since I don't care about the pro/competitive scene at all, no, I have not come to terms with Dexit. ^^;

The same thing could have been achieved with "regional Pokedex only" rules.

Dex cut was gonna happen eventually whether you'd like it or not, deal with it people!

@Euler I mean, they got me to comment, this is part of the reason I waver on using adblock here. Usually I want to support sites I like but they use bait so much here lately.

@Chibi_Manny Them being cut isn't the problem, and why they cut Pokémon and how they lied about the reasons.

@LUIGITORNADO it's a Sword and Shield article by Ryan, what were you expecting

@BLD they’re schills

@LUIGITORNADO This, and it's most certainly not news, it's opinion. And of course a cut that the developing company oversaw is going to be preferable in conjunction with a new mechanic ('Maxing).
NL Staff: Change this title, article, category, etc. to correctly reflect the state of the issue.

@Octane Agreed. It comes to something when Pokken with 21 Pokémon has a wider spread of representation in serious competition than the mainline Pokémon did with its 800+. While I think it's too early yet to say how successful they have been I definitely see the logic.

Burning effigies over the national dex doesn't make sense to me. Doesn't affect competitive meaningfully, plenty of choice of good mon to catch during the storyline and you don't need to have gotten things from a million distributions/import legendaries across generations to complete the goddamn Pokédex. There's definite room for improvement but the Pokédex isn't the biggest issue going forward imo. They should focus on developing the wild area idea more and making the dungeons more complex again.

The main issue always was "if you are going to cut the dex, what are you then willing to add into the rest of the game, content/graphics/gameplay-wise?" The answer was "not much" so...

@YozenFroghurt I would have been cool with only having 150 Pokémon period and then letting the rest in later or something.

Dexit didn't have much to do with Butterfrees current popularity in the competitive scene, they busted them with Gmaxing.

Well, this is certainly one way to spin cutting content and bait some key users on here! I'll bite. I generally avoided the Pokemon discourse because I didn't have much stake in it, but this is too silly to pass up (and I have some free time).

To preface: I wouldn't consider myself a Pokemon fan these days. I am a Red and Blue veteran well into adulthood now; an OG, if you will. That said, I was still excited to see what Pokemon had to offer after falling out of the series for nearly one decade. The transition to console also brought additional excitement and speculation.

And here comes the part everyone saw coming! As the games began to be unveiled and discussed, they started to look less and less—excuse the pun—evolved. After release, "more of the same" seems to be the core criticism. The harsher variant of this is "less of the same" if you account for things like cut Pokemon and other missing features/mechanics longtime fans make note of. That's all without mentioning Sword and Shield look far too similar to their 3DS counterparts for Switch games.

These are problems, and the extent at which we see Sword and Shield criticism brushed off is stunning. These criticisms are ample and valid. To dismiss critics voicing their concerns as raging fanatics and whatever else is divorced from reality. Pokemon is an absolute behemoth of a media franchise; the biggest, in fact. It will survive having its games criticized. Rest assured, eWarriors, you are safe to lay down your arms.

As an anecdotal closer, I mentioned I fell out of the series around one decade ago. On learning about the inevitable Switch Pokemon releases, I was genuinely filled with excitement. I was hoping to return to Pokemon after intergenerational absence with fresh eyes and a newly invigorated appreciation. That didn't happen, because my expectations were met with some pretty significant disappointment. Of course, my disappointment is limited to just that. I can manage just fine without my ideal Pokemon game, and Pokemon will undoubtedly survive without my business. To see NL put out the occasional "Why S&S's Lackluster Content is Good, Actually" article, though—as I opened with—is silly.

No. Just... no.
The only thing worse than defending the cut Pokédex is doing so in order to appeal to the competitive crowd.

Interesting that the only decent argument seen for the dex cut was from the competitive scene. Though I've always felt that Pokemon should shine more as an RPG than an E-Sport, and that getting competitive over it is horrendously silly to begin with. A developer shift towards the competitive scene would also explain the graphical issues in the Wild Area, recycled animations and models, short story, weak post-game, and non-improved animations (despite GF and TPC's insistence that they have been improved).

@Kalmaro
Words of wisdom.
To which, the witty Brits on the site will reply "Let it be".

Pokemon availability can be axed for competitive play. I prefer a full dex, after all it's "Gotta Catch'em all!" not "Gotta Catch'me some!". This wasn't a deal breaker and I wasn't gonna slam the games rating, but I wasn't happy with the cut. Games is good though, just miss having full access.

@Jokerwolf To be fair, you can cut that down to about half if you only take into account the fully evolved Pokémon and some exceptions likes Chansey or Dusclops with eviolite.

I'd like to point out that Dexit has not really taken effect because Home is not available yet. Which Pokemon you can or can't transfer doesn't matter when transferring itself isn't available.

During the first months of XY we were stuck with its 450+ Pokemon until Bank was released. When Sun & Moon first came out we only had its 300+ Pokemon until Bank updated. Sword & Shield's limited Pokedex is not some magical thing gifted to us by Dexit - it's business as usual.

I have come to terms with the "Dexit". In fact I've come to terms with Pokemon games in general. I did not buy this one and I will not be buying future ones. GameFreak has made it apparent that they do not care. Not about their fans, not about their work, not about the quality of their games. Why should I care about them in any way, shape or form?

@LordGeovanni Thanks to Sword and Shield, I rediscovered Digimon! So I suppose I'm not too upset.

Meh. I'm not a competitive player, so for me the lack of a national dex is (part of) the reason I did not get Sword/Shield.

Good for these competitive players though, I guess. Still hoping the next Pokémon entries will be of actual quality again, like the first five generations. I miss good Pokémon games.

@Kalmaro
I have been thinking about jumping over there too.

A lot of my problems come from the fact that I believe RPG games are supposed to be difficult and long. When I invest in an RPG, I expect these to take 30+ hours. With game developers attempting to make RPGs into kid and family-friendly games, we have had a drastic reduction in difficulty due to the ability to save scum or have infinite inventory. While I understand the developers idea to expand the fan base, I still wish RPG developers would make a harder difficulty mode with those still in place.

The most perfect example of this oh, that everyone has an opinion on, is the difference of Visible or Random Encounters. Visible encounters have quite a number of positive qualities, but it drastically reduces the difficulty of the game. I am not saying that the visible encounters should be completely removed from the game, but rather there should be a difficulty toggle to remove the Visible Encounters and make Random Encounters occur again.

@LordGeovanni I feel like a lot of my concerns could be answered if we got a switch to turn off:

Exp share for the team
Exp for catch Pokémon
Exp in general so you don't over level
Visible Pokémon in the overworld
NPCs giving you healing items 24/7
Accessing your box from anywhere.

Just give us an option, don't force us into it.

I find this article hard to believe, because smogon really doesn't appreciate the dex cut at all..

infact, smogon made their own national OU metagame, with megas+z-moves, and dynamax still isn't banned in it with lando and kartana still being legal while galar-OU has already banned dynamax, quick banned darmanitan, and is generally considered really stale with a very small OU list.

If that claim "game would be problematic with lando and kartana" was true, national OU would've axed dynamax way before galar-OU, and that doesn't change the fact they can still ban pokemon and mechanics.

Infact here's a thread on smogon where they mostly ranted about it: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/dexit-discussion-thread.3655705/

How do I get into the competitive side of this for fun? I'm within the last 50 to complete the Pokédex and I'd like to try and spin the game out a bit more. Not been my favourite Pokémon but I've enjoyed it.

@Kalmaro
Exactly my point. I was beyond floored when I played bravely default and have the ability to adjust the frequency of Random Encounters. That was precisely what I was looking for. But game developers are forcing us to play easier games rather than allowing us to choose our own difficulty. And that is the big problem that I have with Pokemon sword and shield, with all the Pokemon games to be honest. Some complaint can come from the fact earlier games I did not know all of the mechanics, like onyx from Brock's gym being susceptible to special attacks. But now I know those mechanics and it's easier. That doesn't mean the first gym should be made easier for everyone. There are still mechanics that make things difficult and the lack of that is what's making the game easier. Generation 2 had Faulkner, who specifically had mudslap to counter both Geodude and fire-type cyndaquil despite their natural advantage over the first gym.

It wouldn't be better or worse, I'd be the same with different Pokemon.

Because of the turn based nature of the game, there will always be a handful of Pokemon that dominate and define the meta. And that issue stems from the balance of the game being poor in the first place.

To that point, people who play Pokemon purely for competitive reasons don't really care about the Pokemon selection, because they will always just choose the best Pokemon anyway regardless of what they are.

When is Ryan getting fired?

@LordGeovanni Yep, this is why people have to get creative and do stuff like Nuzlock.

@Kalmaro
The bigger shame is things like nuzlockes being discussed as a negative from GameFreak. They have actually discussed Nuzlockes as directly contrary to the spirit of the game and they wish they could ban them. (It was not specified if they're upset because it contributes to randomizer ROM hacks or not.) But the inclusion of Visible Encounters effectively has neutered the ability to do Nuzlockes properly, not certain if that was their purpose but they did the job just fine.

@LordGeovanni What?! They said that? Do you remember where you saw this?

@Kalmaro
The number of years ago like generation 5? Let me try and look it up.

I am sad to say that I cannot find the article I was referring to. It was published sometime before or around 2014 and it was detailing how game freak does not like modifying their game in any way shape or form, including randomizers, and in that very article they discussed players utilizing harder difficulties including self-imposed challenges. Their response to this was that any modification of the game, including merely adding self-imposed challenges, was directly contrary to the purpose of the game.

Unfortunately due to Dexit and recent problems with nuzlockes playing that game oh, there are far too many articles for me to be able to hunt down articles from 5 + years ago. I possibly can hunt it down if I have another day or so.

Never mind the dex cut, what about the framerate cut.

I just don't get the big hoo-hah. It's not like there aren't going to be any more Pokémon games with missing pokemon to carry on collecting. What's the rush? At least they can hopefully keep a grasp on game balance with new versions.

This is why you shouldn't always listen to outrage mobs

@JayJ
I get the feeling you don't pay attention to comments or actual core problems that occur. This article is obviously biased.

@Noid Dexit should have been with Pokémon X & Y if you ask me.

@LordGeovanni Core problems? Relax, lol, clearly that isn't a concern for everyone.

@JayJ That doesn't change the fact that there are major concerns. The fact that not everyone notices doesn't change the fact that the problems are there.

I'm happy to live and let live with the competitive community, but when them getting something they want significantly cuts into the game's experience for me like this then I can't just nod and accept that.

Seriously guys what kind of headline is this? Some people tell me that you were apperanly "neutral" with Dexit and I was just making assumptions but.. Really? With the same words you used as "proof" that the "competitive Pokemoon fans" (apperantly all of them) like the Dexcut I could say that they heviliy dislike Dynamaxing.
Also, again, if this was truly about balancing in competitive, then just banning those Pokemon in competitive is better than actually not having them in at all.

@jowe_gw They were never neutral about this. They've made it clear in other articles that they supported "dexit"

@Araquanid I think they just looked at a couple of sentences when that could be implied and made an article to trash anyone that is upset about the Dexcut.

Dexit is a good thing. Haters gonna hate.

Oh, the competitive players (A fraction of a portion of the playerbase) are happy, that makes everything ok! /sarcasm

NL Dexit coverage so far has bee... tactless at best, but keeping up the bias with articles like this (for clickbait?) is really bad form...

I am a casual of Pokemon gamer so Dexit didn't affect me at all since i only have interest with certain Pokemons.

Oh wow hard hitting news as always Nintendo life

The more potentially damning aspect of Dexit is that the competitive meta's going to have to reboot with every new release now, rather than just the minor updates games between generations brought.

Dexit isn't inherently good or bad of the meta, but the competitive scene for Sword/Shield is a mess right now.

Really? I'd say it's pretty lame that the same Pokemon that were were meta at the beginning of the decade were the meta at the end of the decade, just because GameFreak isn't competent enough to create a tier system.

the shilling is strong with this one

I like how a lot of the same few Pokémon you used to see on every single competitive team are gone for now. This meta does feel fresh at the very least but this is still a poor excuse to cut the National Dex. Just make Galar Dex the only Pokémon you can use in competitive battles to make a more focused meta. I understand making almost 1000 catchable Pokémon in one game is ridiculous and I am not as disappointed with the National Dex cut as I thought I would be BUT I do still wish I could transfer literally any Pokémon I wanted to my copy of Shield. I’ve been transferring some between games for well over a decade now and I’ll miss them.

I would still have preferred to be able to catch 'em all in these games. But I still managed to have a lot of fun with them regardless.

@magnumc500 tbh I do miss some of my own favorites. I wonder how "final" the number of 400 is going to be for the Galardex, either official or "unofficial"(as in, Galar Dex is only 400 but "more" added on the side either without entries or a sub-menu exclusive to non-indexed pokemons).

I mean there's 35 non-indexed pokemons(not including Alolan and Regular formes of pokemons in the Galardex, thus making that number technically even higher, since they're ALSO there) currently already in the game's data probably just waiting for Home's release to be revealed(and non-regional variants of zizagoon and ponyta were already teased on Twitter). Plus there's still a lot of chance that, despite not being in the current game's data, Game Freak will not abandon their tradition of introducing multiple new mythical pokemons which almost(not certainly, but it remains a strong possibility) confirm a form of post-release update.

Plus one thing I've noted is how the game, through it's Wild Area raids, is already emulating Pokemon Go now with the recent raid that saw increased chances for shiny magikarps(something we'd usually see only through one-shot individual pokemon distribution instead of an event increasing the chances of catching multiples individuals) in Max Raid recently.

Considering one of the recent bigger events to be noted in Pokemon Go was a datamining effort uncovering that Unovan pokemons were added in a recent update, I wouldn't even be surprised if (thanks to it's very flexible Wild Areas) Sword and Shield would also follow suit with this tradition of Pokemon Go by adding, even if in lesser amounts, more pokemons over the coming year.

I don't expect a full national pokedex, nor do I expect such event to be a certainty... but if Sword and Shield ends it's lifecycle with more pokemons than it started with, let's just say I wouldn't be surprised.

@shoeses Tbh I think Game Freak (to a degree) has been aware of this because the movesets for a LOT of Pokemons from Gen 4 to Gen 7 was almost exactly the same from gens to gens, but digging around in Gen 8 one of the thing that surprised me has been their willingness to shake up whatever meta/etc that had let these movesets "calcify" such over 4 generations. Playing Sword and Shield I quickly realized I would have to wait for updated online resources to know what moves my pokemons would learn because the moves they were learning in Sword and Shield were sometimes completely different from what I expected when referencing the movelist from Gen7.

Stuff was shuffled around to completely different levels or sometimes even replaced for completely different moves altogether. I don't think I've seen such shake-up ever since Gen1-3.

Heck, Gen VIII is even the first Generation to actually be willing to lower an existing pokemon's max Base Stats(Aegislash, which went from a base stats total of 520 to 500) which apparently had never happened before in the the entire history of the franchise? (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong and it'd indeed happened before!)

This surprised me and made me wonder if earlier games had spent less time to actually review existing pokemons for edits or changes, as I cannot see Sword and Shield undertaking these changes without having done at least a minimum of testing and/or at least observing past-game's metas to decide what changes to undertake to shake up the meta.

@Ludovsky What? They nerfed my sword bro? What gives, was he that much of a problem?

@Kalmaro I suspect it must have played an hand in this? A drop of 20 seems relatively small but considering how often I loosely recall Smogon talks about Aegislash's strenght/etc I suspect that perhaps he was.

By loose experience fighting against it in the story and occasionally in multiplayer it still feels pretty solid however though that might just be me.

Honestly though it's among the thing that surprises me because looking at the history of past games(movesets for example, especially those acquired by levels), it was very much something that had grown very static between Gen4 to 7. Moves sets and the levels you could learn these moves meant that you could almost uses the online infos about the game of a past gen to know around which levels you could learn a new moves/etc. The only changes were generally a new move crammed here or there or sometimes not even at all in a new gen(especially if a non-indexed pokemons not native to the game's region).

Not so much in Sword and Shield. Like... at all. ANYTHING that made it into the Galardex seem to have been overhauled in terms of moves compared to what it was like during Gen4-7? Like it was startling.

This also counts(as we know thanks to datamining) for regional/non-regional variants that are currently unobtainable.

So even if you can't obtain Alolan Vulpix in Sword and Shield, for example, it IS in the games and it's moveset WAS actually tweaked compared to what it was like in Ultra Sun/Moon despite currently being unobtainable in Sword and Shield. That actually surprised me.

For example in US/UM, Alolan Vulpix could learn moves only up to level 50.

Now it still learns moves as far as lvl56, and generally a lot of them at different levels(Imprison is learned at lvl36 instead of lvl39, and is now followed up by Mist moved to lvl40 instead of lvl20.
The the last four moves it can learn are Aurora Veil(44), Sheer Cold(48), Grudge(52), Blizzard(56).
(Previously it was Blizzard-42, Grudge-44, Captivate-47, Sheer Cold-50)

It's first four moves are now Powder Snow(1), Tail Whip(1), Disable(4), Ice Shard(8)
(Previously it was: Powder Snow-1, Tail Whip-4, Roar-7, Baby Doll eyes-9... which makes for an entirely different playstyle just from the last two moves being so different).

So I would say that not only they likely overhauled competitive balance for EVERY single pokemon(as far as I can see) to a level never before seen(for most pokemons, even TMs/HMs and eggs moves sets seem to have at least been tweaked?), they even overhauled the entire pace/balance of game progression even for single player.

Honestly I'm kind of surprised at the sheer scale they've carried this effort even at the current set of 446 pokemons(including all regional/nonregional variants+the datamined 35 pokemons non-obtainable in the game) because I haven't seen anything similar in the last three gens that preceded this as far as I can tell?

Similarly another datamined discovery is that even if pokemons like Mew don't have a pokedex entry we can read right now, they actually have pokedex-style descriptions in the game's data that were updated for Sword and Shield(meaning that they have sometimes completely different text from their entries in previous games, despite such entries currently being unaccessible even for a pokemon we can actually play right now like Mew thanks to Pokeball Plus).

That last tidbit (those descriptions existing, just being unaccessible even for a "playable" pokemon) makes me wonder how "final" the current state of the game is at all. I don't think I've seen anything quite like this looking at previous games.

Junk leftover development data, sure? But entire updated tidied up entries and updated movesets for pokemons in the game data but "unobtainable"?

Like I'm not even sure there were similar updated but unaccessible text entries for the missing national dex in the 7th Gen game. So I have a lot of a guts feeling this game WILL see some forms of updates in it's lifecycle, small or otherwise. My only curiosity is whether this game will end with more pokemons than it started with or exactly as is. Since there's a lot right now that feel it could go either ways(meaning, I can very much see the currently included pokemons remaining a static number except for maybe a Gen VIII mythical being added.... but I would not be surprised either if the game ended it's life with something like 5-15 more than it started with).

My main question basically is just: will the current inaccessible entries for "unobtainable, but exists in the game's data" pokemons be added in their own submenu once those can be transferred from Home, or will they be added to the Galardex altogether as new numbered entries after #400(potentially indicating that the number of "400" might thus be prone to change throughout the game's life)? If the later, I feel it might increase the possibilities of even more than the "35" being added later(though it's not a certainty and I would not be surprised if it stopped there either).

@Ludovsky If all that is true then I'm pretty impressed. Personally, I don't thing it's possible to balance the game much with so many variables and certain Pokémon that are just so much better than others.

I respect their efforts to try, though.

@Ludovsky This is in response to your edit.

They said that they didn't have plans to add more Pokémon after the game launched.

However, they got busted when data miners found the data you are referring to so it's hard to say. I want more Pokémon though.

@Kalmaro Thanks, I was about to comment that I'd made edits!

And yeah, like I said it makes me REALLY curious how things will turn out when Home is released.

It's also why I'm really curious to see what will be done with these pokedex-style descriptions that can't currently be accessed. If they're added as a split "foreign pokemons" menu, this might further cement them as "special cases"... but nevertheless introduce the fact there was "non-indexed pokemons" which could be transfered to Galar while they said they specifically didn't want "pokemons you can only get through transfering them from past games rather than catching them naturally within their game". So setting a precedent.

If added to the Galardex itself, then that may well mean the Galardex itself isn't "final" and thus could experience even further changes.

In hindsight, that might be why the Pokemon Company is so gung ho about catching the leakers. Not because they revealed "how much stuff was cut", but rather because it might have revealed "the first wave of stuff we want to reveal for later". Plus as stated often, the reveal that currently the game doesn't include yet a "gen 8" legendary with ties to the Galar region, which might have (hypothetically, this isn't a certainty and indeed such a pokemon might indeed never happen as another franchise first) stealth-revealed that more pokemons could be added to the game's data post release.

I can't say how things go because ultimately it's way too early(any of these hypothetises won't be confirmed or denied until Home is out, and even there likely not immediately), but one thing I'm noticing however: With the Wild Areas' max raid(and especially moreso with the recent one that featured higher chances of catching shiny magikarps in said raid), the game's current event system follows a lot of the beat and pace of Pokemon Go's own "higher chances to catch shinies/legendaries/etc" events.

And it makes me wonder (as I'm now recalling how recent datamining revealed that Unovan pokemons are being added to Pokemon Go via updates) if the Pokemon Company might not be after leakers not only to catch those responsible for the previous leak but to also attempt to corner the kind of folks who could end up behind future leaks as well(such as revealing a "gen 8 mythicals" before dataminers can even find it in an update's datas).

I'm really curious, honestly.

If we had the full dex it would be the same meta we had for the last 5 years, plus 5 new mons.

@Ludovsky I'm always watching! Always watching...

Joking aside, one could argue that thier base games technically are never finished since they always make a third and superior version about a year after a main game.

@Kalmaro I dunno how unlikely it is to happen. It -is- true they have a precedent very recently in Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon but there is a lot about that title that makes me wonder if.... it was actually anything close to their original plan.

I could be wrong, but the feeling I get was that Gen7 was the "wait and see" generation; to see if the Switch would succeed or not.

The Pokemon Company's CEO(who control everything pokemon, including the anime that sets some of the pace and beat of a generation, and doesn't seem involved with Game Freak) was angry at Nintendo and originally thought the Switch would fail when it was internally revealed.

I could see this throwing a wrench in whatever was planned during that generation. Not wishing (especially in the middle of a generation), or at least influencing, to create a game for the next console... but also potentially not wishing to waste everything on the 3DS -if- the new console succeeded.

So I could see US/UM being developed as a way to stretch that 3DS presence during the 7th gen then holding back other plans to see how the Switch would perform.... that way leading them to see if the next games would be for Switch... or 3DS again.

Looking at some things in Sword and Shield, I even wonder if it itself suffered from that hesitation. There's stuff that indeed surprisingly look nice and fitting on the Switch(new lighting/shaders in some areas, for example) but there's others that looks like... well, from the 3DS. Either being lower resolution textures or on the flipside of thing... clean textures but applied on a low-poly model that made me wonders if it was initially on 3DS.

As a thing is, SM & USUM both still sold pretty decent amount even with the later as 2017 releases that existed alongside the Switch. I thus wouldn't be surprised if (especially with the Switch still being in it's first year, and thus a lot of unknown if it would keep momentum or peter out) initially strong sales made them decide to start the 8 gen as 3DS games first but then the continued success of the Switch -and- the success of Let's Go Evee/Let's Go Pikachu (alongside likely pressure from nintendo) made them forced to change plans again and start porting development work of a game initially meant for 3DS into one meant for Switch instead.

Which doesn't mean much for what to expect from Sword & Shield's future but may well mean that Gen 7 and (the start of) Gen 8 were very much non-standard for Game Freak in term of how their routine and habits were upset by the upheaval of the new console(and Pokemon Company's initially chilliness toward it).

It might also explain why we got S&S so late in 2019 rather than earlier.

But the Switch is well established now, Sword & Shield is finally out on said console... meaning that they don't have to worry as much about "how things will turn" anymore and thus likely can devote themselves more formally toward the next games knowing right from the start how development should go.

It could mean a "Sword&Shield+" as lots of people are predicting, to try and compensate for Sword and Shield's initial smaller scope, but I feel it might be the full remake of Gen4 people have been waiting for since a long while now... and which they could finally deliver now that the hurdles of console transition are over with for good.

Full disclosure: I know full well this is purely speculation. But I definitely wonder if there might not be at least a very small sliver of truth. This said I don't expect we'll know until at least holidays 2020 before we even get as close of an announcement, if not even 2021 proper.

@Ludovsky Well here's hoping the next game is more feature complete. There's no excuse for Sword and Shield running so poorly. Party of the problem is just gamefreak not knowing how to code efficiently. They wasted so much space and potential on the silliest stuff, like grass.

Not only did you tear down a straw man, here (ie, that fans are upset that "having less Pokemon will be worse for competitive play") and made it very clear that you intended this article to be a hit piece against those you disagree with ("Hang on,"), you also revealed your political bias in this article ("[Brexit is a] political mess [and therefore so is this insulting term] 'Dexit' [which we call people that criticize the game]."). Ouch.

@Gauchorino I wasn't sure what you meant at first but I just saw your edit. Yeah the entire Brexit deal is just... It's not something you should associate with Pokémon imo. This isn't the place for poli. It didn't even occur to me that they might be doing that but I see what you are saying now.

@Kalmaro It's just pathetic that this is what is put out here, now. If they can't write an informative and relevant article, then why even try? No one asked for mindless clickbait to read out of boredom, so why are we constantly getting that, here?

Further, this isn't game journalism, it's activism, and apparently there is no separation for some people between their opinions about games and their opinions about other things.

Oh I agree with you, absolutely.

Then again, here I am, engaging people in conversation, which means they will have to come here and generate more ad revenue. This is why I have to block ads. That and they make this site so hard to use sometimes.

That's the dumbest thing ive heard yet, please do not take the 1 percent and announce them as if its a big portion of the competitive scene. Absolutely everybody is tired of seeing the exact same 20 pokemon being used and 99 percent of them are hacked into the game since nintendo has been ignoring all the cheating and hacks thays been happening. 0 community leader awareness if we even have 1 that is.
Flatout boring with absolutely no variety in pvp now.
By worse they mean harder to counter more pokemon competitive wise..so they rather ppl use the same pokemon so its super predictable battles all year round lol

@Kalmaro you're absolutely right. Banning the Pokemon would have 100% solved it

@Tulio517 What gets me is that the competitors seem most worried about Dynamaxing, not so much that there were too many Pokémon. Dynamaxing basically broke the meta and they didn't like that.

@Jokerwolf the game is super broken dude, what balance are you talking about? You cant even refresh your stamp feed unless you swap cards or force it..people date cheating left and right to fillthe dex and max ev train in seconds with watts luxury balls to sell..and TONS of hacked pokemon in the competitive scene.
There is NO BALANCE. With the cut dex, now the competitive scene has about 15 pokemon being used by 90 percent of the players..thats pathetic and brainless.. play 10 games and please tell me youve seen more than 20 different pokemon in those battles, youd be lying.

That's nice. The Pokedex cut still sucks, though, and Sword and Shield would be the worst Pokemon game even without the cut.

For the Pokemon unfamiliar: that is what happens all the time.

Meta's in the first year of a Pokemon generation tend to have a lot more Pokemon diversity. In games without mons not being in game at all, like Sun and Moon or X and Y, you can only use mons in the game's native Pokedex at the start and thus a lot more mons are run than usual.

For example Sun and Moon had Golduck be a prominent Rain Sweeper because many other Swift Swim Pokemon weren't in the game.

This sort of thing isn't new: Butterfree would be getting that treatment even without Dexit because absent mons wouldn't be tournament legal.

@Kalmaro Yeah. Tbh, GF is mostly focused around balancing VGC at this point. Dynamax isn't so broken in doubles as it is in singles. And most of the new abilities and items are tailored for doubles. You can tell they did try to changes things around based on the moves discussion you guys had, but the cost was just too high in my opinion. And the worst part is, the meta isn't THAT different. Yes, a handful of Pokemon are more viable, Landorus T is dead, but apart from that, I still see Toxapex, Ferrothorn and Tyranitar almost every match.

@KrspaceT yes!!! People are forgetting that this time of the year in Gen 6 and 7, there was no Bank support to bringing anything from previous games. And even after bank, Online Competitions and the VGC made rulesets that banned Pokemon frequently. People that say dexit is a good thing probably wouldnt even be playing the game by the time Pokémon Home launches.

@Kalmaro No, I don't think having conversations with other users here will affect that. Sure, they generate ad revenue by the clicking on of articles, but like @nimnio said, it keeps increasing the divide between bad/disingenious writers here and the audience, increasingly making that apparent among the audience and gradually damaging the reputation and credibility of this site, which I'd think is much more valuable to the site's owners than a few extra clicks over a relatively short timespan. Rather, our conversations is what they'd rather not have on this site, I think.

@Gauchorino You may have a point. Well, despite me knowing that this is bait, the bait is much too tempting to pass up so here I am.

@Tulio517 I think anyone who thought that the meta was going to change much were just misinformed. Though, they may have been expecting dynamaxing to stay in but we all knew that was going out.

@Gauchorino @Kalmaro I'd cut NL some slack. I think it's more a case of not having the knowledge than being predatory. It's a shame there's no "Pokémon expert" on the staff thou

The cut is what it is.

I will point out again that Gen 7 had the perfect middle ground for the issue of the growing Dex. First off, those games didn't even have a National Pokedex in the game. But you could transfer your Pokémon outside of the Regional Dex if you chose to do so, at least giving you the option to have access to them in one title. And if you had no desire to tackle the daunting task of "Catching them all", then you were more than welcome to stop at the Regional Dex.

And I guess ultimately that was my main gripe with the decision. Sun and Moon at least gave players the choice in that respect.

@UmbreonsPapa I think removing player choice is the worst thing you can do. You shouldn't remove options from gamers.

@Tulio517 I would like to think that they are trying to be neutral, but they way they phrase stuff shows that they are not. At least, this Ryan guy isn't. They are acting like what thy say is law or something.

@Kalmaro "How shall they hear, if no one is there to speak to them?" Your click might be doing much more than their baiting intended it to do.

@Tulio517 Sadly, I think them being ignorant is no longer plausible. I gave them the benefit of the doubt for at least two years now, but especially since the Switch began to take off, they have had a lack of game-related news content which they began to replace with anything remotely Nintendo-related (and remotely is no exaggeration: hence their "PS4-version Untitled Goose Game news (published on NintendoLife, not (just) on PushSquare)" and "Netflix Witcher" articles, for example), even if it was extremely uninteresting and irrelevant to this site's userbase. At first, I thought this was due to a few of the inexperienced new writers, but seeing senior writers like Damien McFerran (increasingly) make similarly pointless and highly-opinionated articles (he (uniquely) did such, to a lesser extent, before, too, such as with several emulation-related articles he published here in the past, but nothing to the degree as he currently does, I don't think) causes me to believe that this is an intentional shift in focus for this website.

@Gauchorino That shift in focus is what worries me. For better or for worse, this is my favorite site for Nintendo game news. I've been coming here for years and I don't like the direction they are taking.

I'm having to check out other places lately like Nintendo everything.

@Kalmaro @Gauchorino I still think you're being too harsh. I swear I'm not pointlessly defending NL like some Pokémon fans do out there. They started covering Witcher simply because it's now available at Nintendo. Witcher IS one of the biggest games of the last 5 years, of course they'll capitalize on that, like most gaming sites are doing right now, even if it's a Netflix series. I was glad NL started covering Overwatch and Rocket League simply because they're now available for the Switch. Both were absolutely irrelevant to Nintendo before, but now they aren't. I don't like Fortnite, but of course they're gonna cover most Fortnite news, even of not related to the game itself. Yeah, this particular article lacked A LOT. And Pokémon coverage in general is very superficial, aside from Joe Merrick's posts (of course). But overall, Nintendo Life is honestly the best Nintendo news site there is. I'll take my Pokémon news and discussions from other places. Take a look at their "Best Pokemon Games" article and you'll know they don't know much. I'm sure there's some Fire Emblem fan angry about some specific article just like us.

@Tulio517 Well it looks like Ryan is the one I have most of my issue with right now.

Either way, I'm still here, I'm not going anywhere just yet. I need to at least hit 5,000 comments first!

@Tulio517 Don't worry, I don't think you're defensively defending NL, though I respectfully disagree with your conclusion that I'm being too harsh. I agree that this is still one of the best Nintendo-news websites, but that's only relative to the absolutely abysmal state of most other "game" websites, unfortunately.

To clarify what I mean by "subjects only remotely Nintendo-related", for example, it is on topic, relevant, and (potentially) interesting when they write a Witcher 3 (NS) article or even the thoughts or opinions of a Witcher 3 (NS) game developer or even a non-Nintendo game developer that's rumoured or planning to release a game on a Nintendo system, but it isn't when they write a (promotional) "Netflix Witcher" article, which is irrelevant to the subject of "video games" (regardless that that show is (loosely) based on a video game) or when a random game developer is "caught" playing a Switch or when some random (and possibly low-quality) Nintendo merchandise is released. Almost no one cares about that, and it comes across as either paid-promotion or desperation of the site/article-writer to simply publish something to meet a quota, and that's pathetic and unappealing.

Seriously... Guess the lack of info about Pokemon Home is not a concern. Pretty much at this point. Love the National Dex= Everyone says Screw you.

@Tulio517 @Gauchorino Sometimes, the article IS just a promotion cleverly disguised as an article. Like that screen they talked about the other day which even has a disclaimer that they had affiliate links.

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2020/01/hardware_review_c-force_is_back_with_another_portable_switch_screen_and_weve_had_a_go

The article title makes it seem like they made it just for the Switch but it's just a portable screen for anything really.

@Kalmaro Yes, you're right. They've been doing that a lot lately, with seemingly almost no discretion given to what the product they're reviewing is. It used to be that "Hardware Reviews" here only dealt with particularly interesting or popular hardware products (retro or modern), but now, that has been expanded to almost anything, even if no one knows or cares about it, which, you're right, is promotion (intentional or not).

@Gauchorino What's really sad is that the product doesn't even seem to be that popular. It has only 1 review on Amazon.

@Kalmaro Hopefully that's proof that their shilling is working against them.

Why dont they keep them all but just adjust/lower their stats?

@Priceless_Spork Didn't you know? They were buying giving us top quality animations for Pokémon!
/sarcasm

@Damo I guess it just depends on what the goal of the site is. I've always views this as just a Nintendo news site. Namely, just for games and reviews of games plus anything Nintendo related.

The articles concerning advertisements for 3rd party products just seemed out of place. I understand that it pays to do the articles amd I'd never say that you guys shouldn't try to make money, I just don't see how those types of articles fit in with the goal of the site.

That said, this is all based on what I think the site goals are. It could be that I'm just out of touch and maybe I've been mistaken.

Also, my point on the article being misleading was in reference to the title itself. It looks like they made a product specifically for the Switch but it's for different devices.

I hope this isn't coming off as me not liking you guys. I've been told I can be blunt. I just like this site a lot.

@Damo

Id like to see retro reviews on games for older systems that never got reviewed.

A friend of mine stopped playing competitive because of this very issue. Said the dex was heavily unbalanced with some pokemon being too op and some being too weak.

Less dex helps this

@Kalmaro @Gauchorino definitely agree with you both, I also get the impression that NL shifted from being a Nintendo fan-site, with appropriately knowledgeable Nintendo-oriented staff, to a generic, anything-goes type of site.
Maybe my memory is tricking me, but I don't remember reading articles as shallow and uninformative as Ryan's when Thomas was around.

@Damo I see
So when you do the articles with affiliate links, you're not getting much revenue from them?

Actually, that may be a bit of a personal question so you don't need to answer that. In any case, I guess I just don't like random articles,

Right now though, those articles are less of a concern for me, I'm more frustrated with articles like that one that are phrased in ways that cause division, whether intentional or not.

@Damo I clearly delineated your Witcher coverage (for example) into things that were actually Nintendo-related (even loosely) and non-Nintendo-related in a previous post, so you're being disingenuous and misrepresenting my criticism.

And again, as has been noted here, the fact is is that your content has shifted from actually fan-focused (which, to be fair, I have given and still give you credit for almost singly-handedly (along with a handful of guest writers and very rarely normal staff, as well) providing on occasion, still) to promotion-based drivel at a constant rate with the occasional, related damage-control opinion/slander piece (an example of a passive-aggressive slandering activist piece would be this very article). That's not a good look, and surely you know that.

@Damo I'm going to piggyback off of @Gauchorino here since we're saying the similar thing. My biggest problem isn't the random articles, that's kinda annoying but some people are interested in those and that's fine. My biggest issue with the screen one was just how the title before you click into the article made it seem like the product was made specifically for the Switch.

That's all secondary. My gripe are articles like this. There's nothing wrong with voicing an opinion, however, I don't think it's wise to start dividing the user base over stuff.

Obviously, controversy is not always easy to avoid but I think the worse thing one can do when making an article is take a side. That just makes those on the opposite side have an issue with Nintendo Life itself, even though the opinion of the writer may not be shared by the entire staff.

@clvr Nor do I, nor when James was around. Liam didn't used to be as vapid as most of his daily articles currently make him seem, either, when he first started writing here several years ago (hence the site's apparent shifted focus).

@clvr I never paid as much attention to who wrote what until just now, Ryan has just been getting on my nerves lately.

@Gauchorino I wasn't around before TW sat on the throne so I cannot comment, but I can't shake the feeling that back then it was a hell of a lot more interesting, even though the Wii U era meant droughts and little stuff to talk about; maybe it was that: less content, but way more curated.
Even reviews suck nowadays, if you have a bit of critical insight on mechanics and such you'll realize that NL's review don't even touch on that, only skimming through the most superficial qualities. I mean, it doesn't have to be GMTK or Adam Millard level of analysis, but they're really laughably shallow sometimes.
"Game fun, 8/10" :-/
I mean, IIRC the original goal of this site was to review every game that came out on Nintendo platforms; it's obviously harder now that dozens of games release om the Switch every week, and I don't even want everything to be reviewed, but if this doesn't demonstrate the shift in focus I don't know what does.
And that's not even mentioning clickbait titles, articles that are one single tweet reposted, vitriolic opinions against anyone that might complain about anything Nintendo, and also those laughable, two-paragraphs long "Talking Points" that crop up from time to time that state something vague and useless like "woah, Nintendo gave TLOZ to an indie, might we see that again?", or "hey, TW3 is on Switch, let's make an article about wishful thinking!", or even (and I'm not even kidding, these all exist) "wow, Astral Chain got moderate success, who would've thought that new IP's would keep existing?". I don't know you, but to me these sound a little patronizing and insulting to the average reader's intelligence.

@Kalmaro that's two of us, then; I actually started taking umbrage at his articles long ago, unfortunately.

@clvr Perhaps that's true about the current typical quality of their reviews, but I'd be fine if the quality of their reviews was their only issue. Thankfully, they still have some staffers and guest reviewers that have a particular interest in reviewing (in general) and knowledge concerning the games they're reviewing (eg, Gavin and Shiryu immediately come to mind), regardless of whether or not a particular review was good or bad. But to your point, another example of their shallow or biased reviewing lately would be the laughably dissonant SwSh one by Alex Olney, who gave the game an 8/10 despite that much of the content of his review was negative criticism of the game.

And that's another good point you make concerning their original purpose (which sort of "all-reviewing" and digital-games-reviewing gave them a good niche and kept them interesting without sacrificing their integrity). It didn't used to be that they posted several articles every day, but they made sure to post relevant articles every day that was either a review or retro/modern Nintendo-game-related. I don't think it was even an issue of curation (though surely they did a bit of that, then, which is fine) but rather an interest of the (then) writers to actually write articles they enjoy (ie, when NL was still a (consistently) fan-focused site). The turning point may have very well been near the end of the Wii U era or somewhat after the beginning Switch era, since as you've said (and as I'd forgotten about), the drought was a bit intense back then, perhaps causing them to change focus in order to "keep the site alive," and here we are.

@Gauchorino The Alex Olney issue is a good point too. I know the ratings are arbitrary but they should still follow some kind of logic.

Dynamaxing is unbalanced, and would be moreso with a larger dex? What a revelation! Seriously, the problem isn't the number of pokemon - it's that nobody bothered to balance the new mechanics. Nintendo has banned the use of G-max from their own system, and Smogon has gone a step further in banning Dynamax as a whole, because it was a poorly thought out idea meant to pull in the Go crowd. I'd much prefer a game without a gimmick, or with one that I can at least play with. Why spend hundreds of hours farming a shiny G-max pokemon I can't have in my party?

@bendicott Personally, I don't see the problem.

I thought Sword and Shield was supposed to change the meta and bring in Pokémon not often seen. Well dynamaxing did that, didn't it?

@RazumikhinPG Dramatic much? Fire him because he wrote a pokemon article you didn't agree with? Get a life.

@MrTanuki I can't speak for him but I do agree with the idea that Ryan is causing discord with the community making articles like this.

@Kalmaro You don't see a problem with introducing a new mechanic that is so unbalanced, Nintendo immediately bans a portion of them and Smogon bans the rest, before launch? Even setting aside the claims that D-max balance is the reason the full dex was not released (Which I totally believe. Yep.), this is an issue...

@Kalmaro That may be, that's kinda part of his job. Comes with the territory of journalism in any form. To get outraged over someones opinion of a f***ing childish video game though, ridiculous. Calling for them to lose their livelihood over it? insane. Thus grow up, there are real issues in life. This is complete b***s***.

@Tulio517 well, not to be harsh, but it's exactly their job to know stuff about Nintendo games; if they can't get that right, they have no right to be authors in here.
It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that some staffers give off the impression of being less knowledgeable than most commenters on this site, and that os just plain wrong.
Also, they have some resident experts which I greatly appreciate (such as Shiryu, Joe Merrick and the likes), so why don't they have them write stuff instead of this Ryan dude? I'm sure he's a great guy, I don't have a personal problem with him, but he doesn't really seem cut for this job.

@Gauchorino yeah, exactly, the thing is that by now nothing of quality seems to hit this site anymore. No curation, no passion, no nothing...it's quite disheartening to be honest. Luckily I'm not the only grumpy dude in here lol
Let's hope more and more people get fed up until they have to start putting out quality content again.
I mean, just look at PushSquare, there's an abyss between the two sites.
And rhe funny thing is that PS is way smaller, with less staff and readers, and that when I started visiting both it was way worse and toxic than NL.
Now it's absolutely the other way around, and you can feel the passion the staff pours into their articles; not to mention their reviews, which are usually very well written and informative.

@MrTanuki Oh baby if it was just this article lol

@RazumikhinPG That really doesn't matter. All this talk over still over video games in general. Just because someone disagrees does not mean they should lose their job.

@bendicott It kinda depends on what we're looking for. There's no denying that it would have mixed things up.

@MrTanuki First off, family friendly site man, come on

Also, I wouldn't say I'm outraged, more like disappointed in how Ryan is causing some issues.

@Kalmaro If his writing on games causes you issues, you need to re-evaluate your life. So i said f***, still not as bad as putting out the image that if someone disagrees with you they should lose their job. This attitude has gotten all too common. People especially younger individuals cannot handle when someone has a difference of opinion and often call for them to lose their jobs. This needs to end. Not everyone will see things the same. Not everyone has enough time to get disappointed over how 1 dude writes on a god damn pokemon game. A pokemon game! Holy hell. No wonder people cant handle life anymore.

@MrTanuki I won't say anything else about you cursing. I don't want to mini-mod.

You seem to be criticizing people getting upset over articles but here you are cursing up a storm and acting immature because you don't like someone's opinion. I think this conversation is over.

@Gauchorino
Promote Shiryu!!! Shiryu is extremely knowlegable and entertaining. I wont read anything by who deleted/censored a funny comment I made once. He got really butthurt for no reason.

@Priceless_Spork lol, I saw that edit.

@Kalmaro
Im not here to say bad stuff about anyone.

@Priceless_Spork Slightly different but I see what you're saying. It really should focus more on names here, I've certainly been here long enough to recognize some people.

I like to have fun and joke and he took it so bad he deleted it. Which sucked. It was really funny and he was really thin skinned and it wasnt malicious or anything. No response just a delete so no one could see it and have a laugh.

@Priceless_Spork To be fair, you were calling him out pretty hard, but I'm not here to judge you. That's between you and them.

@Kalmaro
Naw the comment section was razzing him and I summed it up and turned it all into a Monty Python Holy Grail song parody.

@Priceless_Spork ...Hahahahaha, now I kinda wish I saw it.

@Kalmaro
Pretty sure others (not me) were making him mad and I might have been the last straw. I just imagined him turning bright red because it was one of my better ones. It was all the comment sections criticisms set to the tale of Sir Galahad. I just meant it to be funny.

@Priceless_Spork That sounds amazing. Mean, perhaps, but amazing.

@Kalmaro
Im not a mean person but perhaps unintentionally for the sake of hilarity.
Ive held this in so long I feel so lifted talking about it and now I will start reading his articles while he permanently shadow bans me.

@Priceless_Spork Well at the end of the day, jokes are just supposed to be gentler ways to make criticisms.

Try not to get into too much trouble.

@MrTanuki "Provoking readers into hating your 'content' is a journalist's (journalist's) job." Yeah okay lol

@clvr It did seem a bit spicy last time I dropped by there, too. Interesting.

Also, I'm personally hoping the writers themselves change their attitudes/perspectives, as I'd rather see that then have the site fail. And don't worry, I think tons of others see these same things we do (especially with the constant activism for bad/controversial games that writers here keep doing: this is angering a lot more people than normal) and will make an impact, so just keep following your convictions, friend.

@Priceless_Spork Yeah, I love Shiryu. Regardless of whether or not I have been necessarily interested in every single article he's written, he always brings his own genuine interest and passion into his writing, which makes his pieces continually interesting and enjoyable to read. From the personal conversations I've had with him, he's a really swell chap, too. Gaijillionaire, who hasn't written here for a while but who has great YouTube content and is also swell, is another writer here who I love to promote.

Interesting. So the "Balancing" part of GF's reasoning actually does seem to hold water.

Meaning that the only folks left are those who miss their personal favorites in the mainlines, and the completionists. Which I can respect, yet, I still don't understand why the upcoming Pokemon Home isn't enough for the completionists, at least.

If you're you're gonna transfer Pokemon that aren't even catchable in some mainlines, why not let Home be your IRL Poke PC between all the compatible games?

@DTFaux They are basically saying "Pay us money and, if you're lucky, our next game MAY let you use your Pokémon in it." That's pretty lame.

That said, you could always just wait to get home after you're sure a game has your Pokémon but that's still lame.

@Gauchorino
Yeah he's cool. He's answered a lot of my questions and loves shootemups.

I thought biggest offenders remained.

@Gauchorino thanks for the support mate! Let's hope something changes because, as you said, neither pf us wants to see NL fail; quite the opposite, we're so harsh because we've been here a long time, saw the best it can offer, and just want to see it at its best.

Also, totally agree about @Shiryu (let me tag him here so he can see all the praise he's getting ahahahah), he's a funny and very knowledgeable guy. Also, he's often very helpful in the comments sections, pointing out stuff people might be confused about.

@clvr

@Shiryu 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

Yeah, we do, Gonçalo, we really do 😄

@Damo I think when you take into consideration what me and @Gauchorino said, that shouldn't be a surprise. I'd be shocked if you guys weren't seeing better numbers.

The focus on the articles seems to have slipped from just game reviews to product reviews, random news and a few articles that seem designed to poke people into arguing with other.

NL is reaching out to a broader crowd. That's how I see it, anyway. I wonder what the percentage is of people who come here just for game reviews now verses years ago when the site was newer.

@Damo that was never my point, and it's kinda irrelevant in this context. Sales (or clicks) never equated quality, nor is it the other way around. I'm sure you know that, so don't play that card on me, please. We always see backlash against microtransaction-ridden games on fansites, but (guess what?) they always end up on top of every sales chart. Just look at the last decade in the UK you just published, that explains it better than I ever could. But as I said, you already know that.
I'd be shocked if you were not growing to be honest, since I've been here for ~5 years and I've seen this site grow exponentially.
Also, of course the fact that you're not a fan site anymore (which tend to be quite niche) and put out a greater number of less relevant articles is going to attract a wider variety of readers, but it's also going to dilute the original purpose of this site.

@clvr That's basically what I was saying, it's kinda like the argument going on with the Sowrd and shield Pokémon game.

On one hand, you have falls saying "Well the games are selling well so there's no problem. More people are playing!"

On the other hand you have people saying "Yeah but you're getting more people by sacrificing quality/content to appeal to a larger crowd."

It's the age-old quality vs quantity scenario.

@Kalmaro exactly. It's not hard to understand that if you wanna sell your product to everyone, you're bound to dumb down something.
The more specific you are, the least amount of people you're going to reach.

@clvr "We always see backlash against microtransaction-ridden games on fansites, but (guess what?) they always end up on top of every sales chart." Bullseye.

@clvr "The more specific you are, the least amount of people you're going to reach." Also this. However, over a long period of time, with hard and consistent work, that specific audience may grow bigger and bigger (through word-of-mouth of the quality, etc). That's exactly what happened with (still independent and genuinely fan-focused) NL a few years ago, during the height of the 3DS era, when they were featured as a reputable source by Nintendo, themselves, on the eShop's front page. They didn't need to sell themselves out to build a wide audience. They just needed a little luck and to stay consistent.

@Gauchorino totally agree, that's why it's even more of a shame that they ended up like this; it's not like they needed to in order to survive (at least, seen from the outside; of course I'm not privy to their inner workings).

@bendicott they didn't ban Gmax because of balance. They banned then because they're extremely rare. Right now the ones that had events with frequent raids are allowed. And next promoted Gmax will be allowed next season and so on. While I see your criticism, that part was not true.

@clvr You have a point, but again, being a Nintendo site doesn't have to mean they're experts on absolutely all Nintendo games. But sure, if there's someone that IS, by all means have at them. I don't think a lot of people in the Pokémon community realise how niche hardcore Pokémon players are. Sure we're not Xenoblade fans obscure, but we're just a slice of a much much bigger audience. And I don't know about Shiryu, but I'm sure Joe has plenty of work already on his on site lol Edit: typo

@Tulio517 of course you can't have Joe on every article, as you said he's busy enough with his site, but I can't say I'm satisfied with the coverage NL is giving the games, simply because it's so superficial I'd expect that from a general news site, not from a Nintendo-focused one.
Obviously not everyone is interested in the competitive side of the game, but if I don't see articles about it on a Nintendo-focused site, where should I look for them?
It's not like NL hasn't made articles and interviews about the competitive Smash scene, so why shouldn't I expect that?

And that was just to reply to your point, asI've never had the pretense of them talking in deep about competitive Pokémon.
I Just don't like to see this facetious, shallow articles about nothing, written by people who gives off the impression to be either not knowledgeable enough, or not interested enough.

this aged poorly

@somebread How so?

Oh wait, I see what you mean.

@StarViruZ
No, not anymore.

Oh look... Landorous is back. I guess this shilling is outdated now. I suppose you are going to do an article about how the competitive Pokemon community is worried about that, right?

Balance is no excuse for a cut. Simply ban certain Pokemon from online tournaments. The competitive players won’t have to worry about balance, while those who just want to enjoy the game with their favorite Pokemon can do so. Everybody wins.