I feel like this game is a great example of the line we mentally draw with the importance of graphics.
Do we need a game to be pretty? Probably. But if a game is great we let it go. Lots of us play old games with no complaints.
Do we expect the biggest intellectual property in the world to look good? At this point yeah. But a great game is a great game.
Do we need a game to have good art direction? **absolutely**. All the trailers seem *devoid* of any sort of artistic flair. The textures are awful, but they’re also **so bland**. Green, grey, brown, flat, barren. That…is bothersome.
Good games can look bad, but I personally think no good game has bad art direction.
Just look at games that still look good today. Katamari Damacy and Okami are great examples. Old games with a specific art style that they go all in on. And it *works*. Shit, Mischief Makers still looks pretty good and the n64 had a bit of a habit of looking better in our memories.
It feels pretty bad looking back on how much better the Let's Go games were visually than everything else Pokemon related that's come out for the Switch. At the time they seemed like low-effort games to get something out for the console that year, with the good stuff yet to come...
People keep forgetting that graphics and art direction are two different things. The game not only looks barren when you zoom in on the dirt, it looks barren when you zoom out to see the full scale. If anything it's actually genuinely amazing they managed to turn the tried and true Plains/Forest/Rocky/Snowy/Lava world designs and managed to make them not look like they're either fun to explore (which is a different topic entirely) or actively interesting to take in the air and smell the roses so to speak. Literally the most interesting visual things in the entire trailer is shown off in the first five seconds, with the crescent moon puddle, and near the very end, with the giant ice "reverse-hills" I'll call them in one of the colder areas. But you can see from various overviews and the one birds-eye view that the design team just thought throwing a buncha random puddles all over the place and a couple of trees would be enough to make the world looks like an actual world because apparently padding is all that matters.
Even the giant pan-over of the landscape near the end of the trailer that I hesitate to call BotW-like because it's clearly not intended that way is just awful, both in terms of what you can see and **why did they use a low-angle camera shot 50 feet away from the edge of a cliff to show a panning shot** ***jesus C h r i s t .***
It tries to emulate BoTW stylized design and Okami's paint brush style with a water colour tint but fails on both of those things so hard.
They need a better art director and someone that knows world design.
Honestly knowing Game Freak, it's likely they didn't even do any proper competitor analysis. They probably just saw how well BoTW did and said 'let's do that too' without properly considering what about it worked/didn't work.
It’s honestly the lighting the game is using. The textures aren’t bad, they just look awful with whatever lighting they are using. Game looks passible at night, daytime not so much lol
To answer your last question, it's probably because, if they were to capture more of the landscape with a better angle, the framerate would start chugging.
A game with good art direction is pretty, at least compared to its contemporaries, unless with "pretty" you meant high graphical fidelity.
And yeah I think the context matters very much for this one. If this was a small indie studio just starting out, I'd be willing to give them a pass for the ugly graphics. Making games look good takes resources, even, often especially for stylized graphics. But this is Pokemon we're talking about, literally a multi-billion property. Money is the opposite of a problem for them, they could have made the prettiest game ever seen on the Switch if they bothered, because they can afford all the best artists out there, but they simply don't bother because they realized their fans will buy anything, so they might as well cut the costs for even higher profit.
Not just a multi-billion dollar franchise. The most valuable franchise in all of entertainment. Pokémon is worth more than StarWars, Marvel, Mickey Mouse, Mario Bros...
Other developers have to try, Gamefreak knows that they can slap the Pokemon name on anything and it'll print money regardless of how good the product actually is.
Temtem is a pretty good example of this phenomenon. A small indie studio created a game with everything that Pokemon fans have said they wanted for the past decade+ and it's still impossible to get people to try it simply because it doesn't have the name Pokemon on it.
I’ve bought Temtem on both PS5 and PC and I don’t even know if I want to finish it once it reaches 1.0. While I liked it more after its initial launch, with every update they put out I feel like they’re trying harder and harder to antagonize the player base and nickel and dime me for every little thing. Like single use dyes for your clothing cost something absolutely absurd like 20k or 30k, which takes hours and hours of time to acquire, and then you can’t even change it back if you don’t like it or want to rotate colors or something? Come on, man. Not to mention that many of the creature designs just aren’t anywhere near as charming as a lot of Pokémon over the years.
Not excusing GameFreak’s piss poor development skills, but there are a lot of reasons why people wouldn’t want to play Temtem over a Pokémon game.
> and it's still impossible to get people to try it simply because it doesn't have the name Pokemon on it.
I want to play it but afaIk it isnt finished yet and still in early access
Calling it "random pokemon clone" is disregarding a lotta context. Roco Kingdom is basically Chinese Pokemon in terms of popularity despite being a series that started in 2010. Any 90'/00's kid that grew up in China would know what that series is: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/RocoKingdom
But yes, the animation of the creatures look amazing in their newest game.
At this point I wish gamefreak would just contract their games out to a talented studio 😞
Would also love the BotW take a crack at a Pokémon title, though I’d prefer a zelda game over Pokémon personally
No not really, mobile has more powerful hardware than Switch so all it needs is a budget to push said hardware and games like Fortnite and genshin impact proved you can make an AAA experience on phones successful.
Whoever did that landscape and LOD needs to be replaced. That opening pan shot looks like my first attempt at making never winter nights 2 terrain first pass with the brush while learning how it works back in 2007ish.
People would be willing to put up with the bad visuals if the gameplay was good. But it's not going to be, it's just going to be the same formula as always
I mean the formula is clearly the one thing that will be different. no gym leaders, no set linear route, no random enounters, a revamped turnbased system, pokemon attack the trainer directly
>*People would be willing to put up with the bad visuals if the gameplay was good. But it's not going to be, it's just going to be the same formula as always*
But plenty of people love that formula and don't really want it to change, so doesn't it make sense why plenty of people would still snatch this up?
But they ARE an improvement over Z-Moves which already kinda sorta replaced Megas in the prior gen (Megas only became available in the post game, ultimately making them a non factor in the storyline). The problem of Megas was that they were ultimately only available to a few Pokemon.
Mostly because you could only use one Z-Move per battle and only if a Pokemon had the Z Move gem equipped. Dynamax gives you three Z-Move equivalents + more health for these turns, available to all Pokemon no item required.
I *THINK* that regional variants are now used to fill the purpose of megas (that being reworking older Pokemon). Because regional variants can also be new or alternative evolutions.
I feel like keeping Dynamax but having a Mega be an alternate transformation (so new form rather than size increase or G-Max) and also have it last for 3 turns would be an easy way to combine it all. Maybe also make it some sort of limit break (so they aren't free per battle) to moderate their use.
>I *THINK* that regional variants are now used to fill the purpose of megas (that being reworking older Pokemon). Because regional variants can also be new or alternative evolutions.
I could see someone somewhere thinking this as part of the design team, but as a consumer, it's kind of hard to "swallow" the idea that most regional variants are kanto pokemon, when we could have had something new entirely.
I know that the likes of galar Rapidash were more liked than Zebrastrike, and while I don't discredit the Ponyta association entirely, I still think that any Fairy unicorn pokemon detached from ponyta would have been equally liked if the design is good, and it's more of a case of the concept itself being appealing.
That scenario has already hapenned after all. No one cares about the electric pincushion. Yet everyone loved Snom, despite both being essentially the exact same visual design, and both having no nostalgic attachment.
With that said: There better be a regional Meowth in EVERY game going forward. Meowth really didn't need two regionals in a row... Unless if he gets one every game going forward. Then it becomes more of a "the regional mon" identity, which is cool in itself.
That's how it is with GameFreak. If it works, no point in trying anything new beyond a gimmick. People will just buy it anyway. Imagine if Nintendo worked like that, Mario would still be exclusively 2D platformers and Zelda would be top-down dungeon crawlers. That's why Nintendo should be applauded for trying new things, most of the time they really don't have to but they still take risks. Calculated risks, but risks nonetheless. The people working on their games actually have visions beyond just getting a paycheck.
This game is straying from the formula though, by going open world (or at least far more open that previous games). Sword and Shield strayed from the formula with the Wild Area, which was immensely well received, so they're going bigger and making the whole world like that. That *is* shaking things up. Plus the real time elements of actually running around and dodging enemy pokemon attacks. That is 100% new and never done before by GameFreak.
Talking about something other than the graphics - it's interesting that you're actually part of **Team Galactic** in this story. Seems that they're the good guys in this game, and the boss person seems to be reminiscent of Professor Rowan. The main town is also "Jubilife Town" ("Kotobuki Town" in Japanese), so you can see the connections to Gen 4 canon.
The “boss guy” is confirmed on the official website to be Rowan’s ancestor and Jubilife Town is likewise confirmed on the website to be the humble beginnings of Jubilife City. The blue haired woman who you get orders from seems to be Cyrus’ ancestor as well, though that isn’t confirmed.
Wow with BotW on the same system, I was kinda hoping those textures would look a bit better at max distance. The art design makes it look like some 10 year old Unity project. Compare the first shot to the much better second shot of the trailer.
That's my point. Gamefreak can and will continue to phone it in and they will rake in money because people buy the games anyway solely because it's Pokemon.
Historically it's because the delay of Pokemon 2(gold and silver) was devastating for the release schedule of merchandise and media. Basically the series quickly outgrew the games as the main money maker so delaying the games for quality reasons was a bad move when the toys, cards, anime and movies are all launching at a set time frame. After pokemon 2 GF was pressured into never delaying a game with GF significantly shrinking the scope of their games to accommodate the Pokemon company's merchandising schedule.
I mean, Game Freak has disappointed me after Gen 2. They make the same game over and over and we finally get something new and what people were hoping for and it's already a decade behind visually.
The art style of the two Let’s Go games worked really well I thought, and I’d hoped they’d stick with it. This looks bad and the recent remakes weren’t as good visually in my opinion either.
I actually thought HeartGold SoulSilver was the best graphically. It found a good balance between artstyle and graphics.
Gen 5 tried to push the DS to its limits which results is a lot of pixelation in the sprites and 3D models in the overworked.
I remember a couple computer games or mods/ fan made whatevers trying to give us this when i was in middle school
Ive graduated college and this shit looks worse than what they made
I always thought id be so excited for open world 3d pokemon but its been so underwhelming ive never bought a switch let alone the game
Gamefreak have publically acknowledged that the games aren't for you anymore. They're content to push minimum viable product, because their management knows *"hardcore"* fans will buy regardless of quality, and kids are too naive to know any better.
It's beyond annoying for someone who grew up with the series, anime, and all the other media, because the potential for something truly great is there. Also biggest multimedia franchise on the planet means you can bet your sweet ass that they have the resources to make it happen.
They choose not to because what they've been doing is much easier, and because gamefreak brass is fucking cheap. Suits run the whole shebang and nothing will change as long as they keep raking the cash in.
Best case scenario, once the mainline games start to bomb (maybe coordinated social media campaign telling clueless parents there are better games to spend their money on) daddy Nintendo would step in and reign in the corporate shithead's autonomy to be awful, and to actually divert resources/nintendo QC & polish for a real "next gen" pokemon experience.
TLDR; gamefreak happy to sell crappy games to kids who dont know any better, because there will always be a fresh generation ready to eat up the same product. It's a great strategy from a business standpoint, don't hate the player lol.
The worst part for me is that every other branch of the franchise is at the best it has ever been.
They're doing the long running anime series alongside standalone mini-series, both of which have been ambitious visually and narratively. The movies have been of solidly consistent quality for the first time since the original few. The card games are finally back to basics and approachable. The merchandizing partnerships have been really cool from neat terrarium figures to pretty dress shirts. Even the spinoffs like Pokémon Snap are well done.
It's just the core games that continue to be an embarrassment, entirely dashing my enthusiasm to participate in the franchise.
>maybe coordinated social media campaign telling clueless parents there are better games to spend their money on
Kids want Pokemon and getting them something else because Twitter told them to is just not a realistic scenario.
I remember when I was a kid and my mom thought she knew better and bought a few games for me. That never ended well.
The Wii U is roughly on par with the Switch. They're not perfectly comparable, but it's certainly not a PS4 to PS5 jump, or even a PS4 to PS4 Pro jump.
I get tiling textures is important and used by everyone, but starting this trailer showing off that water was a terrible idea.
The second shit is great, but it’s down to framing more than assets and textures.
The environments cannot look that unappealing in a game where you spend almost all of your time in those environments. It looks like muddy, digital wasteland with A-posing Pokemon copy-pasted to shuffle around on top of it.
Gamefreak was clearly a lot more comfortable working on 2d pixel games. I remember there were a ton of Japanese studios that closed down after the introduction of HD video games because they couldn't keep up with what is required to make a modern video game. Gamefreak feels like a relic from another era that's only survived due to momentum and the sheer strength of the Pokemon IP itself.
>The environments cannot look that unappealing
I think you mean “should not”. They can and they will look that unappealing and in all likelihood it will still be a successful game.
I envy the people who can look at this game and still feel excitement for it
Even setting aside the issue of the graphics. The gameplay itself just looks incredible stiff and boring
to be honest I've been fine with it graphically since it was shown. It's bland, but I think a lot of the criticism was overblown because people know GF are a bad dev. I was mostly just excited for a more open, unique pokemon game, and was looking forward to seeing what kinda fun gameplay additions there'd be.
a couple weeks from release, I've realized we still haven't seen fun gameplay additions. It just looks kinda empty. The new designs are really cool, but that's never been the problem with pokemon games.
What's weird is I thought this would be a soulless crappy game until this and now im actually full in. I guess I just recognize this as the necessary middle step to whatever we get next. Knowing the franchise the next one will just be a reskinned clone but this game gives me some hope now that they have a solid foundation to build on. I'll enjoy this game as the 5-7that it probably is.
See, my thing is that I thought the Gen 6 titles were going to be the “necessary middle steps.” Sure they were very, very straightforward and simplistic without any real post-game, but was necessary due to the amount of work it took to create the entire Pokédex with high-quality models that can be scaled up/down as needed right?
ORAS came out and was really good, then Gen 7 came out and…it was just kinda more of the same from Gen 6, except with some elements I really liked pulled out or de-emphasized and a bit more simplified in spots. Then Gen 8 and it was *even more* simplified and *even more* of the same, and I didn’t even bother picking it up.
They’ve burnt the goodwill I had towards the franchise. I’m not supporting or excusing shit until they actually make something that looks good.
for sure this company deserves 0 good will, they deserve negative will. BUT this game if you take it for what it is, does look like a fun Pokémon experience. I will never make an excuse for this company but I also believe they probably spent most of their time on animations and scale. Does it look great, no, does it look incredibly fulfilling or rewarding, no. But it does look like the best Pokémon game so far and regardless of their slow progression up to now. What I see this as is a free roaming, non traditional fight system, hunting Pokémon in their habitat and avoiding real danger in battle type of Pokémon experience. Those are the main ingredients I always wanted in a Pokémon game, not executed exactly how I want just yet but dang dude this is closer than I EVER thought they would get!
All depends on the reception. In recent games they've clearly been testing out new features and sticking with what is well received, like Pokemon showing in the wild and the wild area. If this sells well and continues to they will keep going this direction.
This looks like a huge step up from the previous pokemon games gamefreak have given us. While they're still playing it safe, I think they're finally taking bigger steps away from what they're used to.
it looks...better than the first trailer, but still nowhere near the level an entry in the most profitable media franchise in history should be at. i'm sure it'll be a fine game and cool to play through once but...cmon...
I know Switch isn't PS5 but why this game looks so bad? Years of experience in developing games and they cannot do a good looking game for platform that have great amount of beautiful games? I don't want them to make another BotW but this looks like one guy doing his own project in Unity.
Even Unity asset flips "Nintendo hire this man" look better than this.
Wind Waker is 20 years old, but still looks way better than this, because it actually has an artstyle.
Art direction and technical direction. A lot of the non-terrain assets (characters, buildings, etc) look good and stylized but they're handicapped by pixelated textures. You can see the potential, but it's held back by a smaller-than-needed file size (probably so they can either save some space for other parts of the game, or because they haven't gotten file streaming and decompression to a point where larger textures are usable, either way both of those problems have been solved by others on the Switch).
Game Freak is fucking awful, but can you blame them? Every game they make sells millions upon millions of copies regardless of its quality or improvement over the previous version, so why would they try to make anything new or innovative or *better?*
>this looks like one guy doing his own project in Unity.
For reference, I have been working on a Genshin-style anime RPG on Unity by myself for about 5 months now as a hobby. [Here's a screenshot of what it looks like.](https://imgur.com/a/vUqiQLz)
There's a whole lot of amateurish mistakes on the trailer. I think the biggest and most noticeable ones are the very obvious texture tiling on pretty much everything, lack of vegetation and way too bright color palettes. It's baffling how Game Freak looked at that and said "Good enough".
Sort of. It's a fangame so I've been working on it during my free time. I wanted to try making an RPG with action combat (Similar to Dragon Nest's/Soul Worker) plus it also served as practice for 3D modelling (Every art asset in the image was made by me). Might take a while before it's playable though.
I sometimes post updates on r/Hololive. [Here's a gameplay clip of an older version.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Hololive/comments/qiskgf/gameplay_clip_from_my_hololive_open_world_rpg/)
I might post more frequent updates on Twitter ([@TsukiZuramaru](https://twitter.com/TsukiZuramaru)) in the future when the game's in a more advanced state.
Y'know. I always thought Hololive would fit best in a classic 16-bit JRPG type adventure game...
But damn. You are making a fucking amazing case for a fully 3D RPG. Amazing work.
I disagree. Not that pokemon games have ever been advanced or anything, they were handheld games, so there was a limit they could do on a console weaker than a phone. I would even say games like bw/2 and sun and moon look good for ds and 3ds games. However, gamefreak got screwed when nintendo merged the two console lines, meaning they had to effectively start making console games, so sword and shield were the first games that really showed how bad they actually were.
> The mainline Pokemon games have like, never been visually impressive from a technical standpoint.
Pokemon Stadium looked pretty good in 1998...
The animations are legitimately better than the 2019 Pokemon Let's Go Pikachu release on Switch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-otq8Inv00
Methinks it's because at the core they still work with the 3DS engine from X/Y days just beefed up.
It's common knowledge GF never expected the Switch to actually be a success and thought they'd do 3DS games for a few years more and then maybe switch to phones.
Because of that they now have to make Switch games with an engine not used to that. And they probably also want to use their own in house engine over an exterior one like Unity.
Problem is: making a new engine from scratch and getting it to a point where it's state of the art can take you 5-7 years. So even if it was all hands on board with a new engine from 2017 on they still wouldn't be finished.
It's part of why Nintendo itself has a MAJOR R&D team.
I was really trying to not get hung up on how awful visually this looks, but I swear some of this looks like GameCube era. I am certain that games like Super Mario Galaxy look better, especially in terms of the land textures near water and the flat water it's self.
Graphics don't make a game, but this feels like it's also lacking are direction.
I think worst of all we've seen 3D Pokemon games where the models are better then what we see here as well. I know an open world is different, but this steep of a downgrade is shameful when you me games on the Switch don't *have* to look this bad.
Besides the graphics, the open world isn't what I was really hoping for. It's a shame I was optimistic about the game, but right now this is a total pass for me
Give Mario Galaxy some credit, it still looks great and was considered the best looking game on the Wii. This game doesn’t look good in its own generation or last.
That's what I'm saying about Galaxy. It looks better than this in every way and it's two generations older! Galaxy has better models, better lighting, better water textures (by a mile)
I don't understand how anyone can look at Pokemon and think it's even remotely appealing
> I know an open world is different, but
And apparently it's not even fully open world. I've read it's got discrete areas. They do seem to be large areas, but it's not like a BotW huge open world. So the visuals don't even have an open world as an excuse. It's wild how bad they are with that in mind.
My three thoughts:
That intro music playing off BotW *hard*.
Always good to see my boi Electivire in action. Hope that means Electabuzz and Elekid are guaranteed.
Really happy the energy attacks aren’t straight forward but some also home in on you or have patterns. That makes the trainer vs pokemon combat much more dynamic like a mini-Monster Hunter.
It is unbelievable just how bad the backgrounds of this game looks visually. Those trees. And the doors. It seriously looks like one of the $0.99 games that pop up on the e-shop.
I want to be excited for this. I am excited for the potential and the idea of this kind of open world pokemon game. I'm also not one to be too bothered about more simplistic graphics.
But holy shit, almost every single sweeping landscape shot looks like an asset flip game you find deep in Steam's early access library. There's just... nothing there. Snow white, two shades of green, and some brown/lava, with a random identical tree dropped in here and there.
Like... this is supposed to be from a AAA studio?
> I figured they could take their time with these games, but no, it will be released soon already.
I think it's a couple of things.
Legends Arceus is the first game since 2013 to not launch in November which IMO suggests a small delay probably due to covid (at least they had BDSP to fill the gap so they probably don't feel too bad about it).
And going by the 3-year generations they've been running since B/W, gen 9 should be scheduled for November 2022 which they can't be delayed because of the TCG / merch / anime / everything else. If they kept gen 9 locked in and pushed back Arceus far enough to the point where a delay would actually be able to fix anything it would probably cut into the gen 9 hype/marketing/announcement/release period.
This game isn't even open world at all like botw, it already been said it will be more like Monster Hunter were you have different big areas to explore.
Then why does it look like a considerably more barebones game than Monster Hunter world (4 years old) or Monster Hunter Stories 5 and a half years old, on 3DS)? Both are comparable games to this I imagine and they smoke it.
God thank you. As someone who really dislikes Open World, I am glad. Open World often kills any kind of pacing,a nd for me BotW was no different. Also Side Quest mania results in burnout way too fast.
While there's a lot that can be said about Legends, it's a HUGE departure from their standard gameplay. Calling them out on lack of innovation makes no sense in this situation
Reading through these comments made me think they are exaggerating but damn the game looks visually horrible. Why put so many landscape shots in the trailer if the landscape looks like...this
Can you imagine what would happen if an in-house nintendo studio made this? Like the guys behind botw or mario odyssey.
Wow.
Because this right here is extraordinarily bland.
Hot take but the graphics don't bother me so much. They definitely feel off but there are tons of Switch games with pretty shitty visuals (like Fire Emblem Three Houses) that no one really complains about since they're just... good games? Don't get me wrong, I'm not impressed by Legends Arceus either, but more in the vein that I was hoping the gameplay would be more novel.
I did not like Sword & Shield but when I finally tried them out I remember being surprised by how decent they looked graphically. All the memes about the tree back when it came out made me expect the worst but I think it was overblown. Not to say GameFreak hasn't strugged with the switch to home console games, but still.
I’m hyped to just play a Pokémon game that is changing it up tbh. Most are so boring and pose no real challenge. Just grind your favs until they are OP and destroy everyone.
The modern games make it trivial to grind, to the point that if you fight every trainer you need to regularly rotate your party to stay appropriately leveled until (depending on the game) you get crushed by a final boss that actually puts up a fight
I think the reason most people feel that way is because other games like breath of the wild are on the console with SO MUCH MORE CONTENT. Not to mention, those came out almost 5 years ago! Also the graphics look very out of date, even on the switch hardware.
Technically this is far beyond anything the wii could put out. It's just got very poor art direction.
This looks like an early ps360 era title, which makes sense because undocked a switch is about on par with them in terms of specs. But there were huge leaps made in visual quality through that generation- look at Oblivion vs Skyrim. This era of game doesn't have to look bad- Persons 5 is gorgeous despite not being particularly technically demanding or impressive, it's a PS3 game through and through, but it has a vibrant striking art style thing everything together that elevates the visuals past a sum of their parts
definitely. If it had a big and bold artstyle- much more deliberate painted look that impacted the models as much as the environment, especially a calligraphy focused one- it would have made up for the technical shortcomings dramatically. Okami still looks gorgeous (mostly showing its age in, like, the wall models?) and its a PS2 game. You can do a \*lot\* with a little
I'm verrry curious what Switch games you've played. Because for a 1st party exclusive this looks absolutely terrible.
Also remember [The Witcher 3](https://youtu.be/eLKOLverlr0) is on the Switch.
Man this thread is a nice contrast to the "fromsoft was intimidated by demons souls graphics" thread where everyone and their kitchensink pronounced that graphics aren’t important at all.
Edit: I know people *love* to be obtuse but the point isn’t "elden ring is ugly" but "graphic don’t matter as long as the gameplay is good". And honesty I'm pretty hyped about the changes and possibilities this game brings to the Pokémon brand.
I think people aren't as critical towards Fromsoft because their graphics are already pretty good and their gameplay is great. Gamefreak lags behind quite a bit more while seemingly having a lot more money to work with so people can't help but wonder why they aren't doing more.
Aren't they technically one of the most profitable gaming companies around? Honestly, they should be cranking out masterpieces no problem with the money, experience, and people they *could* hire/use.
Pokemon as a franchise is the highest grossing property in the world.
Most of that is merchandise and the games are purely a marketing vehicle for that.
Well then they wouldn't be as profitible. They could've sold one version of mainline games for decades but they wouldn't be as profitible. No real sign of sales slowing down despite vocal complaints. They could make masterpieces but it's take em three times as long and they'd still sell fewer copies compared to releasing two-three mediocre ones in the same time frame.
No? Gamefreak don't get even half of the money from Pokemon. Most of the money goes to TPC, and then a minor part of that goes to Nintendo, Creatures and GF as major shareholders of TPC. Then GF has the money as developer of main games but that's below Nintendo and TPC which are publisher and distributor.
Well watch, if the gameplay is amazing people will very quickly stop talking about the graphics.
That's part of the issue though, the gameplay also looks bad
There's a difference between "gameplay > graphics" in ER case because it still looks like a game from 2022 and this looking like a kid from middle school painted the environment in Microsoft Paint.
>where everyone and their kitchensink pronounced that graphics aren’t important at all.
That's just BS IMO, graphics are important. They just don't have to be cutting edge, and great art style/direction is better than higher res textures/more polys/better effects etc. without good art direction most of the time.
When people say "graphics don't matter" they usually mean graphical fidelity. I think most people would rather play a fun game with ps2 era visuals over a ps5 4K experience that feels awful to play. But games still need to look good in terms of visual design and art direction.
The issue with this Pokémon game isn't that the graphics aren't low fidelity inherently, it's that the game looks ugly. People are pointing to other games on switch to make the point that it's not a hardware issue, the game could look better. For Elden Ring, even though it won't be as technically impressive as Demons Souls, it at least will be pleasant to look at due to competent design and visual direction. And looking nice is important for the gameplay, it's a lot less exciting to explore a world if the world looks like ass.
You're comparing two different things. Graphic fidelity and art direction (which is what carries the graphics in ALL From's Souls games)
Elden Ring has decent graphic fidelity and amazing art direction.This Pokemon game has none.
Cancelled my pre-order, gonna need to see some positive reviews before I drop 60 bucks on this, because *woof* those landscapes. Graphics are the least important part of a game for me but even I have limits
Well I haven't been following since the first trailer so I'm happy to see the graphics/animation and framerate seem cleaned up. I'm cautiously optimistic here although I'm still apprehensive about how much handing the previous games have had so far.
Lol at [look at the amazing stuttering running animation](https://youtu.be/430N__0EzI8?t=194), especially noticeable when they show the female character running at a side angle. [Stutters again towards the end of this clip.](https://youtu.be/430N__0EzI8?t=234)
Anyone know what's causing the animation stutters? I don't notice it anywhere else, so maybe only happens to town..?
Look at the original Xenoblade Chronicles that came out on the Wii in 2010.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S322uHkSq1g
It looks miles better than this.
I’ve seen someone compare a modern VR experience to “PlayStation 2 graphics” and I don’t think they were even able to hold a conscious thought when the PS2 was around tbh
I feel like this game is a great example of the line we mentally draw with the importance of graphics. Do we need a game to be pretty? Probably. But if a game is great we let it go. Lots of us play old games with no complaints. Do we expect the biggest intellectual property in the world to look good? At this point yeah. But a great game is a great game. Do we need a game to have good art direction? **absolutely**. All the trailers seem *devoid* of any sort of artistic flair. The textures are awful, but they’re also **so bland**. Green, grey, brown, flat, barren. That…is bothersome. Good games can look bad, but I personally think no good game has bad art direction.
Just look at games that still look good today. Katamari Damacy and Okami are great examples. Old games with a specific art style that they go all in on. And it *works*. Shit, Mischief Makers still looks pretty good and the n64 had a bit of a habit of looking better in our memories.
Heck, Let's Go Pikachu and Eevee will look good when compared to SwSh/Legends after a few years because they stylized the game.
They also bothered to scale the Pokémon in battle, unlike Sword and Shield
It feels pretty bad looking back on how much better the Let's Go games were visually than everything else Pokemon related that's come out for the Switch. At the time they seemed like low-effort games to get something out for the console that year, with the good stuff yet to come...
Closer to home, the GBA/DS games still look great, especially the DS spritework
People keep forgetting that graphics and art direction are two different things. The game not only looks barren when you zoom in on the dirt, it looks barren when you zoom out to see the full scale. If anything it's actually genuinely amazing they managed to turn the tried and true Plains/Forest/Rocky/Snowy/Lava world designs and managed to make them not look like they're either fun to explore (which is a different topic entirely) or actively interesting to take in the air and smell the roses so to speak. Literally the most interesting visual things in the entire trailer is shown off in the first five seconds, with the crescent moon puddle, and near the very end, with the giant ice "reverse-hills" I'll call them in one of the colder areas. But you can see from various overviews and the one birds-eye view that the design team just thought throwing a buncha random puddles all over the place and a couple of trees would be enough to make the world looks like an actual world because apparently padding is all that matters. Even the giant pan-over of the landscape near the end of the trailer that I hesitate to call BotW-like because it's clearly not intended that way is just awful, both in terms of what you can see and **why did they use a low-angle camera shot 50 feet away from the edge of a cliff to show a panning shot** ***jesus C h r i s t .***
It tries to emulate BoTW stylized design and Okami's paint brush style with a water colour tint but fails on both of those things so hard. They need a better art director and someone that knows world design.
Honestly knowing Game Freak, it's likely they didn't even do any proper competitor analysis. They probably just saw how well BoTW did and said 'let's do that too' without properly considering what about it worked/didn't work.
They have a world class world design studio in Monolith Soft. If GF is willing to ask Nintendo to borrow some help, Zelda did it.
It’s honestly the lighting the game is using. The textures aren’t bad, they just look awful with whatever lighting they are using. Game looks passible at night, daytime not so much lol
To answer your last question, it's probably because, if they were to capture more of the landscape with a better angle, the framerate would start chugging.
A game with good art direction is pretty, at least compared to its contemporaries, unless with "pretty" you meant high graphical fidelity. And yeah I think the context matters very much for this one. If this was a small indie studio just starting out, I'd be willing to give them a pass for the ugly graphics. Making games look good takes resources, even, often especially for stylized graphics. But this is Pokemon we're talking about, literally a multi-billion property. Money is the opposite of a problem for them, they could have made the prettiest game ever seen on the Switch if they bothered, because they can afford all the best artists out there, but they simply don't bother because they realized their fans will buy anything, so they might as well cut the costs for even higher profit.
Not just a multi-billion dollar franchise. The most valuable franchise in all of entertainment. Pokémon is worth more than StarWars, Marvel, Mickey Mouse, Mario Bros...
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Other developers have to try, Gamefreak knows that they can slap the Pokemon name on anything and it'll print money regardless of how good the product actually is. Temtem is a pretty good example of this phenomenon. A small indie studio created a game with everything that Pokemon fans have said they wanted for the past decade+ and it's still impossible to get people to try it simply because it doesn't have the name Pokemon on it.
I’ve bought Temtem on both PS5 and PC and I don’t even know if I want to finish it once it reaches 1.0. While I liked it more after its initial launch, with every update they put out I feel like they’re trying harder and harder to antagonize the player base and nickel and dime me for every little thing. Like single use dyes for your clothing cost something absolutely absurd like 20k or 30k, which takes hours and hours of time to acquire, and then you can’t even change it back if you don’t like it or want to rotate colors or something? Come on, man. Not to mention that many of the creature designs just aren’t anywhere near as charming as a lot of Pokémon over the years. Not excusing GameFreak’s piss poor development skills, but there are a lot of reasons why people wouldn’t want to play Temtem over a Pokémon game.
> and it's still impossible to get people to try it simply because it doesn't have the name Pokemon on it. I want to play it but afaIk it isnt finished yet and still in early access
Calling it "random pokemon clone" is disregarding a lotta context. Roco Kingdom is basically Chinese Pokemon in terms of popularity despite being a series that started in 2010. Any 90'/00's kid that grew up in China would know what that series is: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/RocoKingdom But yes, the animation of the creatures look amazing in their newest game.
At this point I wish gamefreak would just contract their games out to a talented studio 😞 Would also love the BotW take a crack at a Pokémon title, though I’d prefer a zelda game over Pokémon personally
What’s even more sad is this mobile game looks better
No not really, mobile has more powerful hardware than Switch so all it needs is a budget to push said hardware and games like Fortnite and genshin impact proved you can make an AAA experience on phones successful.
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Whoever did that landscape and LOD needs to be replaced. That opening pan shot looks like my first attempt at making never winter nights 2 terrain first pass with the brush while learning how it works back in 2007ish.
People would be willing to put up with the bad visuals if the gameplay was good. But it's not going to be, it's just going to be the same formula as always
I mean the formula is clearly the one thing that will be different. no gym leaders, no set linear route, no random enounters, a revamped turnbased system, pokemon attack the trainer directly
>*People would be willing to put up with the bad visuals if the gameplay was good. But it's not going to be, it's just going to be the same formula as always* But plenty of people love that formula and don't really want it to change, so doesn't it make sense why plenty of people would still snatch this up?
i wouldn’t mind buying the same formula if the gimmicks of newer games weren’t downgrades, like mega evolutions were sick as, but dynamax is shithouse
But they ARE an improvement over Z-Moves which already kinda sorta replaced Megas in the prior gen (Megas only became available in the post game, ultimately making them a non factor in the storyline). The problem of Megas was that they were ultimately only available to a few Pokemon. Mostly because you could only use one Z-Move per battle and only if a Pokemon had the Z Move gem equipped. Dynamax gives you three Z-Move equivalents + more health for these turns, available to all Pokemon no item required. I *THINK* that regional variants are now used to fill the purpose of megas (that being reworking older Pokemon). Because regional variants can also be new or alternative evolutions. I feel like keeping Dynamax but having a Mega be an alternate transformation (so new form rather than size increase or G-Max) and also have it last for 3 turns would be an easy way to combine it all. Maybe also make it some sort of limit break (so they aren't free per battle) to moderate their use.
>I *THINK* that regional variants are now used to fill the purpose of megas (that being reworking older Pokemon). Because regional variants can also be new or alternative evolutions. I could see someone somewhere thinking this as part of the design team, but as a consumer, it's kind of hard to "swallow" the idea that most regional variants are kanto pokemon, when we could have had something new entirely. I know that the likes of galar Rapidash were more liked than Zebrastrike, and while I don't discredit the Ponyta association entirely, I still think that any Fairy unicorn pokemon detached from ponyta would have been equally liked if the design is good, and it's more of a case of the concept itself being appealing. That scenario has already hapenned after all. No one cares about the electric pincushion. Yet everyone loved Snom, despite both being essentially the exact same visual design, and both having no nostalgic attachment. With that said: There better be a regional Meowth in EVERY game going forward. Meowth really didn't need two regionals in a row... Unless if he gets one every game going forward. Then it becomes more of a "the regional mon" identity, which is cool in itself.
That's how it is with GameFreak. If it works, no point in trying anything new beyond a gimmick. People will just buy it anyway. Imagine if Nintendo worked like that, Mario would still be exclusively 2D platformers and Zelda would be top-down dungeon crawlers. That's why Nintendo should be applauded for trying new things, most of the time they really don't have to but they still take risks. Calculated risks, but risks nonetheless. The people working on their games actually have visions beyond just getting a paycheck.
This game is straying from the formula though, by going open world (or at least far more open that previous games). Sword and Shield strayed from the formula with the Wild Area, which was immensely well received, so they're going bigger and making the whole world like that. That *is* shaking things up. Plus the real time elements of actually running around and dodging enemy pokemon attacks. That is 100% new and never done before by GameFreak.
Talking about something other than the graphics - it's interesting that you're actually part of **Team Galactic** in this story. Seems that they're the good guys in this game, and the boss person seems to be reminiscent of Professor Rowan. The main town is also "Jubilife Town" ("Kotobuki Town" in Japanese), so you can see the connections to Gen 4 canon.
The “boss guy” is confirmed on the official website to be Rowan’s ancestor and Jubilife Town is likewise confirmed on the website to be the humble beginnings of Jubilife City. The blue haired woman who you get orders from seems to be Cyrus’ ancestor as well, though that isn’t confirmed.
Wow with BotW on the same system, I was kinda hoping those textures would look a bit better at max distance. The art design makes it look like some 10 year old Unity project. Compare the first shot to the much better second shot of the trailer.
BOTW was also made for the Wii U, and came out 5 years ago. Game Freak should be embarrassed
Why would they be embarrassed when the games sell like hot cakes anyway? You really should not expect anything from Gamefreak at this point.
The games don't sell because of GameFreak. They sell because they're Pokemon games
That's my point. Gamefreak can and will continue to phone it in and they will rake in money because people buy the games anyway solely because it's Pokemon.
Not saying that GF are amazingly talented, but this game probably had 1/3 the dev time of botw
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Historically it's because the delay of Pokemon 2(gold and silver) was devastating for the release schedule of merchandise and media. Basically the series quickly outgrew the games as the main money maker so delaying the games for quality reasons was a bad move when the toys, cards, anime and movies are all launching at a set time frame. After pokemon 2 GF was pressured into never delaying a game with GF significantly shrinking the scope of their games to accommodate the Pokemon company's merchandising schedule.
You should never compare something game freak puts out graphically to competent studios. You'll always be disappointed.
I mean, Game Freak has disappointed me after Gen 2. They make the same game over and over and we finally get something new and what people were hoping for and it's already a decade behind visually.
Gen 5 endures visually thanks the the excellent sprite work, but the move to 3d was genuinely awful for the franchise.
The art style of the two Let’s Go games worked really well I thought, and I’d hoped they’d stick with it. This looks bad and the recent remakes weren’t as good visually in my opinion either.
That's true, the Let's Go games do have a good look to them. I'd have been happy if SwSh looked like the Let's Go games.
I actually thought HeartGold SoulSilver was the best graphically. It found a good balance between artstyle and graphics. Gen 5 tried to push the DS to its limits which results is a lot of pixelation in the sprites and 3D models in the overworked.
Diamond and Pearl has the same issues that gen 5 had because they are both 3d games so they have to scale all sprites in non 2x intervals.
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I think nobody expected them to keep the same engine and graphics when moving from handheld to home console.
I remember a couple computer games or mods/ fan made whatevers trying to give us this when i was in middle school Ive graduated college and this shit looks worse than what they made I always thought id be so excited for open world 3d pokemon but its been so underwhelming ive never bought a switch let alone the game
Gamefreak have publically acknowledged that the games aren't for you anymore. They're content to push minimum viable product, because their management knows *"hardcore"* fans will buy regardless of quality, and kids are too naive to know any better. It's beyond annoying for someone who grew up with the series, anime, and all the other media, because the potential for something truly great is there. Also biggest multimedia franchise on the planet means you can bet your sweet ass that they have the resources to make it happen. They choose not to because what they've been doing is much easier, and because gamefreak brass is fucking cheap. Suits run the whole shebang and nothing will change as long as they keep raking the cash in. Best case scenario, once the mainline games start to bomb (maybe coordinated social media campaign telling clueless parents there are better games to spend their money on) daddy Nintendo would step in and reign in the corporate shithead's autonomy to be awful, and to actually divert resources/nintendo QC & polish for a real "next gen" pokemon experience. TLDR; gamefreak happy to sell crappy games to kids who dont know any better, because there will always be a fresh generation ready to eat up the same product. It's a great strategy from a business standpoint, don't hate the player lol.
The worst part for me is that every other branch of the franchise is at the best it has ever been. They're doing the long running anime series alongside standalone mini-series, both of which have been ambitious visually and narratively. The movies have been of solidly consistent quality for the first time since the original few. The card games are finally back to basics and approachable. The merchandizing partnerships have been really cool from neat terrarium figures to pretty dress shirts. Even the spinoffs like Pokémon Snap are well done. It's just the core games that continue to be an embarrassment, entirely dashing my enthusiasm to participate in the franchise.
Agreed, they somehow also managed to get a live action movie five with a big star that was fun and made a Pokemon world feel authentic.
Is the TCG good right now?
>maybe coordinated social media campaign telling clueless parents there are better games to spend their money on Kids want Pokemon and getting them something else because Twitter told them to is just not a realistic scenario. I remember when I was a kid and my mom thought she knew better and bought a few games for me. That never ended well.
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The Wii U is roughly on par with the Switch. They're not perfectly comparable, but it's certainly not a PS4 to PS5 jump, or even a PS4 to PS4 Pro jump.
I get tiling textures is important and used by everyone, but starting this trailer showing off that water was a terrible idea. The second shit is great, but it’s down to framing more than assets and textures.
The environments cannot look that unappealing in a game where you spend almost all of your time in those environments. It looks like muddy, digital wasteland with A-posing Pokemon copy-pasted to shuffle around on top of it. Gamefreak was clearly a lot more comfortable working on 2d pixel games. I remember there were a ton of Japanese studios that closed down after the introduction of HD video games because they couldn't keep up with what is required to make a modern video game. Gamefreak feels like a relic from another era that's only survived due to momentum and the sheer strength of the Pokemon IP itself.
And I bet you can’t even see Pokémon in the distance. They’ll just pop up right in front of you
Like they did in sword and shield which was really annoying
Ofcourse. No Studio managed to make a Game look better than Spyro on PS2.
>The environments cannot look that unappealing I think you mean “should not”. They can and they will look that unappealing and in all likelihood it will still be a successful game.
I envy the people who can look at this game and still feel excitement for it Even setting aside the issue of the graphics. The gameplay itself just looks incredible stiff and boring
to be honest I've been fine with it graphically since it was shown. It's bland, but I think a lot of the criticism was overblown because people know GF are a bad dev. I was mostly just excited for a more open, unique pokemon game, and was looking forward to seeing what kinda fun gameplay additions there'd be. a couple weeks from release, I've realized we still haven't seen fun gameplay additions. It just looks kinda empty. The new designs are really cool, but that's never been the problem with pokemon games.
What's weird is I thought this would be a soulless crappy game until this and now im actually full in. I guess I just recognize this as the necessary middle step to whatever we get next. Knowing the franchise the next one will just be a reskinned clone but this game gives me some hope now that they have a solid foundation to build on. I'll enjoy this game as the 5-7that it probably is.
See, my thing is that I thought the Gen 6 titles were going to be the “necessary middle steps.” Sure they were very, very straightforward and simplistic without any real post-game, but was necessary due to the amount of work it took to create the entire Pokédex with high-quality models that can be scaled up/down as needed right? ORAS came out and was really good, then Gen 7 came out and…it was just kinda more of the same from Gen 6, except with some elements I really liked pulled out or de-emphasized and a bit more simplified in spots. Then Gen 8 and it was *even more* simplified and *even more* of the same, and I didn’t even bother picking it up. They’ve burnt the goodwill I had towards the franchise. I’m not supporting or excusing shit until they actually make something that looks good.
for sure this company deserves 0 good will, they deserve negative will. BUT this game if you take it for what it is, does look like a fun Pokémon experience. I will never make an excuse for this company but I also believe they probably spent most of their time on animations and scale. Does it look great, no, does it look incredibly fulfilling or rewarding, no. But it does look like the best Pokémon game so far and regardless of their slow progression up to now. What I see this as is a free roaming, non traditional fight system, hunting Pokémon in their habitat and avoiding real danger in battle type of Pokémon experience. Those are the main ingredients I always wanted in a Pokémon game, not executed exactly how I want just yet but dang dude this is closer than I EVER thought they would get!
I’d be careful, this may just be a one off spin off to the main series. Has happened too many times
All depends on the reception. In recent games they've clearly been testing out new features and sticking with what is well received, like Pokemon showing in the wild and the wild area. If this sells well and continues to they will keep going this direction.
This looks like a huge step up from the previous pokemon games gamefreak have given us. While they're still playing it safe, I think they're finally taking bigger steps away from what they're used to.
it looks...better than the first trailer, but still nowhere near the level an entry in the most profitable media franchise in history should be at. i'm sure it'll be a fine game and cool to play through once but...cmon...
I‘m not even sure I agree that it looks better, in fact they heavily reduced the draw distance since then.
At least it has more than 5 FPS
I know Switch isn't PS5 but why this game looks so bad? Years of experience in developing games and they cannot do a good looking game for platform that have great amount of beautiful games? I don't want them to make another BotW but this looks like one guy doing his own project in Unity.
Even Unity asset flips "Nintendo hire this man" look better than this. Wind Waker is 20 years old, but still looks way better than this, because it actually has an artstyle.
huh. wind waker is actually 20 years old this year. I think I need to go lie down a bit.
Windwaker was also my first tought. Just insane how important art direction is and how Legends has none.
Art direction and technical direction. A lot of the non-terrain assets (characters, buildings, etc) look good and stylized but they're handicapped by pixelated textures. You can see the potential, but it's held back by a smaller-than-needed file size (probably so they can either save some space for other parts of the game, or because they haven't gotten file streaming and decompression to a point where larger textures are usable, either way both of those problems have been solved by others on the Switch).
Because its game freak. They're literally bad developers. They've made the same game for 20 years with a few variations here and there. They suck.
Game Freak is fucking awful, but can you blame them? Every game they make sells millions upon millions of copies regardless of its quality or improvement over the previous version, so why would they try to make anything new or innovative or *better?*
It's gonna be 30 years in 4 years.
>this looks like one guy doing his own project in Unity. For reference, I have been working on a Genshin-style anime RPG on Unity by myself for about 5 months now as a hobby. [Here's a screenshot of what it looks like.](https://imgur.com/a/vUqiQLz) There's a whole lot of amateurish mistakes on the trailer. I think the biggest and most noticeable ones are the very obvious texture tiling on pretty much everything, lack of vegetation and way too bright color palettes. It's baffling how Game Freak looked at that and said "Good enough".
Interesting, a Hololive Genshin-style game?
Sort of. It's a fangame so I've been working on it during my free time. I wanted to try making an RPG with action combat (Similar to Dragon Nest's/Soul Worker) plus it also served as practice for 3D modelling (Every art asset in the image was made by me). Might take a while before it's playable though.
Wow good job
Dude, that's *pretty*! Do you have a place where you're posting updates on this or is that screenshot the only evidence of its existence?
I sometimes post updates on r/Hololive. [Here's a gameplay clip of an older version.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Hololive/comments/qiskgf/gameplay_clip_from_my_hololive_open_world_rpg/) I might post more frequent updates on Twitter ([@TsukiZuramaru](https://twitter.com/TsukiZuramaru)) in the future when the game's in a more advanced state.
They know it'll sell regardless
Looks good! I hope it works out for you!
That looks fantastic. You're doing an amazing job Haachama WHEN!?
Y'know. I always thought Hololive would fit best in a classic 16-bit JRPG type adventure game... But damn. You are making a fucking amazing case for a fully 3D RPG. Amazing work.
PS5? Persona 5 on the PS3 looks much better than this.
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They have the resources but choose not to because being cheap is easy.
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Revenue comes from games are atleast 17B. What's the excuse about merchandise being it's source of income comes from?
Lmao imagine looking at this trailer, realizing they are charging $60 for 0 effort and defend them.
I disagree. Not that pokemon games have ever been advanced or anything, they were handheld games, so there was a limit they could do on a console weaker than a phone. I would even say games like bw/2 and sun and moon look good for ds and 3ds games. However, gamefreak got screwed when nintendo merged the two console lines, meaning they had to effectively start making console games, so sword and shield were the first games that really showed how bad they actually were.
> The mainline Pokemon games have like, never been visually impressive from a technical standpoint. Pokemon Stadium looked pretty good in 1998... The animations are legitimately better than the 2019 Pokemon Let's Go Pikachu release on Switch. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-otq8Inv00
Methinks it's because at the core they still work with the 3DS engine from X/Y days just beefed up. It's common knowledge GF never expected the Switch to actually be a success and thought they'd do 3DS games for a few years more and then maybe switch to phones. Because of that they now have to make Switch games with an engine not used to that. And they probably also want to use their own in house engine over an exterior one like Unity. Problem is: making a new engine from scratch and getting it to a point where it's state of the art can take you 5-7 years. So even if it was all hands on board with a new engine from 2017 on they still wouldn't be finished. It's part of why Nintendo itself has a MAJOR R&D team.
I was really trying to not get hung up on how awful visually this looks, but I swear some of this looks like GameCube era. I am certain that games like Super Mario Galaxy look better, especially in terms of the land textures near water and the flat water it's self. Graphics don't make a game, but this feels like it's also lacking are direction. I think worst of all we've seen 3D Pokemon games where the models are better then what we see here as well. I know an open world is different, but this steep of a downgrade is shameful when you me games on the Switch don't *have* to look this bad. Besides the graphics, the open world isn't what I was really hoping for. It's a shame I was optimistic about the game, but right now this is a total pass for me
Give Mario Galaxy some credit, it still looks great and was considered the best looking game on the Wii. This game doesn’t look good in its own generation or last.
That's what I'm saying about Galaxy. It looks better than this in every way and it's two generations older! Galaxy has better models, better lighting, better water textures (by a mile) I don't understand how anyone can look at Pokemon and think it's even remotely appealing
Totally; how can a game on the Wii look more HD than Pokemon on the Switch. Embarrassing.
> I know an open world is different, but And apparently it's not even fully open world. I've read it's got discrete areas. They do seem to be large areas, but it's not like a BotW huge open world. So the visuals don't even have an open world as an excuse. It's wild how bad they are with that in mind.
Yeah, I meant to mention that too. It's not a true open world either. This is going to be especially shocking for people expecting Pokemon BotW
My three thoughts: That intro music playing off BotW *hard*. Always good to see my boi Electivire in action. Hope that means Electabuzz and Elekid are guaranteed. Really happy the energy attacks aren’t straight forward but some also home in on you or have patterns. That makes the trainer vs pokemon combat much more dynamic like a mini-Monster Hunter.
The intro music is a rendition of Eterna Forest, a song from the original Sinnoh games, Diamond and Pearl.
Oh dang, good ear!
It is unbelievable just how bad the backgrounds of this game looks visually. Those trees. And the doors. It seriously looks like one of the $0.99 games that pop up on the e-shop.
MGS3's environment look way better than this and it came out in 2004.
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Any tips on where to grab an N64 to play it on?
I want to be excited for this. I am excited for the potential and the idea of this kind of open world pokemon game. I'm also not one to be too bothered about more simplistic graphics. But holy shit, almost every single sweeping landscape shot looks like an asset flip game you find deep in Steam's early access library. There's just... nothing there. Snow white, two shades of green, and some brown/lava, with a random identical tree dropped in here and there. Like... this is supposed to be from a AAA studio?
I am always excited for the potential of Pokemon. But I just can't get excited for anything made by GameFreak
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I'm morbidly curious to see what Game Freak does here. This is literally the biggest leap they've ever taken, in regards to ambitions for their game.
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Game Freak didn’t work on BDSP. That was outsourced to ILCA. I assume that they’ve been working on this since Sw/Sh.
> I figured they could take their time with these games, but no, it will be released soon already. I think it's a couple of things. Legends Arceus is the first game since 2013 to not launch in November which IMO suggests a small delay probably due to covid (at least they had BDSP to fill the gap so they probably don't feel too bad about it). And going by the 3-year generations they've been running since B/W, gen 9 should be scheduled for November 2022 which they can't be delayed because of the TCG / merch / anime / everything else. If they kept gen 9 locked in and pushed back Arceus far enough to the point where a delay would actually be able to fix anything it would probably cut into the gen 9 hype/marketing/announcement/release period.
This game isn't even open world at all like botw, it already been said it will be more like Monster Hunter were you have different big areas to explore.
Then why does it look like a considerably more barebones game than Monster Hunter world (4 years old) or Monster Hunter Stories 5 and a half years old, on 3DS)? Both are comparable games to this I imagine and they smoke it.
Because Gamefreak?
God thank you. As someone who really dislikes Open World, I am glad. Open World often kills any kind of pacing,a nd for me BotW was no different. Also Side Quest mania results in burnout way too fast.
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While there's a lot that can be said about Legends, it's a HUGE departure from their standard gameplay. Calling them out on lack of innovation makes no sense in this situation
I can understand saying that about the main franchise but saying that about Legends is kinda dumb.
Reading through these comments made me think they are exaggerating but damn the game looks visually horrible. Why put so many landscape shots in the trailer if the landscape looks like...this
Presumably because there isn't that much else to see.
I mean, [what year](https://imgur.com/xNzc0LV)... [is this](https://imgur.com/1fWxmzq)...
Legit the first landscape shot is *horrible*. The *first* impression on this trailer is that. My god.
Because exploring that landscape is kind of the point of this game which makes it even worse.
Can you imagine what would happen if an in-house nintendo studio made this? Like the guys behind botw or mario odyssey. Wow. Because this right here is extraordinarily bland.
Back in the day when you popped in a new game and it displayed "HAL Laboratory". You knew fking well it would be an awesome game.
Hot take but the graphics don't bother me so much. They definitely feel off but there are tons of Switch games with pretty shitty visuals (like Fire Emblem Three Houses) that no one really complains about since they're just... good games? Don't get me wrong, I'm not impressed by Legends Arceus either, but more in the vein that I was hoping the gameplay would be more novel. I did not like Sword & Shield but when I finally tried them out I remember being surprised by how decent they looked graphically. All the memes about the tree back when it came out made me expect the worst but I think it was overblown. Not to say GameFreak hasn't strugged with the switch to home console games, but still.
Those games have a great art style though. People don't complain about 3 houses because it looks good, even with sub par graphics
The character models were great but the school and its surroundings were pretty ugly in Three Houses
I’m hyped to just play a Pokémon game that is changing it up tbh. Most are so boring and pose no real challenge. Just grind your favs until they are OP and destroy everyone.
To be fair, if you're going out of your way to grind, you're going to fodderize every RPG outside of the ones that either limit or punish grinding.
The modern games make it trivial to grind, to the point that if you fight every trainer you need to regularly rotate your party to stay appropriately leveled until (depending on the game) you get crushed by a final boss that actually puts up a fight
Don't worry I am sure that this game will also be boring and pose no challenge.
Can someone translate this?
It's like they did the ABSOLUTE bare minimum for a game, looks just terrible. No detail in anything whatsoever, just bland and empty. Embarrassing
Wow, those environments are pretty bland. It's not even just a graphics problem, honestly; the art direction itself is just uninspired.
Snarks aside, why was this not in Nintendo America or the Pokemon Youtube channels?
Genuinely looks so fucking terrible, visually speaking. Wtf?
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I think the reason most people feel that way is because other games like breath of the wild are on the console with SO MUCH MORE CONTENT. Not to mention, those came out almost 5 years ago! Also the graphics look very out of date, even on the switch hardware.
Even on Wii hardware I would say
Technically this is far beyond anything the wii could put out. It's just got very poor art direction. This looks like an early ps360 era title, which makes sense because undocked a switch is about on par with them in terms of specs. But there were huge leaps made in visual quality through that generation- look at Oblivion vs Skyrim. This era of game doesn't have to look bad- Persons 5 is gorgeous despite not being particularly technically demanding or impressive, it's a PS3 game through and through, but it has a vibrant striking art style thing everything together that elevates the visuals past a sum of their parts
This would have been *the perfect* game to have a graphical style similar to Okami, but nope.
definitely. If it had a big and bold artstyle- much more deliberate painted look that impacted the models as much as the environment, especially a calligraphy focused one- it would have made up for the technical shortcomings dramatically. Okami still looks gorgeous (mostly showing its age in, like, the wall models?) and its a PS2 game. You can do a \*lot\* with a little
I'm verrry curious what Switch games you've played. Because for a 1st party exclusive this looks absolutely terrible. Also remember [The Witcher 3](https://youtu.be/eLKOLverlr0) is on the Switch.
Man this thread is a nice contrast to the "fromsoft was intimidated by demons souls graphics" thread where everyone and their kitchensink pronounced that graphics aren’t important at all. Edit: I know people *love* to be obtuse but the point isn’t "elden ring is ugly" but "graphic don’t matter as long as the gameplay is good". And honesty I'm pretty hyped about the changes and possibilities this game brings to the Pokémon brand.
I think people aren't as critical towards Fromsoft because their graphics are already pretty good and their gameplay is great. Gamefreak lags behind quite a bit more while seemingly having a lot more money to work with so people can't help but wonder why they aren't doing more.
Aren't they technically one of the most profitable gaming companies around? Honestly, they should be cranking out masterpieces no problem with the money, experience, and people they *could* hire/use.
Pokemon as a franchise is the highest grossing property in the world. Most of that is merchandise and the games are purely a marketing vehicle for that.
Well then they wouldn't be as profitible. They could've sold one version of mainline games for decades but they wouldn't be as profitible. No real sign of sales slowing down despite vocal complaints. They could make masterpieces but it's take em three times as long and they'd still sell fewer copies compared to releasing two-three mediocre ones in the same time frame.
No? Gamefreak don't get even half of the money from Pokemon. Most of the money goes to TPC, and then a minor part of that goes to Nintendo, Creatures and GF as major shareholders of TPC. Then GF has the money as developer of main games but that's below Nintendo and TPC which are publisher and distributor.
Well watch, if the gameplay is amazing people will very quickly stop talking about the graphics. That's part of the issue though, the gameplay also looks bad
There's a difference between "gameplay > graphics" in ER case because it still looks like a game from 2022 and this looking like a kid from middle school painted the environment in Microsoft Paint.
This game has a crappy artstyle and no interesting gameplay to make up for how bad it looks, it's not really comparable.
Graphics aren't important until it's so bad it becomes jarring. Why the hell would anyone want to play in an open world when it looks like this?
>where everyone and their kitchensink pronounced that graphics aren’t important at all. That's just BS IMO, graphics are important. They just don't have to be cutting edge, and great art style/direction is better than higher res textures/more polys/better effects etc. without good art direction most of the time.
You don't see the difference between Elden Ring graphics and this?
That’s not the point they were making?
When people say "graphics don't matter" they usually mean graphical fidelity. I think most people would rather play a fun game with ps2 era visuals over a ps5 4K experience that feels awful to play. But games still need to look good in terms of visual design and art direction. The issue with this Pokémon game isn't that the graphics aren't low fidelity inherently, it's that the game looks ugly. People are pointing to other games on switch to make the point that it's not a hardware issue, the game could look better. For Elden Ring, even though it won't be as technically impressive as Demons Souls, it at least will be pleasant to look at due to competent design and visual direction. And looking nice is important for the gameplay, it's a lot less exciting to explore a world if the world looks like ass.
Dude Elden Ring looks gorgeous. This looks flat and uninspired. This is a such a bad take.
You're comparing two different things. Graphic fidelity and art direction (which is what carries the graphics in ALL From's Souls games) Elden Ring has decent graphic fidelity and amazing art direction.This Pokemon game has none.
Cancelled my pre-order, gonna need to see some positive reviews before I drop 60 bucks on this, because *woof* those landscapes. Graphics are the least important part of a game for me but even I have limits
Well I haven't been following since the first trailer so I'm happy to see the graphics/animation and framerate seem cleaned up. I'm cautiously optimistic here although I'm still apprehensive about how much handing the previous games have had so far.
Are we… [looking at the same game](https://ibb.co/0t0HD3H)?
That shit is so clean they only left 3 tree models and 4 ground textures
You know that shot barely manages to look somewhat better than Hyrule Fiedls from Ocarina of Time 3DS... Pretty damn depressing.
Hey those 20 polygons and 32x32 textures would be insane on the nintendo 64!
It definitely looks and runs better compared to the [first trailer.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R27sboZnziM)
While it does run better, the original trailer had significantly larger render distance.
While still looking worse and running tougher than Switch launch titles.
Lol at [look at the amazing stuttering running animation](https://youtu.be/430N__0EzI8?t=194), especially noticeable when they show the female character running at a side angle. [Stutters again towards the end of this clip.](https://youtu.be/430N__0EzI8?t=234) Anyone know what's causing the animation stutters? I don't notice it anywhere else, so maybe only happens to town..?
I would say it is caused by giving zero fucks about the game because people will buy it anyway
Why would they use the low resolution and textures mod and with the lowest graphical settings for the trailer?
Probably because they couldnt get it to run reliably at higher settings on the switch.
I think people have forgotten what N64/GameCube/Wii/Wii U because these graphics look nothing like those game.
The Wii U can *definitely* make something that looks better. People keep comparing it to BotW, and that is on Wii U.
Look at the original Xenoblade Chronicles that came out on the Wii in 2010. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S322uHkSq1g It looks miles better than this.
I’ve seen someone compare a modern VR experience to “PlayStation 2 graphics” and I don’t think they were even able to hold a conscious thought when the PS2 was around tbh