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Sword and Shield have been such a mixed bag for me. In terms of the art and design aspects I mentioned above, they're my favourite games of all time - I live in the UK so Galar has a special place in my heart. But the paywalls and Pokemon HOME (not to mention joy-con drift) have soured the experience considerably. It's been quite heartbreaking to see my favourite region being given such bad treatment by its own creators.
I'm also optimistic about the future of storytelling in Pokemon games, because in recent years we've seen a greater focus on character development as well as some surprisingly mature themes. But Game Freak needs to realize that you can tell a good story without interupting the player every five minutes! This is something which no doubt annoys adults and children alike, so I'm not really sure who they're targeting. Perhaps people in Japan have greater attention spans and enjoy reading dialogue more than we do in the west?
It's the more technical gameplay aspects, and Nintendo/Game Freak's business model, that I'm less optimistic about. Since the series moved onto the Switch, many features that used to be in the game are now either sold separately or locked behind a mobile app, despite the games themselves being significantly more expensive than they used to be. Barring non-smartphone users from downloading a shiny Zeraora was unforgiveable in my eyes (especially as Sword and Shield have their own Mystery Gift function), as is using Dexit as a way to "trap" players into paying their Pokemon HOME subscriptions indefinitely so that they don't lose their collections.
The games have become less accessible to children (and adults on a budget!) because they're so much more expensive to play than they used to be.
These quotes pretty much sum up my opinion on the future of the Pokémon franchise. In other words, Game Freak is trying to make the games better, but are beholden by TPCi to meet yearly deadlines and hold off a good bit of content behind paywalls since the latter company has been getting infected with corporate greed recently.Honestly, I'm more cautious than optimistic. Mostly because of the way The Pokemon Company is hijacking the ability for the series to actually improve. It all depends on whether the consumer base can discourage the spinoff-and-merchandise overload in order to relinquish the franchise back to Game Freak - and perhaps even Nintendo itself - so they really can make better games.
Remember: The mainline games are shackled to the schedule of all the other Pokemon media. The Anime, TCG, Spinoffs, Mobile, and General Merchandise are still tied to what the Mainline games introduce. And it still seems like Game Freak is still stuck with introducing content of some kind on a yearly basis, whether it be DLC, Let's GO, Remakes, and new generations.
There's no way that they can really improve and make a Mainline Game at the quality of Gen IV/V at the rapid schedule and minimal staff they have right now. I dare say that there needs to be a hard decline or crash in the franchice - Particularly in the mobile, TCG, and merchandise areas of Pokemon - before Game Freak can even have a longer schedule to make such a game. And sadly, I don't see it happening anytime soon.
I'm not expecting Game Freak to make any huge leaps and bounds with regards to gen 9. I think Pokemon games have had a simple, standard setup from the start, and I doubt they'll change it because the franchise still sells like hotcakes no matter what they do or don't do. That being said, odds are that I'll still enjoy whatever games come out in the future.
But if I had to be optimistic about something, it'd be that the games'd probably get a bit more open-world-esque in the future. They seem to be experimenting with that in the Wild Area, and I can see free-moving cameras being a thing on routes and in towns in the future. It kind of makes me feel a bit better about exploration in the main series, since I feel that it could be used to hide a lot more secrets than the standard topdown view the series usually had in the past.
I also thought that they gave him the wrong animation when Hop was talking about his injured brother. It looks off.the corner-cutting was a little obvious in places (such as Hop's animation where he flails his arms being taken from Hau in SuMo).
Depends. In terms fo characters and culture, they are doing really well. (I personally loved the Galar culture. You could feel it through your screen.)
In terms of story I have already long accepted that there will never be anything even close to Gen 5. It was more so an 'incident' than anything else, since after it, we never really got anything again that even closely resembled a story that dragged over the entire game.
And I'm personally fine with that? Like, yes, of course a good story is absolutely great. But I also quite like it if there's room to fill in some blanks for yourself or where some stuff is left up to your own interpretation. And as long as they keep doing a good job on the characters and the culture they've been building (In combination with the very good Pokémon designs in SwSh. They outdid themselves this time compared to Gen 6 and Gen 7.) I can certainly accept a story that's lacking or has some holes in it.