Current Events > For the first time, I don't really get what Game Freak is trying to do...

(+) Yeah! (+)

I know, another Pokemon topic. We need 30 of them... but this is gonna kinda encompass my thoughts, as someone who has played the games competitively and supported them since Gen 1.

For the first time, I don't understand what Game Freak is trying to do.

In Gen 1, I mean, it was Gen 1 damnit. You had cool monsters that encompassed a typical JRPG formula. Cool.

Gen 2 had new characters, monsters, and allowed you to take on the "old games" too.

Gen 3 moved to a new console, and with that focused on a new world. They wanted to largely focus on new monsters, a new story, maybe try to make it deeper than just, "I wanna be the very best and beat Team Rocket". Now there was a saving the region/world element.

Gen 4 really doubled down on the whole, "SAVING THE WORLD!!!" vibe. It also added some new mechanics for competitive play and really started to look into the competitive play as something to maybe actually you know... do something with.

Gen 5 was kinda meta in how its story looked into the actual message they were sending out there, with Pokemon trainers being looked at perhaps as pet owners forcing their Pokemon to do battle. Again, I feel there was a leap in competitive play as well.

Gen 6 dialed things back and kinda went back to basics, with a new region and trying to be the best. Yeah, there was another "Save the world" event, but it felt largely in the background to being a throwback to the whole, "I wanna be the very best". Some huge changes to raising Pokemon happened, making things slightly less esoteric and making raising Pokemon easier. It also made some changes to just make the whole experience easier, breeding and the use of TM's, etc. etc. It made things more approachable, and also added some mechanics that changed the actual Pokemon themselves.

Gen 7 went even further with this concept, with the removal of TM's and making things significantly easier. They experimented with removing Gym battles and the CREATION of a Pokemon League.

I don't understand what they're doing with Gen 8. I don't get what the idea is. They don't seem to be focusing on making it "look better", as the animations and whatnot don't seem to be very strong. They are adding in some multiplayer elements I guess, but at the cost of removing other functionality. They are neutering the competitive scene for some reason, and I just don't see what they are looking to focus on.
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Just putting out a game to make buckaroos

They're pushing the 'fuck you you'll buy it anyway' attitude to the max in order to gauge just how little work they can get away with for the rest of their careers.
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I'm not gonna believe they are trying to cut corners. You would think their move would be to make use of better tech to make the games look awesome. Maybe that is their intent but they aren't good at it?
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Jeff AKA Snoopy posted...

I'm not gonna believe they are trying to cut corners. You would think their move would be to make use of better tech to make the games look awesome. Maybe that is their intent but they aren't good at it?

Have you seen the tree? The pic where they show it side by side with a tree from Wii sports, a 13 year old game that was 2 generations earlier.
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Popularity Paralysis

It got so popular they cant decide how to make a successful and welcome move. Or if to make a move at all.
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A corporation's reason for existing is maximizing profits with as little risk, work and effort as possible Gen 8 looks so rushed and their fuck you attitude towards all the backlash reminds me alot of other companies like EA and Activision and more recently Blizzard, if they get away with this and turn a profit it absolutely will go further than what they've already done and with hashtags like Thankyougamefreak trending they very well may be successful in their plot.

There's no excuse why Gen 8 costs 60 bucks for less content than any of their 3DS titles, especially when if you've been seeing the same streams I have Gamefreak completely lied about improving models,animation and other parts of the game at cost to the pokemon count.
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I don't think it's intentional evil or anything. They're just horribly mismanaged on many levels. The budget, the creative direction, the lack of understanding of the Switch's architecture, the inefficient code. They're just bloated, never needed to learn lessons from failure.

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Jeff AKA Snoopy posted...

I'm not gonna believe they are trying to cut corners. You would think their move would be to make use of better tech to make the games look awesome. Maybe that is their intent but they aren't good at it?

Why's everyone knocking a game that's not even out yet? I haven't been following all the latest news, have they announced some really dumb shit or what?

I was seriously going to buy a Switch just to get the game at launch. If it's really looking that bad maybe I'll just skip it.

Isn't it obvious? They're taking the easy way out.
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Pokemon's core is too much of a corporate enterprise at this point. Mario and Zelda can get away with these changes, becauase the characters are marketable, while their games' gameplay can usually be whatever as long as it fits some general expectation of the series.

But Pokemon's core gameplay is tied to the it's main branding, the Pokemon, so it's hard for GF to take any significant risks without some suits slamming their foot down.

https://www.reddit.com/r/pokemon/comments/dufhed/im_watching_a_streamer_play_the_game_and_i/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share

It isnt about keeping things the same because blah blah corporate blah blah.

They literally just need to put a basic amount of effort into the game.
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They're trying to keep the series low budget.

They never intended for it to become a home console/big budget series and the Switch is now technologically at the point where the series is hitting a painful crossroads.

A lot of Japanese studios got hit by similar growing pains 10 years ago thinking about it.
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I never felt the series was low budget though.

They knew how to work within the confines of what they were given and filled it to the brim.

None of the previous gens felt "low budget" at all. I got way more out of them than a lot of console games, that's for sure.
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They were inherently low budget because they were portable only games. They didn't require a significant amount of resources compared to a HD game.

This is why a lot of Japanese developers didn't go to PS3/360 and stuck with portable games too.

Even if you look at Game Freaks other stuff it's all stuff that veers closer to indie games than big budget titles.
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seems like they're burnt out on the series

give it to another dev plz
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I'd have been fine with a game of this size if it played like Pokemon XD, or was like Pokemon Revolution/Stadium with a campaign. But instead it's a 3DS game with less content than the last 3 gens for $60. Huh?
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Game Freak isn't doing anything wrong. It's the fans that are fucking everything up by licking up any kind of scrap they can off the floor and then defending them when addressed with a valid criticism. GF sees how much they can get away with, and with the fans constantly enabling them it's likely to continue.
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I'm pretty sure SwSh is the result of multiple issues. Inexperience with console design and mentality, rushing, burnout, unsure of future direction, changes in management/leadership, and so on.

It's a real shame because many of Nintendo's other franchises are hitting new highs and going in great new directions on the Switch. Mario, Zelda, Fire Emblem, soon Animal Crossing, and so on. I think that's what makes the disappointment in this game sting even more: we were all expecting something along those levels, but in the end, it's basically a 3DS upscale with, somehow, even more limitations. It'll still probably sell extremely well, but I think everyone knows this gen will be regarded as one of the weakest.
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The majority of Japanese developersdo seem to have some teething issues when they transition to HD. RE5, DMC4, FFXIII etc. Even Nintendo did. Remember the Wii U?

The reason for the delayed release of our first-party titles was the fact that completing the games released at the same time as the launch of Wii U required more development resources than expected, so some staff members from development teams working on other titles had to help complete them. In short, the development teams of Pikmin 3 and other future games were understaffed during that period. We do not simply have one easily identifiable bottleneck in software development."

We originally planned to release a few first-party titles for Wii U during the first half of this year, but no big titles are scheduled for release before Pikmin 3 in July because we decided to take time to add the final touches to ensure that consumers fully feel that they are valuable titles. The brand of a franchise would be completely degraded without customer satisfaction. This is why we delayed the release schedule of such games."

Of course you can argue that both Nintendo and Game Freak should have known better and had time to prepare. But I don't know if the expectations of what a Pokmon game should be in 2019 on Switch and their current business model is sustainable.

Pokmon would probably need to reduce down to a series that only has one or two new mainline games per generation. That would also slow down the amount of Pokmon they'd need to deal with. That's assuming Game Freak can be scaled up to AAA standards. This would be fine by me but if the series consistently sells 10 million per year as is there's probably no incentive for them to do that. I think they might get away with it this time but in the long haul they'll probably need to rethink how this series should continue.
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Maybe they're lowering the bar so that they can make customers praise them for getting back on track after? Lower the standards and what not.
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i definitely don't think it's a coincidence that this series has suddenly nosedived in quality once they've gone away from sprite based 2D and had to create fully modeled 3D.
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trying to sabotage the main series that actually requires effort so they can "prove" the Go series is more profitable and coast with that simpler series from now on.

DarthAragorn posted...

Just putting out a game to make buckaroos

This. This is what they're trying to do
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FridgeBeard posted...

soon Animal Crossing

I wouldn't call The Same Game Yet Again With More Dollhouse-ing to be a new high, but to each their own.
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Wow man, dataminers have the game now and
Moves were cut,too
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