nintendoknife

@Ventilator I don't know if you read the third sentence of the article, but here it is again:
"eBay seller pokemonplace had a 'Trainer No. 3' card in their possession, a card which was only given to the third-place winner of a specific 1999 Pokémon competition in Japan."

@FargusPelagius I'm putting my bets on the "New Super 2Switch (i) Lite XL Micro Advance SP U Pocket Classic".

@Heavyarms55 I'm pretty sure you're wrong on that, see the article below. A significant portion of the userbase (in 2017, when it was only just released) considered the TV mode as an afterthought.
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-10-31-nintendo-switch-owners-play-slightly-more-in-handheld-mode-than-on-tv
In any case, I was only talking about hardware like detachable controllers, IR sensors or rumble, not the lack of compatibility with the dock - although the comments above already indicate why they wouldn't want to (but technically could) make it dock-compatible.

As for your comments about the 'Switch' name no longer being accurate, tell that to the company who created a 3D handheld and then made not one but two versions of it that didn't include the 3D functionality at all, or who gave an entirely new console a name that sounded like it was just an alternate version of their older console.

@TooBarFoo TV mode doesn't technically need to increase clock speeds, though. They could easily force handheld speeds and tell people that it's possible to use the dock but not recommended because the 'real' Switch will display a better picture. People with 720p TVs wouldn't even notice.
Edit: in fact, I'm positive that whenever the Switch Lite gets hacked, some clever homebrewer will figure out a way to do just that.

@NinChocolate Well, of course it's meant for a different audience. I don't know how there could even be any confusion about that. This is essentially the Switch's 2DS, or the Switch's Wii Mini: much cheaper, some minor stuff that's fairly unimportant to everyday consumers removed, with the real deal still available. The lack of any rumble at all is a shame, but with the horrible noise the regular Switch makes in handheld mode when the joycons rumble, I can't say it wasn't to be expected.

@thatawesomedude I'm in no real need of a D-pad, but in what way exactly is asking for a controller with a very minor variation in the plastic mold (why does this word mean two completely different things) "impractical and unreasonable"?

@PharoneTheGnome I can see that people would have both a Switch as a home console and a Switch Lite as a handheld, but to be honest, I don't think the use case of people who have more than one of the same home console in the same household is all that common. The idea that you can only use your account on one of the same console at a time makes sense, otherwise you'd have hundreds of people using the same account, and not buying any games. There may be room for improvement, of course.

Meanwhile, homebrewers can make hundreds of backups locally, instantly, and transfer them to as many other (homebrewed) systems as they want. They can make backups of Splatoon, Pokémon and Animal Crossing saves as well, and they don't even have to pay for it.

@Denoloco Not everyone has the DLC, though.

@KaeraNeko It's like that one quest in Final Fantasy IX that wasn't discovered until thirteen years after the game's release, and that wasn't even a glitch but something the developers actually programmed on purpose.

@hihelloitsme The hardware being almost a generation behind the competition is no excuse for games running poorly or looking rather unimpressive. Xenoblade Chronicles, for example, came out on the Wii of all things and looked a lot better than many games on the PS3 or Xbox 360, especially when you take into account the enormous draw distances. Hell, even the 3DS port of it looks almost identical to the Wii original and that's running on a 3DS, in 3D!

I, too, look forward to the day Nintendo will decide to use the latest and greatest hardware again to rival the graphical power of their competitors' consoles, but talented (and preferably not lazy) developers can pull off fantastic feats even on poor hardware.

I like the new Pokémon, nice designs. The three clouds indicating whatever in dynamax mode still strongly resemble floating feces, though.

@AlexOlney I laughed out loud at that comment, you hit the nail on the head.

@Varelius I don't disagree with that, but you wrote that its main purpose is for local wireless play, which is simply not true.

@tekknik Where do you live? (Edit: apparently this info is in people's profiles - you live in the US where most houses are made almost entirely of wood, of course you haven't heard of mesh networks being in regular homes.) In mainland Europe, these kinds of networks are extremely common (and absolutely not 'nonstandard') because houses are made of thick stones and reinforced concrete, and neither steel nor rock are particularly well-known for the way radio waves effortlessly pass through them.

I play in portable mode, so ethernet adapters (that I'd have to buy separately) are out of the question. I don't know why you even recommended it in the first place, because it seems you completely misunderstood my whole point: the WiFi acts up when you go sit in another room. If you never move the Switch, there will never be any problem.

Regardless, even if my network were nonstandard, which it isn't, there is no excuse as to why a brand new €300 piece of hardware is unable to properly use these networks, when a €15 Chinese knockoff phone from ten years ago has no problems with it whatsoever. The Switch is the only device that has problems with it. DSi? No problem. 3DS? No problem. Vita? No problem. Phones? No problem. Tablets? No problem. Laptops? No problem. Wii? No problem. PS3? No problem. Switch? Problem!

You've made some great suggestions in any case: if I remove the WiFi in my house, I won't have any problems connecting the Switch to it anymore. Genius!

Just for the record, also @Edu23XWiiU, my router is one of the best you can get. Stop trying to say problems don't exist because you have never been in a situation where they rear their heads, it makes you look like a fool, especially as you've made it abundantly clear that you have no idea what powerline and mesh networks even are, and where and when they are used.

@Varelius "concerning the wifi chip in the switch, thats meant more for local wireless gaming. You know, like Nintendo DS local.
Wasn't meant to go through walls an the like."

What? Of course it's used for ad-hoc local wireless, but like any WiFi-enabled device, the main point is to connect to an access point. You are correct about bandwidth, though.

@Mallow It would be more like paying 20 dollars for someone to use ingredients from your own fridge to make the pizza, and the end result not even tasting very good, with undercooked dough and very little toppings.

@Galenmereth What you're saying essentially boils down to "Not only do they have to texture the front and sides of buildings like in static camera environments, now they also need to texture the back wall! The horror!"

@Galenmereth It's unbelievable how you think some years of experience working in the "indie game community" where 99% of games are created entirely by one person is in any way comparable to an actual company that's been developing games professionally for thirty years. Let me me explain:

• indie games: developed by very few people who have to do everything on their own with no resources to spare
• AAA games: developed by a lot of people in big companies with a lot of money, resources and decades worth of expertise to invest in research and development

The idea that AAA developers should not ever be criticised for their laziness and incompetence just because developing X feature is difficult and time-consuming for a single person doing everything on their own is ludicrous. Criticism on indie games is far more lenient precisely because they have to do it all alone.

If you hire a company to clean out your local park which has been neglected for years, and they do a hack job, accidentally leaking radioactive material in one half of the park and introducing a bunch of invasive species that overtake the remaining half, exactly how much trust would you put in the words of some bloke who, in response to the events, were to say "well, you can't criticise them for that, no way, I have years of experience working in my garden and not everything always goes according to plan"?

@EmmatheBest There wasn't really a National Dex in Sun and Moon either, which looked stupid for the out-of-region Pokémon you could actually still catch in the games, but it did still let you move over all of your old Pokémon even if they weren't in the regional Pokédex. I can understand why people have called it "removing the National Dex" but it isn't really accurate.

@Zoda_Fett "Let’s hope they have a lot of surprises left." Hate to disappoint, but Game Freak is infamous for announcing everything before the games are released. There are never any creatures, features or areas in the games that weren't announced in some kind of trailer or Famitsu interview long before the games were on shelves. The same thing happens every time: people speculate about all the Pokémon we haven't seen yet, and when the games are out, turns out there are no new Pokémon we hadn't seen yet. People speculate about new (or returning) features like following Pokémon, and when the games are out, turns out there are no new (or returning) features they hadn't shown off yet. People speculate about all of the mysterious areas on the game's regional map hidden by clouds, and when the games are out, turns out there's nothing beneath those clouds, they're only there for decoration.

@Razer "Those same people complaining about Game Freak will" No, "they" won't.

This is essentially the second time ever Game Freak have replied to the criticisms being levelled against them (unfortunately with a "we won't change anything because people keep buying them anyway" reply), the first time being only a couple of weeks ago. Perhaps it's just me, but it does seem like it is at last starting to dawn on them that they're perhaps the laziest and most incompetent video game developers in history - they just don't get it yet.

@Yorumi Refreshing to see someone call another user out on using a strawman argument and actually know what a strawman is. Thanks!

@tekknik It's a Switch hardware issue, whether you've experienced it yourself or not (perhaps because you live in a small house and/or the router is placed in a central location and/or your house is made of wood, etc.) doesn't mean the problem isn't there. Look up "switch wifi problems" and you'll find thousands upon thousands of unique results, all of them pointing to the WiFi antenna/chip as the culprit.

The phone example was just to indicate the difference, not to say that I can still use that connection but to show that the phone still sees the wireless signal, whereas the Switch's WiFi antenna is so horribly awful that getting full bars is literally only possible if you place it right next to the router. Also, as you mention aggressively holding onto an AP, that's funnily enough the Switch's only real problem (in mesh/powerline networks where all APs have the same name) other than the bad antenna. It holds onto an AP with a really weak signal three rooms away even when a much stronger signal from an AP in the room the Switch is actually in is available, even when you tell the Switch to reconnect and even when you turn it off and on again. The Switch even sees the new signal, it just refuses to actually use it. It takes 10-15 minutes for it to finally let go of the bad signal and connect to the good one.

@Edu23XWiiU Changing routers unfortunately doesn't change the Switch's faulty connection logic in powerline or mesh networks, and neither does it change the really, truly, exceptionally horrible WiFi antenna. My phone can still see my home network half a street away, the Switch already completely loses all connection if I move to a different room.

Ten million suckers, now that's an impressive number.

@Cwiiis As you also mentioned the PSP Go, in case you didn't know already, I'll mention that some clever guy created a cable that can be used to adapt regular PSPs' Memory Stick Pro Duo cards to the PSP Go's M2 card format. This also means that you can use the cable to adapt an MS Pro Duo microSD card adapter to M2. The adapter cable fits inside the Go's housing, you can't even see it's there. It is extremely useful if you have a bunch of games (or media, if you use your PSP as an MP3 player) and don't want to fork out briefcases full of money for a large M2 card. Check it out:

https://m2adapter.cart.fc2.com/

@Braok The screen is great but no one's actually developed any worthwhile emulators for it. The worthwhile emulators are still the PSP emulators, and despite those being mighty impressive in their own right, they're locked down to the PSP's max clock speeds, and can't take advantage of the Vita's much more powerful hardware. That being said, a homebrew developer recently appears to have found a way to access the Vita hardware from inside the PSP 'emulator', so who knows what the future will bring.
I'd also say the PSP Go's screen comes very close in quality to the Vita 1000's OLED.

@MegaVel91 I know they aren't going to delay it, the game's 99% finished (in their eyes) by now anyway. I just meant to say that they had all the time in the world to put a team of 3D artists at work for a whole year considering they've worked on SS for at least 3, and it would've all worked out, but they didn't because it would cost them a lot more and because they know they can get away with putting minimal effort into it, seeing as anything remotely Pokémon-branded almost literally prints money anyway.

@MegaVel91 We know that Game Freak hasn't worked on animations for years and won't be working on them anytime soon. However, you seem to be saying that they can't create those animations, which is simply ridiculous when you look at the statistics:

• Battle Revolution, developed over a period of 2 years by 22 people total had unique and great-looking animations for many moves on 493 different Pokémon (+ alternate formes, as you said)
• Sword and Shield, developed over a period of at least 3 years by 250 people has no unique nor great-looking animations for any move on ±2x493 Pokémon (this is assuming an enormous amount of new Pokémon), of which 809 Pokémon already had their animations done for previous games

In numbers:

• Genius Sonority: 22 people x 2 years = 44 people-years for 493 Pokémon with lots of great-looking animations each (let's take a highly conservative estimate of 5 unique animations per Pokémon)
• Game Freak: 250 people x 3 years = 750 people-years for ±177 Pokémon with only a physical and special attack animation each

Calculating a bit further, this comes down to the following:

• Genius Sonority: created 1 animation per 6,5 days (i.e., one animation per week)
• Game Freak: created 1 animation per 773 days (i.e., less than one animation per two years)

Not everyone at Game Freak is a 3D artist, but neither is everyone at Genius Sonority, so assuming they have the same relative amount of 3D artists, the comparison is as valid as it gets.

I could swear the PSP was released years ago. Although, for GBA games the 3DS is actually the greatest, because they run natively, no emulation needed and therefore no glitchy audio/video or other compatibility problems. In fact, if you look into it, disregarding the Switch, the (New) 3DS is actually the perfect handheld for playing older games. It can run every Nintendo handheld game: GB (emulated), GBC (emulated), GBA (native), DS (native), DSi (native), and 3DS (native), as well as NES and SNES, and Game Gear - and the emulators for these are all in one way or another developed by Nintendo. Even more have been developed by talented hackers. It's mighty impressive considering the 3DS's limited power.

@sixrings Oh, I don't care about the TV monopolising anything, I just don't like it because sitting in the same room all the time is a bit hampering if you can also go portable and sit in whichever room's the nicest at that time of day. Playing local multiplayer on a TV is fine, but when playing alone, I'll choose comfort and ease of use (quite literally pick up and play) over big screens any day.

@MegaVel91 And yet a tiny third party company called Genius Sonority, with just 22 employees, managed to do just that in Pokémon Colosseum, XD and Battle Revolution. The models, animations, etc of the last one still look mighty impressive today, and even the other two look pretty good. Again, the entire game was created by all of 22 people in two years' time, with all 493 Pokémon that existed at the time each having loads of unique, great-looking animations (although some animations certainly would have been better at 2x speed). Don't forget that the Wii isn't exactly known for its massive amounts of horsepower, either.

@Mycroft Clearly, anyone who gets upset at the way a game developer rushes games out the door is only concerned about their precious video games, and completely disregards any other problems in the world. Clearly, because fans of a franchise would like to see some more effort being put into it, they don't care in the slightest about genocides or other atrocities being committed. This is whataboutism at its finest: there are other, arguably more important issues in the world, so you are not allowed to complain about anything else. Your local shops raise prices by 400%? Not allowed to complain, because people are still being murdered all over the world. You find out your partner cheated on you? Not allowed to complain, because cancer is still a thing. Ad nauseam.

I've run into several occasions where the game just freezes for at least 10 seconds (music still playing) before it starts working again. For example, at the end of the dragon boss fight, or when jumping up and down between certain rooms (which is horrible if the room above doesn't have a platform to land on when jumping straight up, because if you fall down you're going to spend half a minute just to switch screens from the bottom to the top room). In addition, sometimes the attack and jump controls stop working entirely, this happens especially often when you're floating on water. Still, the worst thing is the rumble in portable mode going out of control whenever your health is low. It doesn't stop BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZing until you finally get your health back up (which isn't easy with how few health items the game gives you - which in itself is a good thing), and even BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZes all throughout any cutscenes you start when low on health.

The game itself is still great, though. I especially like the neat little touches they added with items that actually change stuff in the game, like eyeglasses actually making the image significantly more zoomed in, or voice modulators making you squeak (the voice modulation also persists in cutscenes, which makes them absolutely hilarious when your companions are talking about the end of the world, and your character is squeaking away in a chipmunk voice in reply).

@sixrings I do, because it means I have to sit in front of the TV all the time. Much easier to take a portable device around and play in the living room, bedroom, bathroom, garden, etc.

Are the screenshots in the article blurry or is that what the game actually looks like? For lack of a better comparison they have the same sort of fuzziness the 16-bit consoles have when hooked up via RF instead of SCART, so I'm not sure if that's what the game's trying to mimic, or if it's just a case of aggressive JPEG compression.

@Preposterous The problem is that the psychologic effect of seeing someone act rude against 'the other side' bypasses and steers all thinking on whether the points being made are any good. It's not about flipflopping, but about the mental influence it has even on the most critical of thinkers. You will never win an argument if you're the ruder side, even if everything you say is truth and even if the other side has no idea what it's even talking about.

@Preposterous You're right in what you say, but there's no reason to be rude or intentionally provocative. Psychologically it only makes people think that you're on the 'wrong side'.

@Yodalovesu Because Nintendo didn't claim that they deleted half of Breath of the Wild 2's world map because they had to spend so much time working on new animations.

@NEStalgia The video in this article just shows a couple of examples. You can easily compare for yourself by opening up one of the 3DS mainline Pokémon games (or the Pokédex 3D software, which lets you zoom in on the models and turn them in any direction), and Pokémon Let's Go and/or the trailer for Sword and Shield, then use the same Pokémon and/or the same moves. The same things will show up on both screens, one just has a higher resolution screen and higher quality textures on the Pokémon models. You can keep saying that "we don't know for sure because we weren't in the studio", but this is the laziest kind of cop-out, especially when it seems you've already forgotten that barely a couple of years ago, Game Freak were boasting about how they had future-proofed the graphics side of things. One of the main reasons the Pokémon 3DS games had so much lag was because the models were of such ridiculously high quality that the 3DS couldn't handle them. @TheBlue10 higher up in this thread even lists the exact numbers for some of the models and what average polygon counts are like for 3D models on various consoles.

@phartsy As countless people have already written in this thread and many others before, the problem is not that they reuse the models (that was the point of future-proofing them after all), the problem is that they lied about supposedly creating entirely new models when they didn't.

@Gelo "Im even up for it if they create a game with just the whole bunch of new pokemons only" That would be great but unfortunately that is not what's happening, and it's most likely never going to happen anymore because despite Black and White objectively being the peak of the series, they didn't sell as well and so Game Freak is never bringing back the 'regional Pokémon only until you beat the game' type of games.

@NEStalgia You seem to gloss over the 'Pokémon World Championships' events entirely. You could probably consider the people who go there as most likely to be actual hardcore nerds, but the events are organised by none other than The Pokémon Company themselves and have pretty impressive cash prizes (for a children's video game). To claim that the competitive metagame is something invented by the players is either dishonest or wrong.

@NEStalgia (other post) Have you read the article, or skipped to the comments? Whether all Pokémon are in the games or not is not that important in the end and is not really the point in the first place. However, if Game Freak claims that the reason they've dropped a staple feature of the series because they had to spend so much time on creating new models and animations, and they are then easily called out on this statement simply by comparing footage of the 3DS games to that of the Switch games, where no new models or animations are to be found, that is what gets people riled up, and why shouldn't it? If they had dropped the "all Pokémon are always technically available in all games" feature and claimed that it was because they spent a lot of time to make the games themselves better, by creating better looking animations, by making the games not lag all the time, by improving this or that mechanic, by balancing the competitive metagame to make more than just a dozen Pokémon usable, and then actually did those things, far fewer people would be complaining, because that would have been a good tradeoff. The problem is that there is no tradeoff here, they just took out a staple feature, gave nothing in return yet lied that they did. That is unacceptable regardless of franchise or intended audience.

@NEStalgia Alright, next time you want to make any complaint about a new -insert series you like- game, realise that voicing complaints about something you've liked for a long time is the life of a basement-dwelling nerd. Virtually all video games are made for children, even those with 18+ age ratings.

@NEStalgia Wow, real classy move to divide "Pokémon fans" up into two categories - well-adjusted members of society, and basement-dwelling nerds - and also place yourself on the "well-adjusted members of society" side. Someone enjoys playing Pokémon games a bit longer than simply beating the Pokémon league? They must be mentally handicapped!

@JaxonH But why even comment on an article that is unrelated to anything you mentioned? This article is about Game Freak lying through their teeth about their 'new models' and 'new animations', not about whether or not it's feasible to keep including all Pokémon in every game as the total amount of Pokémon grows ever larger.

@FlashBoomerang Okay, what you can do is download the ROM for Pokémon Ultra Sun and the ROM for Pokémon Let's Go (or, dump those games yourself, so that you don't have to download them), next use a program that can extract the ROMs into their pieces, then look for where the actual models are stored, open them in a program for 3D modelling, and compare the amount of polygons.

@JaxonH Hunger is not an opinion. Neither is the fact that Game Freak has openly lied to their customers / long time fans about their 'new animations', 'new models', 'new balance', etc. Just for the record, 'care' is not an opinion either.

@Ulysses Yeah, I think most people here think of it that way. We've all complained about Game Freak cutting corners and even going so far as to laugh in the face of their customers with the Battle Frontier signpost in ORAS, but this is just offensive. As @Yorumi wrote, this situation is the straw that broke the camel's back for lots and lots of long time fans.

@NEStalgia "Can someone remind me why we're severely and intensely critisizing animation frames in the newest biggest entry of the largest IP in gaming?"

Seems reasonable that "the newest biggest entry of the largest IP in gaming" deserves being placed under intense scrutiny.