Current Events > Nintendo cancels Pokémon Sword and Shield launch event in Japan

(+) Yeah! (+)

Nintendo cancels Pokmon Sword and Shield launch event in Japan citing "operational reasons"

https://mobile.twitter.com/pokemon_cojp/status/1192735643291602944

LMAO

Honestly the first full home console Pokmon game was not the place to cut half the roster. We expect a home console game to be bigger and better, yet their actions make Sword and Shield feel smaller and worse.

I remember wanting a console Pokmon game back in the 90s, and now that Im a week away from being able to play it I have zero interest. Its not even a boycott of Pokmon games, I just dont see a point to playing a Pokmon game where I cant catch em all. Its like an Avengers game with only Hawkeye, Groot and Ant-Man.

But really the Dex cut is probably just the straw that broke the camel's back for a lot of people. Pokemon main series entries have been lacking a lot for a long time.

1. No endgame, or an endgame so pathetic it'd mind as well not be there.

2. Crappy Battle Frontier/Tower/whatever, when a previous entry had one a hundred times better.

3. Battle animations continue to look like something I could do in my spare time on a free engine with some generic purchased assets and minimal effort.

4. (While we don't know this one for certain, history of previous games leads me to believe this one won't be resolved) Unskippable cutscenes that go on forever and in the tutorials the player is always treated like a moron and no ability to say, "I know this shit. Stop." This is why I couldn't play US/UM for more than a few hours.

5. Trainer battles are pathetic, and get worse as entries come out. It shouldn't take until the E4/Champion to get a trainer with 6 Pokemon. Kids could handle it ten years ago, why are we suddenly making difficulty exceptions for them now?

6. The story is always the same exact formula, and they mix up one or two elements. Last time AND this time it's the gyms, but ultimately it's the same exact thing. Mix up the story in some way, change it up.

Lastly....Dex cut. No one is saying I should be able to catch 900 Pokemon in the wild of each game, but the fact that they're not even in the data (when the assets already exist) is absolutely ridiculous. I should be able to transfer over whatever Pokemon I want after the story is over, but I can't because of pure laziness.

Game Freak is honestly lucky people haven't snapped before now.
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Bro youre such a child lmao

Most people dont care about this and the game is going to sell millions...more at 11!
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soulunison2 posted...

Bro youre such a child lmao

lmao ty ^.^

sylverlolol posted...

Most people dont care about this and the game is going to sell millions...more at 11!

we shall see, its still an embarrassment either way
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Shablagoo posted...

3. Battle animations continue to look like something I could do in my spare time on a free engine with some generic purchased assets and minimal effort.

please do so
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Big if true
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My disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined.

Seriously, this game had insane potential...
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It looks like GFs lack of effort, innovation, and utter stagnation of the franchise since gen4 has finally caught up to them.

This is the first ever console pokemon game but it's no different in quality or quantity we've seen in the hand held titles since gen1. Enough of this s****.

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See, folks? Enough criticism does have an impact.
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It somehow has less content than XY did on the 3DS, I'm using XY because it's a 3D game. It doesn't even come close to Emerald or Platinum.

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Prismsblade posted...

This is the first ever console pokemon game

Mainline, yes. But Colosseum and Gale of Darkness beat it to the punch.

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Solar_Crimson posted...

Prismsblade posted...

This is the first ever console pokemon game

Mainline, yes. But Colosseum and Gale of Darkness beat it to the punch.

The disrespect to Hey You, Pikachu! smh
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The Madden of RPGs
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It's still a handheld game, just the first one expected to have resolution suitable for HDTV output.

Cutting the roster would be understandable if they were making great new animations for all of them, but that doesn't seem to be the case lol

Raikuro posted...

It's still a handheld game, just the first one expected to have resolution suitable for HDTV output.

Cutting the roster would be understandable if they were making great new animations for all of them, but that doesn't seem to be the case lol

I don't even care about the animations. The lack of postgame is what's killing me.

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I've bought every Pokemon game on launch day going back to the original Red.

But I ain't getting these ones at launch. I'll wait a a few weeks and figure out if they're really worth it, then maybe buy a used copy.

It's sad. Pokemon is my favorite game franchise.
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Food for thought, Pokemon Go currently has more Pokemon catchable in it than Sword Shield ever will, if GF stubbornly sticks to their word.

They could've said "We'll look into adding more Pokemon in at a later date" and people would've probably been pretty forgiving. But to double down multiple times saying "No. This is a difficult decision to make but we made up our minds." is just asking for fucking trouble.
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So they are afraid of the arsonist?
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I don't understand all the consternation about it, I never complete the pokedex and most pokemon are dumb and useless anyway. I'm hyped for sword and shield

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Balrog0 posted...

I don't understand all the consternation about it, I never complete the pokedex and most pokemon are dumb and useless anyway. I'm hyped for sword and shield

You dont understand why people would be upset a game about catching them all will never allow you to catch them all?

How people are paying yearly for a service that keeps all the creatures they already have stored away. But means diddly shit because you cant import them.

That they could have imported assets they already had and just chose not to?

Sounds like you would have bought a literal turd smushed into the box if they just slapped a Pokmon logo on it.
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Balrog0 posted...

I don't understand all the consternation about it, I never complete the pokedex and most pokemon are dumb and useless anyway. I'm hyped for sword and shield

That's only if they cut out all the useless pokemon. But they've instead cut out more than 80% of the top tier Pokemon and put a lot of really pointless Pokemon, some now without megas, in the game lol.

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Balrog0 posted...

I don't understand all the consternation about it, I never complete the pokedex and most pokemon are dumb and useless anyway. I'm hyped for sword and shield

I mean not for nothin but you don't need to complete the Pokedex to enjoy bringing old teams into modern games so you can keep having fun with them.
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SwayM posted...

You dont understand why people would be upset a game about catching them all will never allow you to catch them all?

How people are paying yearly for a service that keeps all the creatures they already have stored away. But means diddly shit because you cant import them.

That they could have imported assets they already had and just chose not to?

This, and the fact that the game appears to have even less content overall than the ones released on the DS and 3DS, and even the GBA.

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SwayM posted...

You dont understand why people would be upset a game about catching them all will never allow you to catch them all?

None of them ever has
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legendarylemur posted...

Balrog0 posted...

I don't understand all the consternation about it, I never complete the pokedex and most pokemon are dumb and useless anyway. I'm hyped for sword and shield

That's only if they cut out all the useless pokemon. But they've instead cut out more than 80% of the top tier Pokemon and put a lot of really pointless Pokemon, some now without megas, in the game lol.

See, "useless" is just coming from a competitive aspect.

Nintendo has shown time and time again that they really don't prioritize or cater to the PVP competitive scene. At the end of the day, it's still a single-player adventure game.

If I need a grass-type pokemon in my campaign and I come across a fucking Maractus? You bet your ass I'll try to catch it and add it to my team.
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LostForest posted...

They could've said "We'll look into adding more Pokemon in at a later date" and people would've probably been pretty forgiving. But to double down multiple times saying "No. This is a difficult decision to make but we made up our minds." is just asking for fucking trouble.

Yeah, that's kinda the issue. IIRC the natdex wasn't originally in Sun/Moon but they patched it in later. Only difference is the natdex didn't have descriptions for the Pokemon, I think? If they decided to patch in the natdex later in Sword/Shield this wouldn't be an issue.
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Jim Sterling sums up why the game is now terrible
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIgykByoZwI
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Shablagoo posted...

We expect

Oh honey.

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Antifar posted...

SwayM posted...

You dont understand why people would be upset a game about catching them all will never allow you to catch them all?

None of them ever has

No one likes the type of person you are.

We all know what I meant.
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Somebody is going to get shit canned

I still think it looks great
But then again I'm not a girlchild

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Banjo2553 posted...

Yeah, that's kinda the issue. IIRC the natdex wasn't originally in Sun/Moon but they patched it in later. Only difference is the natdex didn't have descriptions for the Pokemon, I think? If they decided to patch in the natdex later in Sword/Shield this wouldn't be an issue.

What actually happened was that the National Dex was never in the Sun/Moon games. However, you could still transfer non-Alola Pokemon to the games once Bank became compatible with them; they just did not have Pokedex descriptions or were not counted or added to the Pokedex at all (Bank DID later patch in Pokedex descriptions for all Pokemon).

With Sword/Shield, Game Freak have said they have no plans to release such a patch at all.

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There's over 800 Pokemon. You were never going to catch em all anyway
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Pokemon is like the CoD of "RPGs". Talk all the shit you want on it, no matter how valid the criticisms, and game will still sell like hot cakes. Despite being nearly identical to, if not worse than, the previous titles people will defend it with their lives. The worse thing to happen to Pokmon wasnt corporate greed and other typical lazy game development practices, but the Pokmon fans that allowed it to get to this point.
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I don't get it. I've been wanting them to cut Pokemon for several generations now. There are way too many for one game.
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codey posted...

There's over 800 Pokemon. You were never going to catch em all anyway

Not with that attitude
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codey posted...

There's over 800 Pokemon. You were never going to catch em all anyway

Sadly true just because of event pokemon

I think the biggest problem is that GameFreak straight up lied about creating new animations. There is an old X/Y interview were they talk about creating HD models and downscaling them for the 3DS in order to future proof themselves.
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On one hand, Pokemon is the most profitable franchise in all of media history, so these are deliberate choices, not financial constraints, and GameFreak may rightly be criticized for coasting. On the other hand, I'm baffled at how high people have set their expectations for Sword and Shield, given GameFreak's track record.
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The direction of the series is totally wrong

Bigger character models, sluggish overworld, and way too much dialogue in sun/moon was terrible

X/Y had it right, and included every pokemon

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darkphoenix181 posted...

codey posted...

There's over 800 Pokemon. You were never going to catch em all anyway

Sadly true just because of event pokemon

Event versions, maybe. Every mon always found a way to be made available within two generations, though. With the exception of Zeraora and Melmetal, what with gen 8 being gen 8.
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Antifar posted...

SwayM posted...

You dont understand why people would be upset a game about catching them all will never allow you to catch them all?

None of them ever has

True, but Ruby/Sapphire is the only other game that had the "can't bring pokemon from old games" issue. XY did at first, but the Pokebank was planned near the same time as XY, so it wasn't too much of an issue.

Sword and Shield is locked away separately from the other games. Considering there's a paid service that got your 5th gen pokemon to 6th and 7th gen, there is no reason to just suddenly cut this off.
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ViewtifulGrave posted...

I think the biggest problem is that GameFreak straight up lied about creating new animations. There is an old X/Y interview were they talk about creating HD models and downscaling them for the 3DS in order to future proof themselves.

Well the returning Pokemon do have the same models in Sw/Sh. So they were right that they were future proofed.
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Jabodie posted...

Well the returning Pokemon do have the same models in Sw/Sh. So they were right that they were future proofed.

Yes, some of the models had ~10k polygons, like Gyarados. Meaning as long as they updated the textures, all the 3DS models were usable as is on a Switch game

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GoodOlJr posted...

The direction of the series is totally wrong

Bigger character models, sluggish overworld, and way too much dialogue in sun/moon was terrible

X/Y had it right, and included every pokemon

wow smh
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Conflict posted...

They couldn't feasibly make that many 3D models in the time they had

The only way it was going to happen is if the game stopped being yearly. But that wouldn't make financial sense, as they make too much money every year because you silly geese keep buying a game that doesn't change in any meaningful fashion besides the amount of pokemon in the dex

TBH Ive done my praxis duty here. (My OP is comments pasted from people who have actually touched the games past Ruby, the last one I played.)

I was tentatively excited for Sw&Sh though simply because I havent had a system capable of playing Pokmon games since GBA.
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Conflict posted...

They couldn't feasibly make that many 3D models in the time they had

The only way it was going to happen is if the game stopped being yearly. But that wouldn't make financial sense, as they make too much money every year because you silly geese keep buying a game that doesn't change in any meaningful fashion besides the amount of pokemon in the dex

Well originally everybody thought that was the case. But upon people being able to extract models from demos etc, it turned out they're using the 3DS models. No upscaling involved because the 3DS models already had riggings that were suitable for console graphics

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Conflict posted...

They couldn't feasibly make that many 3D models in the time they had

they already had the 3D models.

Conflict posted...

They couldn't feasibly make that many 3D models in the time they had

The only way it was going to happen is if the game stopped being yearly. But that wouldn't make financial sense, as they make too much money every year because you silly geese keep buying a game that doesn't change in any meaningful fashion besides the amount of pokemon in the dex

The model excuse doesn't work since not all Kanto pokemon returned despite having Let's Go's models

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