Official Pokémon Sword and Shield speculation thread (Updated June 5th, 2019)

[FaeKing17]

The wingulls really don't to flap their wings tbh, I wouldn't mind them simple tilting side to side if they were higher off the ground.

 

[Grass Type Gardenia]

Thinking about the Arceus plate mentioning - ''The Power of Defeated Giants infuses this plate'', this might have a link to the biblical story of the Nephilims, where before Noah's Flood, the fallen Angels that fell with Lucifer mated with the daughters of men to create hybrid Giants called Nephilims. Perhaps the Giant Pokemon were created by Giratina's violent nature that Arceus had to defeat, and which lead to it's banishment to the Distortion World.

 

[Icy Wind]

View: https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/c2cgu0/whats_your_opinion_on_ocarina_of_time/

Lmao

 

[Esserise]

i have a feeling that satoshi tajiri doesn't approve of b2W2, pink lemonade, the seventh season of doctor who, or gay rights. just a hunch

invoking the iconography of this creator and projecting my feelings onto them without any proof that they actually share said sentiment is definitely a Good Way to bolster My Argument

 

[Boss1708]

View: https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/c2cgu0/whats_your_opinion_on_ocarina_of_time/

Lmao

I didn't get the joke at first. My first thought was hey, why are people posting Zelda images here?

 

[Fairy Type Arceus]

At this point, what won't people defend gamefreak for? What can't they remove before it becomes an issue? They could remove encounters entirely, make every pokemon a gift pokemon so it becomes a scavengers hunt and people would defend it. Gamefreak could come out and say every enemy pokemon from now on will know heal pulse and heal you in battle nonstop and people would defend it!

 

[FaeKing17]

The wingulls really don't to flap their wings tbh, I wouldn't mind them simple tilting side to side if they were higher off the ground.

My spelling errors continue.

 

[Boss1708]

At this point, what won't people defend gamefreak for? What can't they remove before it becomes an issue? They could remove encounters entirely, make every pokemon a gift pokemon so it becomes a scavengers hunt and people would defend it. Gamefreak could come out and say every enemy pokemon from now on will know heal pulse and heal you in battle nonstop and people would defend it!

Literally the Picasso example I gave earlier: the guy could draw a random turd, and his fanboy art critics would be like:

"Yeah but the turd probably comes from a cow. A cow is a sacred animal in Hinduism. Woooow. Picasso is so deep."

Some people genuinely treat Game Freak the same way.

 

[PkmnTrainerV]

I happened to browse my Instagram, which inevitably has Pokémon stuff, and 70% comments we’re defending GameFreak...
It coupled with #DoNotBringBackNationalDex (I still cannot believe that’s a thing) is making me lose my faith in humanity...

 

[Poke Dragon]

Now that's screwed up beyond belief.

 

[Lanstar]

That wasn't what I was saying? I'm not telling anyone to give up, I'm just saying that the games aren't going to take a series-ending hit from this backlash. The games will still sell regardless, that's just a fact, what remains to be seen is how much of a dent that the boycotting will put in just how well they wind up selling.

I understand that you aren't saying we should give up. But I was just pointing out that the 'pro-gamefreak' side keeps using the idea that 'They'll sell anyways - it's Pokemon!' as an excuse to live with low standards. We should make sure that customers do not cave into this as fact - And make sure the standards stay high for their games.

---

I think there's another thing that intensified the backlash that might not be apparent: The success of the Detective Pikachu Movie. The graphics that movie portrayed were so revolutionary that it upped the standards the huge viewership had of what the Pokemon World could become. No, the movie's graphics weren't so plausible to the games, and many of them were... kind of creepy. But this movie may have seared many ideas of great potential in the Pokemon franchise in the hearts of viewers of the viewers - which included casuals as well.

See the complaints of the Treehouse animations, overworld texturings, and all the comparisons to other games being popular throughout social media? That's a sign of the fanbase acquiring higher standards in mainline games than any other point in history. The fantasy of a 'nintendo quality' Pokemon game, like BotW and Mario Odyssey, is really starting to brew up in fans as of late - And there's just no confidence that Game Freak can deliver that at any point in the future.

 

[Silktree]

What are even the arguments in favor of not bringing back the National Dex? Making Game Freak's jobs easier (or rather the companies that actually do this stuff)? Yes, our priority as consumers should be the developers.

 

[9tiefly]

i have a feeling that satoshi tajiri doesn't like b2W2, pink lemonade, the seventh season of doctor who, or gay rights. just a hunch

invoking the iconography of this creator and projecting my feelings onto them without any proof that they actually share said sentiment is definitely a Good Way to bolster My Argument

I live for your posts.

The Wingull animation doesn't really bother me, tbh. I think they're just supposed to glide like regular seagulls. Although a few flaps here and there and a bit more swaying couldn't hurt.

 

[swiftgallade46]

This may be a rather obvious thing to point out but...it’s important to find a middle ground when criticizing GameFreak (or anyone, really). Hurling insults, being petty, and being overly nit picky for no reason are all things that won’t help your case or your reputability (not that anyone is doing that here, but we do know that it’s happening). On the flip side, worshipping the ground they walk on and defending their every move is pointless and counterproductive to inciting positive change and having genuine qualms be heard.

Personally, there is plenty that I dislike and even hate about SwSh. And yes, GameFreak had/has the power and resources to change a lot of it. That doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate the huge amt of work they did put into this game and it also doesn’t mean that I’m not still excited to play it.

 

[Esserise]

i'm pretty sure wingull is supposed to glide like that and the double kick animation well... not that i can't see peoples' problem with it but personally i think it's kinda... cute? how it just goes Hop... POW! i guess i dig it, and besides, that's really only an issue with certain moves; there are others that have much more dazzling showcases. now what i WOULD criticize is something like Blastoise not being rigged to fire beam attacks from her f&^ing cannons, because it's one fucking pokémon, and they always say they're concerned with making the pokémon expressive as possible but like... even in let's go, we can't have that one thing? even with a curated list of pok0233mon and a reduced movepool?!

 

[IncineROAR]

I'm trying to backtrack to find out where all of the latest expressions of disappointment is coming from, and after five pages I still can't make heads or tails of what is happening.

Masuda's issue of having over 1000 Pokemon is kind of his own fault. We do not need a new Pokemon generation every three years. Pokemon Diamond and Pearl had a great lifespan, the same could still be accomplished with any other generation, with the exception of VII because they developed the region to be too limited.

 

[Diamond & Pearl]

and the double kick animation well... not that i can't see peoples' problem with it but personally i think it's kinda... cute? how it just goes Hop... POW!

Even the 20-year old Pokémon Stadium did a much better job; 90% of the Pokémon have an exclusive animation for moves that involve kicking and punching (see videos below). Now, even in SwSh, we have 'telepathic' kicks (source: not me). GF had better focused on move animations than expressions during that Amie thing and other sidequest things that don't really matter. I mean, look at how Kanghaskhan and Kabutops (4:04 & 4:41 respectively) execute Mega Kick in Stadium! What an eye for detail! That game is definitely made with love and care, unlike the games from the 3DS era onwards...

Now it's all about mass production. The spirit is gone and GF is having an identity crisis. That's what hurts my heart…

Also, the Pokémon look much better and more vividly in Stadium than in XY onwards...

 

[Esserise]

saying even as someone who's not affected at all by Dexit, i dont really get the point of that #DontBringBack counter-campaign. Pure contrarianism? like, if they do re-add the missing pokémon, the resultant experience literally won't be any different from the last twenty games i played in which that was an option, and people will in general be happier. i don't think the few, very relative positives of limiting admission into SwoShi are actually worth preventing that.

that said, we're not even really talking about Sword & Shield at this point because those games are probably nearing physical production. if the issue really is a matter of development time, then there's probably nothing they can do to the actual games right now to change it. So it would pretty much have to take the form of a subsequent patch, or series of patches, yeah? and I don't see how that would be unreasonable for them to accomplish

 

[blitzle stan]

It's honestly probably just pushing back against the neverending complaining/criticizing that's been happening here and on all social media the entire past week. Everyone that keeps talking about the same issues over and over just makes everyone else desensitized to the discussion and care less about Dexit itself and more about how it's impossible to escape people complaining about it.

Just saying.

 

[The Haymaker]

I'm trying to backtrack to find out where all of the latest expressions of disappointment is coming from, and after five pages I still can't make heads or tails of what is happening.

Masuda's issue of having over 1000 Pokemon is kind of his own fault. We do not need a new Pokemon generation every three years. Pokemon Diamond and Pearl had a great lifespan, the same could still be accomplished with any other generation, with the exception of VII because they developed the region to be too limited.

I mean, there does need to be a decent number of new Pokemon in each new generation. Sooner or later, they would run into this problem of a really large roster, whether there were longer gaps or not. I really don't think that GF needs to take more time between generations. They've been good about taking a year off when needing to work on a new generation and make sure that it meets their goals without being too long in between releases. Looking at other series, such as Mario, I can understand why they'd want to stay on a track of a new generation roughly every 3-ish years. For example, if you look at classic "3D" world-based Mario games since 2006, they are released once every 3 years, although sometimes faster because of a new console (and of course the power of Nintendo). People do begin to get antsy and wonder "ok, when is this going to happen?" Look at the old speculation thread here for Gen 8 and forums the year after remakes or third versions.

So, GameFreak takes time off of remakes or "enhanced versions" usually once every few years to ensure they get the games are completed how they would like them to be. The issue isn't the time, it's the design decisions GameFreak makes and would still make even if they had more time. Like Masuda said, to them, the roster is a problem beyond the resources it would take to include them all in a game, and it's why they would use this as a standard for Pokemon games moving forward. It's a design decision to keep greater balance and manageability as the roster grows even larger.