Now, This Is What Next-Gen Pokémon Should Look Like

Dunno about Pokemon. Ben 10 maybe?

Hmm...maybe more opinion piece than news I would say

Hm na, i am not really a fan of the grafical Design.
Rather play Temtem.

That was the first thought I had watching the trailer. It's not just the 'realistic' look of the backgrounds, but it's everything from the smooth animations to just how alive that city looks compared to people just stuck in place in Pokemon games.

People get so mad when you criticize the look of Pokemon games, and yeah, we need to cut GF some slack as up until 5 years ago they'd never really tried doing Pokemon on a home console, but it's staggering just how far behind the games are. I saw a meme of people posting an Oblivion screenshot against Legends Arceus and joking about the advances in the last 15 years, as Oblivion kind of looks better.

"it looks to be an appealing mix of both Pokémon and Splatoon."

umm...in what way is it like Splatoon?

The disconnect between what Game Freak is and what people think it is never ceases to amaze me. No, it's not reasonable or even remotely logical to expect a company that's almost exclusively always made handheld games to suddenly make a photorealistic 60 fps open world game. If that's what you want, then maybe consider picking up DokeV and play that? Game Freak has neither the experience or inclination to make a game like that and Nintendo doesn't have the platform for it.

I'll stick with Pokemon I think. Lol

Its pretty impressive but Playstation 5 is also like two generations more advanced than Switch.

The character models look like something from a knightmare.

@Alex78 100% Completely agree with what you said.

Gamefreak does not deserve Pokémon and should immediately be given to some other company to bring It back to life from the creative and lifeless tomb it has been buried in. To expect anything else from what they’ve done for the past 25 years would be fooling yourself. Enough is enough. Pokémon needs new a fresh, technologically talented and technologically competent developer.

Nah, I'll just stick with how Pokémon looks and plays, thanks!

@Alex78 the experience, no you're right, but what company just made this game and have they been around nearly as long as GameFreak? Do they have 1/100,000th the wealth and resources? As for the inclination, I disagree with you there, clearly there is demand for something that looks like it's from this century and even though they're still selling well now, even the best brands in the world will eventually lose public trust with enough missteps.

I didn’t understand a single thing about that trailer… but that sure is top notch animation. Puts the Pokemon games to shame.
However, nothing compares to the Poke designs tbh

That photorealism, though... I disagree, Pokemon should NEVER look like this XD. Yokai Watch 4 looks much better, honestly. Or Pokemon Legends if it had more work put into it (just give it some more months of development, Game Freak...!). That's the art style Pokemon needs.

Pokemon needs a real time combat engine, its needed one since like, lets go pikachu and eevee.

This game looks fun, but the art style is really offputting.

Nobody mentioned the music, yet? I cannot find one that I disklike more in my memory.

Um, no, no it does not look like Pokemon. It doesn’t even look like it’s part of the same genre. It looks more like Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance.

@Damo I guess, but I watched the full trailer and didn't once think this was anything like Splatoon. Monster catching in a city is more akin to Yokai Watch, and the battling reminds me more of Final Fantasy XV.

Visually very impressive with some stunning animation, but I'd say the combat looks more like Monster Hunter than Pokemon. I doubt it'll make it to Switch anyway unless it's heavily watered down.

Also, Game Freak do need to step it up. Arceus looks good, but I'm still quite sceptical because their output has been lacklustre for at least 10 years. Give the Pokemon IP to Monolith Soft already plz.

Nintendolife.com - "Now", this is what next gen pokemon should look like"

Also Nintendolife.com - "Metroid Dread is a new game and deserves to be full price", "Mario 3D All Stars 9/10"

As long as Nintendo can charge full price for cheaper projects, and still have people buy and defend it, you won't see Nintendo make a high budget game.

@Richnj I'd understand you said that about the price with Mario All Stars, Skyward Sword HD, the Pokemon remakes, Mario Party, the WiiU ports, Advance Wars remakes, etc, etc.
But Metroid Dread...?? What the hell, man?? It's a new game, built from the ground up, and it looks AMAZING. It doesn't make any sense XD

This looks genuinely bad lmao

Nothing like Pokemon at all.

This has actually made me more excited about Splatoon 3. Hopefully it’s got some ground breaking gameplay that no one saw coming.

@Damo Don't see it in the visuals either to be honest. It's not enough to have strangely proportioned kids, with playful animations and some exaggerated weaponry, and then say it 'looks' like Splatoon. It doesn't. It has some faint similarities but but come, NLife are really reaching with the comparison here.

I’m really okay with Pokémon not being a sprawling open world game. I don’t think it needs it.

The game looks like there’s some sailor moon like transformations, and probably imaginary. It looked like the battles disappeared completely once it was over, so these creatures are probably akin to fosters home for imaginary friends.

For a game about collecting creatures why is the game so focused on the player character? It's easy to forget that those monsters are there.

It looks so incoherent and the fact it jumped from MMO to not am MMO doesn't help.

But I prefer focused games. I like Pokemon because the game is structured around the core idea of a world revolving around the creatures. If the pokemon trainer started flying around by themselves like Mary Poppins on an umbrella and Web slinging like spiderman, transforming like Sailor Moon with the Pokemon fading into the background, I'd be gone.

I don't care how many graphical effects there were, it's just looks like an artist showing off rather than a well structured game or setting design.

Pokemon looks the way it does because no one can match the popular format.

This game was a bit of a surprise, looked like something under 8s would play then it just blew up!

Not for me though, I'm an adult.

No, even if the Switch or the next two successors to the Switch had the power to run something like this (hint: they won't), it's not reasonable to expect a practically annual franchise to turn out visuals like this, lol.

Besides, something tells me that, if this ever does actually release, it won't be for another 5 - 10 years. This developer's other game, Crimson Desert, was indefinitely delayed, and this screams tech demo, frankly.

People can dunk on it all they like, but Arceus Legends' artstyle is a good evolution of what came before while still being manageable for the hardware to run.

Looks impressive, but also somewhat bland.

Really weird title for an article.

Had nothing to do with Pokémon.

@AugustusOxy Wrong. Take away the turn based combat system and it’s no longer core Pokémon gameplay. Maybe a cool spin off though.

Man this looks fantastic!!

Looks great but the characters look like 2-year olds. Sorry, but I really don't want Pokémon to become even more kiddie. Also it's trying too hard to be too many games at once.

No, it doesn't look like a fun game to play. Just pretty visuals doesn't make a good game.

It is likely that behind the beautiful picture there will be dull gameplay, as always. Characters don't like at all. All this is more reminiscent of Horizon Zero Dawn in which the picture was also better than in BotW .. but we all know which game was more fun to play.

I see that the imagery does share the occassional design of Splatoon. Modern, clean and fresh in places. I do like the electronic special effects. It's all very video game. Nice and energetic. But yeah, it also looks like there isn't much besides wowing at the pretty graphics. Granted, that's what next gen folk want but I find it a bit superficial.

You are mad if you think a Switch game could ever look anything close to that.

Unless you imply that a Pokémon game should release on PC and the rest of the consoles, which would probably make the fans here go rampage.

Gamefreak doesn't have the courage or the will to push graphical limits like this. I still love their games but we can't defend them forever

I am really surprised by the number of negative comments about this trailer. I get it, everybody is entitled to their own opinion but I think you all watched it with closed eyes. If this was the next Pokemon game, everybody would absolutely lose their minds.

I think this does look really rather good, the issue, the characters are too young in their graphical style. The way Pokemon has done it with the teen to young adult look is the best way as it makes it more appealing/relatable for all rather than it looking like just a kids game.

"Switch isn't mentioned specifically, and the graphics on display look like they could be out of reach for Nintendo's hybrid system "

LOL u think?

Those are some of the most impressive graphics I've ever seen before.

@Kilamanjaro
Pokemon has never been about graphics. It never claimed or opted to be about graphics.

It’s only become such a popular point of discussion because of SWSH.

I guarantee that if the dexcut never happened, there would've been far less people complaining about how bad it looked.

I was readying my pitchfork because of this click bait title, but I'm not even mad, this looks amazing

What is it that makes Poke fans so obsessed about lifelike graphics? I never see Kirby fans, for example, in comment sections saying "This is what the next Kirby game should be!!!"

The more opinionated articles NLife put out, the more cracked in the head they seem to be. Especially with the fact this game isn’t even coming to the Switch.

Pokemon has a lot of problems (A LOT) but the graphics and art style are not very high on the list, I don't think. While this game looks great, will it be able to create a new franchise, endure almost 30 years and still be releasing games in 2050?

The 'area' looks nice but the people look terrible.

Looks like it's running on an high end PC. Wonder what it'll look like cut down on the PS5/XBSX.

technically not bad but the style is just a mess in my opinion... it's not round it's more like a little from everything... looks pretty chinese from the art direction

Yea like in 3 Nintendo consoles from now. The next console will probably be on par with Steam Deck, except maybe have 4k upscaling when docked but that won't give us this kind of fidelity.

@Alex78 they do have billions and knew that this was their future. They are just not prepared and did a really bad job ik getting on par with current hardware.

love the song.. that energy is missing from a lot of corners of the world these days.

All we've ever wanted for the last 25 years is the anime, but in game form. A game more like Witcher 3 in size, with seperate large areas in between the cities, wild Pokemon behaving like animals rather than just randomly sharing some long grass and maybe some Shadow of the Colossus-type climbing and action to capture the legendary pokemon. It can keep the classic turn based battling: This is what Ash does! Just vary the exploration.

Id like to see what Namco's Tales team could do with it.

This looks utterly insane… in all the right ways! Quite surprised by so many negative comments.

reminds me of Zootopia. I was wondering why I got the deja vu good vibes for

"it looks like an appealing mix of both Pokémon and Splatoon"

I'm getting more of a mix of Monster Hunter and Ninjala out of that video footage. I don't see anything Splatoonish, and other than monster catching I don't see anything Pokémonish in it either. But either way, that's just my opinion about how I feel about what I saw, is probably a bit different for everyone.

Never really played much Pokemon but my daughter is a big fan so I got to try a couple games recently. While the graphics looks nice on this game, I do believe Pokemon's identity is not built on realism because of its target audience. If we're talking about a graphical update in the series then they should just make a game with visuals like Pokemon Snap.

I'm pre-ordering this game for PS4 btw, it looks really hype! I hope it has online co-op considering it was at one point going to be an MMO. I'm super glad it isn't an MMO though, that would have killed it for me, I would not have any interest if it was an MMO, the gameplay wouldn't be the same if it was an MMO and also it wouldn't be playable offline which is a huge blow unless it turns out to be another gacha just like Genshin Impact which really sucks that Genshin Impact requires internet connection to play despite not being an MMO. I got super hyped for the reveal trailer for Genshin Impact also until I found out its a gatcha... So I really hope this game isn't going down a similar path.

This game looks fantastic, I hope it is available on the next gen Switch, the Switch Pro. I can see Pokémon Company making there game look like this for the Switch Pro. If they start working on it now and collaborate with Bandai Namco and some Ninty 1st Party studios, it could launch in 4 years. Imagine with a VR, 1st Person view?

I've resented pokemon for a long time for not ever innovating and being firmly cemented in the past. They insist on always being 2 or 3 steps behind and yet we still support them.
It will never happen, but I'd kinda love if a game like this truly gave them a run for thier money.

There's no doubt in my mind that if Game Freak really tried their hardest to innovate, they could create a Pokemon game like no other and one that would set a new standard for all future monster collecting games.

I would rather have my POKEMON MMO I've wanted since the GameCube days than photo-realistic city scapes and weird faux mo-capped looking characters.

Lets be honest here. Nintendo and the Pokemon company will always put the absolute lowest effort possible into a Pokemon game, and the lowest budget. They know that people will still buy it, and they do. $100bn company and they will happily make a game for $20 if they could.

This trailer was stunning. With that said, Pokemon still makes millions of dollars regardless of quality. The franchise will sell nomatter what.

Until the day comes of people getting weary or a new game comes along and truly competes, we won't see anything no where near this close.

Wow you are right it does look better. I cant believe a ps5 game looks better that a switch game made by a primarily hand held game company.

Comparison aside, this is the first game that's makes me wish for a Switch Pro.

@Tulio517 The main thing im pissed about is the comments. People are forgot legends is a thing, and that pokemon target is mainly children. Children usually just imagine what games look like I could not tell the difference of sonic 06 and sonic unleashed graphically as a kid.

Looks like a kiddy version of Monster Hunter instead of Pokemon, video focus too much on the avatar and not the monsters. If you're making a Pokemon ripoff, the trainer should not fight the monsters, they are suppose to be spectator and commander. They don't join fights, they command them.

@Kilamanjaro USUM Is the game that pushed what people thought what was possible on the 3ds.

I can see the interest in comparing the two IPs, but this style is its own thing. DokeV's environments, movement, and battles look really good, but the character designs, particularly their faces, sort of blend and don't allow anyone to stand out. It makes seeing a lot of characters on screen boring, which is really strange to state considering the technical side of everything else going on around them. Still, it'll be interesting to see how the game turns out.

@Winter_Samurai This probably isn't the right article for this convo, but I'll add that personally, I much enjoyed the BotW art style and use of colors than Horizon Zero Dawn. BotW is such a gorgeous game and visually really stands out among other video games in general. Though the whole robot/animal hybrid designs in Horizon aren't anything to scoff at either. That being said, I personally have way more fun playing Horizon than BotW.

@Dafirelive Pokemon may have been a kids thing 20 years ago, but I don’t think defending Game Freak and The Pokemon Company by saying Pokemon is only a children’s thing today is valid anymore.

We have Pokémon Go, Unite, Masters etc…, which all requires micro transactions to survive as games. Until the day a 7 yo can have a credit card, I don’t think Pokemon is for only children anymore. Not to mention all the adult sized dress shirts and ties with Pokémon prints on them… Guess TPC is branding Pokemon for children only.

Some aspects look really nice and have a very cool tone in some scenes, but it looks really cheap in others and inconsistent overall.

Whatever tech issues Game Freak may struggle with, they polish the Pokémon brand to supernova level brilliance.

@graviton I agree with you, but what i was saying is that pokemon as a whole is a kids series.

I think I'm in the minority who doesn't think that graphics are the big issue with Pokemon games these days.....it could look like wind waker or something 'unrealistic' but still be good. Actually trying to 'find' Pokemon in this more detailed world would be pretty difficult. I think the fundamental issue is the gameplay - regardless of graphics - the game hasn't really moved on from Gold/Silver in the late 90s...

What's with the sudden obsession of having to compare this to Pokémon? Like, I get it, GF is falling behind in terms of graphics but really? This game doesn't even look like a Pokémon game. Heck, I've said this on a different article but I'll say it again, this look more like Splatoon mixed with Jet-Set Radio. Heck, BoTW doesn't have this level of detail and also an open-world game so why not compare it to that? (not throwing any shades to BoTW or anything mind you)

A great game with 'dated' graphics is far better than a bland, forgettable game with great graphics.

I was first intrigued by the trailer, but as it went on I quickly grew bored. Nothing was particularly memorable or unique about it, almost like Ubisoft quickly threw in some monster collecting into one of their open world games and not much else. And for as long as the trailer was, I have little idea what the mechanics are. Is there a point to going around on a waverunner? How do you catch monsters? Why do you catch monsters? How do the battles work? Is there exploration, or just a big, bland, familiar world to walk around in?

I haven't played pokemon since Sun, though I am tempted to play Sword, and I am interested in the upcoming remakes and Arceus. The worlds still look and feel unique to me from what I've seen, as do the monsters, which I think has always been a major strength of the series.

My opinion of this Dokev game may change once we actually learn what the mechanics of the gameplay are and how the game flows, but right now I don't see anything but a pretty coat of paint.

If all we care about is how good a games graphics are, why even bother with gameplay at all?

It does look pretty good but the reason they don’t make pokemon look crazy amazing is because it’s just basically has the same art style since the beginning. But it would be cool though. But even if it doesn’t look like the video above it still has a style people know and love and they love the games to appeal to all ages. Nintendo has shown you don’t need amazing graphics to make a great game, some of there games would look way better with new and improved graphics but they still have the lovable design most of the time.. A lot of there games they are coming out with still have some pretty good art like that smash bros character layout art.

@Peach64 Doesn't Nintendo own Monolith Soft now? They should put them to work on a Pokemon Title.

If people really want Pokemon to look like Black Desert Online, I question what drew them to Nintendo games in the first place.

If Pokemon should look like anything else, it's Monster Hunter Stories with maybe some better riding animations and smoother framerate. NOT an uncanny valley inducing tech demo full of mo-cap, that will price itself out of any market where kids can actually play it.

@AugustusOxy Pokémon is turn-based. That's what you expect from a Pokémon game. It absolutely does not need "real-time combat" lmao.

The photorealistic animations look amazing, of course. But the art style just looks like a strange hodgepodge of many different things without its own identity. The faces in particular rub me the wrong way... And there's something unsettling about the combination of the small child character models with the pop star/sailor moon glam-up transformation mechanic.

The catching mechanic itself seems more like the Ghostbusters/Luigi's Mansion vacuum trope than Pokemon's capsule catching. Not really seeing any close resemblance to Pokemon from the footage. It feels closer to MMO-esque mechanics with the monster mounts and assistance.

But then again, with a comment section like this, simply bringing up Pokemon to compare the graphics has proved a smashing success for NLife!

@Pokester99 It's not as much people being salty because it's Nintendo-related as it is people explaining why arguments presented in order to "attack" Pokémon/Nintendo don't make sense.

You quite often see randoms talking about photorealism as "next-gen graphics" or games needing to all be real-time action combat or playable in 4k and so on.

The problem is that those things mean nothing when you talk Nintendo. Nintendo puts fun first, and fun is all that matters.

As for Pokémon, it's a turn-based cartoony/anime creature collection franchise. That's the core of mainline Pokémon. So people arguing that they should swap core gameplay out with some generic action combat system aren't the people the franchise caters to in the first place. They don't want to play Pokémon, they want to play a generic action combat game

The smoothness of the animations is giving me an uncanny valley feeling. I think they should try a Pokémon game spin-off like Persona Strikers (or assign a button to a Pokémon like Folklore for PS3).

If I had an art style choice I think something like Trials of Mana would work well

Animation is impressive but also looks like that weird Sid the Science Kid mo-cap.

That game looks nice and all....but I don't think Pokemon should follow suit. Every game shouldn't strive to have photo realistic graphics and honestly it doesn't even fit Pokemon. I say Pokemon should stick with the more Japanese anime/cartoon style. I would love to see the next Pokemon titles look like SMT V.

@EliteXeos I didn't say it was. We don't need to defend gamefreak is my point. They're capable of much more, they're not an indie dev. Looking at their audience they don't need cutting edge graphics but it sure as hell would be nice! I am buying there stuff anyway

GTA for the Teletubbies generation.

My boys wouldn't play this, looks way too kiddie. Not sure what age group this is targeting, but the gfx look great. High end PC

Im also sure it wasnt made for switch so...

@Cathousemaster You say that as if Pokemon itself isn't kiddie.

@GrailUK
Considering it’s a game that’s not even coming to a Nintendo console, I would say, yes it definitely is an opinion piece “article”.

I had to abandon that trailer, the song was OK for the first 2 minutes but then it got extremely irritating... they should have chosen a second piece of audio to come in on such a long trailer. Poor decision to just loop it again.

Agree with much of what has already been said... the World looks very impressive, but the characters and gameplay just look very bland.

Reality is, Pokemon Legends will not look anywhere near as good as this game - they will be leagues apart. However, Legends will play a LOT better, and that always comes first for me.

@ReWane
I agree, it made me turn off the trailer after a few minutes. Terrible.

Apart from that cringefest, everything else looks very interesting.

In my option, it looks interesting, especially the korean culture(A bit overlooked in video games compared to Japanese) influences of it like the creatures (Dokebo) but the song doesn't fit. More akin to Yokai watch than pokemon

This game is more Monster Hunter or Yokai Watch 4 than Pokemon, with the monsters functioning a bit more like Palicos than partners with occasional team moves. Admittedly, I was kind of hoping that trainers would interact a bit more with battles in Arceus (having to dodge or helping Pokemon from afar while directing them, which admittedly, is a bit of a stretch) but this kind of direction isn't what Pokemon needs, beyond the freedom of movement the player character has.

Also, the graphics and insane level of particle effects seem like they'd be difficult to manage on strong consoles, and that's assuming that the Devs can properly optimize the game. Everyone assumes that human incompetence disappears with graphic fidelity, despite the endless failures of AAA devs.

That's interesting, since I thought Sword and Shield are supposed to be what next-gen Pokémon should look like. That's what anyone who provided criticism for those games was constantly and dogmatically told, anyway.

the character's in that trailer remind me a bit to much of this abomination...

The characters have REALLY souless eyes. Like, none of them have anything going in there

@Pokester99,

Not that many are sensitive, I mean on most Pokemon comment sections there are far more negative posters then positive, this does look pretty cool however, just nothing like a Pokemon game.

Its all a moot point, Switch couldn't run a game close to this kind of visual fidelity even if it wanted.

Seriously when I saw the trailer I was droolingly wishing for more info
But these "graphics" are even beyond what a PS4 could achieve, yet it also looks like a target render. This will never run on Switch... (though Splatoon looks like the closest match to this lighting quality).
With a next-gen Pokémon game this is what I imagined, an entire open-world region with cities and routes, and I think this is what Game Freak is aiming to.
Legends Arceus is a perfect beginning to try out with a region full of nature like BotW while they make the (literal) generational leap to either Gen 9 or -dramatic pause- "Generation X"!
No really. You want a really big Pokémon game to kickstart a Gen? Leave the next region to another dev while GF readies a bigger project than its current one. DokeV is the ideal target here to aim.

Also I wouldn't compare the creatures here to Pokémon, this is something more akin to Yo-kai Watch.

Yikes people in here are being extremely excessive in trying to dog on this game. If you don’t like the style or the character models or even the song thats fine, but to say this game looks bad is a little hypocritical (and one of the worst takes I’ve seen because tbh this is the most next gen game I’ve seen out of this entire current gen so far, and well maybe wukong as well but from a technical standpoint this is more impressive) and just judging the game when it’s most likely probably still in alpha (while arceus is only 4 months away, not trying to shade at all just being honest) and so many things could change.

(Because as beautiful as DokeV is I’m not quite sure where they are in development right now. We’ll be lucky if the game even comes out late 2022. Though this game looks like it’s been in production for AWHILE.) I hope arceus is a good game tho because let’s be honest that game is going to be the make or break for where this franchise is heading, even though we know it’ll sell like hotcakes either way.

But anyway, Dokev looks like it’s smack dab in the middle of production and I’m really excited to see more from it cause from what I read from those super in depth translated articles I’m REALLY gonna like this game.