NoxAeturnus

@Yorumi Nailed it. And the people saying "it's like a TCG restricting some cards to tournament legal," are ignoring the fact that without a game to play in, and with Home being a subscription service with one-way transfer from Bank (and thus older games), this is like the company putting all my legacy cards into a storage facility and then charging me a fee to LOOK at them, not even to play with them, just to look.

@bahooney I don't think it's about wanting the series to grow up. I think it's about differing markets. Sw/Sh is a fine game if you're in it for the usual trek through the gyms, and it has some great QoL improvements. Most of the people who are looking for that experience are thinking of it as an 8 or higher, which is totally fine. However, I usually spend small amounts of time in campaign mode and hundreds of hours in post game. Sw/Sh have an abysmal post game, by far the worst in the series to date. Since that's a huge draw for me personally, I think of the games as more of a 6/10 and not really worth their +$20 price point over previous entries in the series. What's frustrating is that Pokemon used to satisfy both camps. This is why I played a copy borrowed from the library rather than actually pay money for it.

Karped Crusader.

@Pod I think that buzz factor is more important than it seems, not critically important, but enough that Switch will lose a bit of its appeal. Hobbyists will always buy a more robust version on PS/XB/PC, but there's definite double dipping for Switch's portability even among the high-spec inclined. There's a market for those games on Switch, though it's certainly not the only market or even the major market on Switch.

Of course it's all moot right? The dark dystopian future is obviously subscription service game streaming. Game Pass and PS Now could eventually be mobile apps available on smartphones and streaming devices like Roku, and all you'd need to buy is a controller to connect via bluetooth and to pay your monthly sub.

It'll be interesting to see how Switch fares once PS5 releases. I expect many of the "miracle" ports will dry up at that point. They really should be thinking Switch 2 by 2022, with full backwards compatibility including bringing your digital game library forward. But I dream...

@Crockin I honestly don't care about blame. My point is that many of the criticisms aren't undeserved. And it's a shame because again, Pokemon still has so much potential.

@Crockin Yes, I'm not placing all of the blame at GF's feet. TPC is largely responsible for the brand management. And TPC's insistence on Pokemon being a yearly franchise puts a lot of stress on them to deliver a product and gives them no time to really let the ideas breath and experiment with new directions. That's a real shame. However, some of the blame still rests with GF. They don't have modern development skills. They seem to be going through the same development growing pains that many studios went through in the first generation of HD gaming...back in 2006-ish. They're behind, and it shows.

@Yorumi Sorry, missed the joke due to the general tone of your responses. Got it now.

@johnvboy Phrased another way: "If you're enjoying the game, and others find fault with it, so what?"

@Yorumi People are wrong all the time, especially on the internet. Who cares? Being a jerk to them doesn't help.

@Crockin Game Freak didn't make Pokemon Go, which actually reinforces my point that GF isn't pushing the franchise or the game at all. And you're measuring success only in terms of cash. If all games measured success that way, we'd only be playing microtransaction laden smartphone fests. Or service games. This is the philosophy that people hate so much about EA. Despite its success, no one is making a case for Pokemon Go being the sole future of the franchise - it's a largely shallow experience, but hugely profitable. If cash is the only goal and measure of success, why bother making any other Pokemon games at all?

@Crockin Sure, maybe they're evolving the franchise. But the tagline has been "Gotta Catch 'Em All" for more than 20 years. That brand promise rings a bit hollow now. They could always...you know...stop adding new Pokemon. They're in this situation because they have poorly managed the expansion of their franchise and because they lack the skill to push it into new territory.

@Crockin I am not saying review bombing will make a difference. Nothing will make a difference. The franchise can limp along in mediocrity pretty much indefinitely at this point based on its brand recognition. I don't buy your argument that play old games is the solution. The franchise is stagnant. Even you agree with that. Is the vitriol and reaction to the NatDex over the top? Sure is. But even though some people are being raging morons, they do have a point. The three pillars of Pokemon have always been battle, trade, collect. They've undermined one of those pillars in a huge way, and honestly, that's not the only (or even the biggest) problem. The real problem is that GF is a second rate developer. Many of the compliments about Sw/Sh are qualified by "for a Pokemon game." It's beautiful...for a pokemon game. The Wild Area is a big step forward...for a Pokemon game. I think that's a shame. Pokemon has such potential, and it'll always be held back by its own mega-success.

Yes, the juggernaut of mediocrity continues.

@Crockin I agree that anyone who thought the missing features would make the game flop were out of touch. However, the more reasonable detractors never doubted the games would sell well. Just because it's selling well, as expected, doesn't mean the criticisms are invalidated.

Subheading should read: Internet collectively yawns.

@GhostGeneration Certainly a shame. As someone who regularly bites off more than they can chew, I sympathize with them.

@GhostGeneration Think about it like this: You are a small game developer. You have spent an enormous amount of time and effort making a game, and you've had to do it while burning through savings or possibly money others have invested in your eventual product. The money is about to run dry, and there isn't more on the way, but the game's not done. In fact, it's a mess. With a few month's work, you think you could get it into a semi-playable form, but it'll be very obviously bad and you know it. What do you do? Do you cancel the project, or do you release the game and hope to recoup even part of the sunk cost and/or debt you've incurred in making it?

A large company with multiple projects and a big pile of treasure from past successes can probably afford to delay a game longer and make it better. A small team might not have that luxury.

@Quarth I now have this sinister hypothesis forming that in Galar, pokemon not considered worthy of battling are farmed for food.

Slowpoke isn't in the game. So...where are they getting them?

I'm shocked at the number of articulate reviews on metacritic with a score of 3-4. The people slapping 0 on it are just as ridiculous as those slapping a 10 on it, the game is clearly neither.

However, the point still stands. If you play pokemon for the campaign, the game is probably an 8-9 for you. If you spend most of your pokemon time in the post game, it's probably more of a 5-6, maybe lower. These two major camps will not be able to reconcile their differences because they have fundamentally different expectations of the game.

This game is a gem. I love it.

@Daniel36 No come back, I'm interested in what you have to say.

Oh wow. It really could have been worse couldn't it?

1. This game will sell like gangbusters regardless of its quality. The brand is a juggernaut. However, sales measure profit and consumer interest, not quality.

2. The vocal minority IS a minority. But they're also likely to be Pokemon's longest fans. There's always a huge influx of new players because the primary demographic is children. Those new players don't care about the problems, because for them that's the baseline norm.

3. None of the above invalidates the relevant complaints. GF is a second rate developer with a top tier franchise that they haven't known what to do with for years (Camera control? In 2019? Really? That's your stunning achievement?) TPCs brand management has been brilliant, and super effective.

Pokemon can limp along in mediocrity for a LONG time. I don't expect changes based on the vocal minority. But I do think that despite their abysmal behavior, the vocal minority has a strongly valid point.

The new generation will slow them down a bit, maybe price cuts next year to undercut PS5. The Switch Lite's release is the price cut for this year. They don't need a pro model, but in 2-3 years a Switch 2 wouldn't be amiss so they can continue to capture scaled down ports of next gen games.

Masuda: "Hey is that a garbage fire? Because I have some gasoline in the back I need to get rid of."

I would be perfectly happy with no nat dex in the games if Home allows me to battle and trade with the pokemon stored in Home. Make Home the post game content. I'd happily pay for it if it was more useful than data storage for data I'm not allowed to use until GF lets me.

@FullMetalWesker @JaxonH I 100% agree with both of you that the level of response is totally unwarranted. I'm just as frustrated with the dead horse beaters. However, I'm reminded of Sean of the Dead, "I can see what David is trying to say, even if he is being a total ****." I'm also just as frustrated with the people whose response to that vitriol is to completely pretend that nothing is wrong, or that because the hyperbolic and inappropriate level of response happened that GF doesn't deserve any criticism at all. It's an overcompensation in an attempt to distance oneself from people who have a good point but are acting poorly. To be clear, I'm not suggesting that either of you are doing that. I appreciate the solid points you're making, so thanks for sharing those.

@FullMetalWesker They have other options. For one thing, Pokemon has been a yearly release for a decade now. They could give it more space to breath, or allocate fewer resources to side projects like Pokemon Sleep. They could also slow or stop the roster expansion, especially the number of "secret" legendaries. This "inevitable" situation they've put themselves into is a result of their poor planning. I think they deserve criticism for that.

The fact is, GF isn't a really strong developer. For example, we're excited about full camera control. In 2019. Sw/Sh look like the best Pokemon game ever made...which is to say they're pretty ugly compared to other Switch releases. GF's skills are very behind, and it's apparent why they were so reluctant to move to console for so long - handheld developement has been their crutch. I actually hope this adversity forces them to take a hard look, trim the bloat, and really push the franchise instead of these little incremental steps they've been taking since the 90s. But I don't have much hope of that. They're victims of their own success.

@JaxonH Death threats against any developer are not ok. It's just a game. And I can be grateful for GF's past successes while still thinking they deserve criticism for this misstep. I'm going to play Sw/Sh, but the lack of nat dex has really put a damper on my excitement for the post game, which is usually where I spend most of my time. I expect I'll like Sw/Sh, and it's still worth buying, but the lack of nat dex is still super disappointing. My excitement for future games' rosters is not increased, rather my dread is increased. Each game already has its own feel, the local dex has always been in play for the world/story, the nat dex strictly affects the post game. Its loss is strictly worse, and no amount of positive spin can make that not the case. However, the amount of hate and vitriol that the internet produces is hyperbolic beyond all reason.

Is that what we're going to do today? We're going to fight?

The joy cons aren't really precise enough for this are they? I mean, what does "something like" Beat Saber even look like? Fruit Ninja?

Well that's too bad. Guess I'll be boxing my starter this generation just like in Gen 5. Oh well.

I think they think people think the most important reason to buy physical is to have a box.

Yeah ok great, but is there anything to do out there? It's not just about having a big space to walk around in GameFreak.

They really threw the baby out with the bathwater with the Wii-U. Miiverse, eshop, folders - all standard on the Wii-U. If the best parts of Wii-U had just come to Switch as-is, we probably wouldn't be seeing articles like this.

Does this strike anyone else as desperately grasping at any straw that will lure Pokemon Go players to a main series game?

GameFreak used Gimmick! But nothing happened!

@Trikeboy There's nothing wrong with discovering things through play, and for me there's plenty of mystery in the unrevealed things I'll run into. May as well ask what's wrong with wanting to make an informed choice of starter? To each their own.

I want to see starter evolutions. I'm not making a purchasing decision based on starter evolutions, I'm making a decision about which starter I want. If you like the idea of going in blind, that's great for you, but I personally won't be able to pick a starter unless I know what it's going to turn into and its type.

@mrmememan Can we just not this time? Just once? Everyone's said their piece and no one's changing their minds.

@SirAwesomeness41 There weren't pics in that leak. I don't want to know its name and theme, I want to know what it looks like and its type.

How are there no reputable leaks about the evolved starters yet? That's all I need to know to make my decision.

I'm all for a pokemon cull, but this was not the best way to do it. You can't treat the video game like a TCG - I can play with the TCG cards I have in for-fun games regardless of what's legal in tournaments, but I CAN'T play with the game-mon I have without the GAME as an interface. That's the big difference.

The idea of Pokemon Home allowing local and online battling and trading is brilliant. I severely doubt they'll do it, but that would solve the problem. You'd still need the game to capture, adventure, breed, etc., but if Home had the basic trade/battle functions you'd still be able to PLAY with any pokemon you have, whether or not it's in a particular generation. Again, doubtful it'll ever happen.

Pokemon is a victim of its own success. They've never really struggled. No main line game has been a flop. This means they've never truly been required to listen or to innovate. That's why they're just now implementing decades old gameplay like 3D movement...in 2019, we're excited that Pokemon finally has real 3D movement and camera control. That's why the gimmicks keep coming - they're "innovation" designed by people for whom there are no risks, because if there was a risk they'd have to do some analysis and figure out what might actually be good instead of just throwing things at a wall. And it's not going to change because a few disgruntled older gamers refuse to buy the latest game. They have a constant influx of new players in children who don't have anything to compare the new game to. I expect pokemon will limp along for many many years to come.

@antdickens @Columbia76 I want a sequel with couch co-op: Untitled Geese Game.

@SepticLemon Thanks for this, it really helped clear up why I'm not able to buy it right now...which has been confusing me all morning.

BTW for those on the east coast of the US - it releases 9AM PST, so not quite yet.

@Indielink Hey no worries about the novel, I deserve it after my long posts. I totally agree with your criticisms of DOS II having spent a lot of time with it on PS4 myself. And I feel your girlfriend's pain hardcore - it's so bad at teaching. I personally think 9/10 is appropriate based on those experiences, but that's not how the review reads. I can also see how people are confused by it, despite my personal views. But again, who cares? 9 or 10, the game is awesome.

@Indielink I'm not arguing to go back and rescore a bunch of games. Scores are subjective. I can see DOS II as a 10/10, and I would be happy if BotW had received a 9/10. And really even the "miracle" ports haven't been perfect. Site called NintendoLife favors Nintendo games probably shouldn't be a surprise to anyone.

The confusion with DOS II is that they don't seem to offer ANY criticism of the game, it's widely regarded as a great game, and the review reads extremely positively...so why does it fall short? The question isn't invalid, it's just not as important as some people want to make it out to be. I saw your comment that NL generally scores games lower than other places, which is something I appreciate because they do have a good critical eye and I highly enjoy reading their reviews because of it. They give a good sense of whether or not I'll like a game without over or under selling it, and that's what I want more than an assigned number. I feel that it's not that the 9/10s here deserve the 10, or the 10/10s don't deserve the 10. It's more like...excellent Nintendo games with minor flaws like MM2 are likely to fall on one side of that line while 3rd party games with minor flaws like DOS II will fall on the other side of the line. Either way, a 9 or 10 is a fantastic game worth paying attention to. I don't think the slight bias, though apparent, warrants bringing out the torches and pitchforks to burn everything down.

@Shazirah Oh they're definitely here to fight. I was just feeling punchy so I decided to oblige. I'm not worked up at all about it.

@SBandy You're rapidly approaching half a dozen times asking for data that doesn't matter. There have not been 10 games given a 10/10 on Switch or Switch eshop. Switch game reviews are the only relevant reviews for the last three years. Three years of data is enough to see a trend.

But here, to humor you, expanding the search to all the 10/10 scores from 2016-2019 for all systems adds the following games to the previous list:

Zelda Botw Wii-U
Metroid: Samus Returns 3DS
Pokemon Sun/Moon 3DS
Pokemon Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon 3DS.

Combined with my previous list, that's the last 13 games with a 10/10 score on this site. See a trend yet?

@SBandy Why the last 10 scores of 10/10? How about just the relevant ones - 10/10 for Switch or Switch eshop only. There are only 9:

Super Smash Bros.
Zelda BotW
Mario Maker 2
Odyssey
Mario Kart 8
Splatoon 2
Celeste
Axiom Verge
Subsurface Circular

I'm not going to say that any of those games don't deserve the 10, because that's a nice pack of excellent games. I will say that I find @JaxonH to be one of the most reasonable people on these boards, and it seems to me like his statements hold some weight. His statements and opinion certainly aren't unsubstantiated sniping even if I'm not sure I agree with his interpretation. Looking at the 9/10 reviews on this site, my conclusion is that NL is mostly stingy with their 10/10 scores for every third party (how did HOLLOW KNIGHT not get a 10/10?!)...except regarding Nintendo games which they are clearly biased towards, but the site is called NintendoLife so...

But really, your continued calls for him to show you the data, and your response to the other poster who wanted to enter the discussion that you wanted the numbers from JaxonH specifically, proved that you're not here to discuss the issue in good faith. You're here to fight. And quite frankly, observing the argument from the outside, you are being needlessly aggressive about it.

What a great game. It's criminal that people weren't more excited about this after the last direct.