Board 8 > Pokémon Direct coming Thursday (6:30AM Pacific)

(+) Yeah! (+)

Shonen_Bat posted...

game freak doesn't deserve credit for taking out half of the game and selling it to us later

There's no evidence that this happened, considering the packs seem to be in areas completely disconnected from the main game
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ChichiriMuyo posted...

You sound like the type of person who would complain about a blow job because the girl was only a 7.

I

That

Uh

This really says a lot more about you I think

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also i hate sword/shield's linearity but black/white classic were incredibly linear as well and i remember them getting nothing but praise back in 2011 or whenever that was

once again, different times can have different expectations, sure, but as someone who's followed the series since 1998 i find the hypocrisy of the fanbase to be particularly glaring here

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I wish it was hyperbole but it really isn't

if you want an example, the seventh town is a Pokemon center and a gym, and that's it

they didn't bother with anything else because they knew they wouldn't need to

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SantaRPidgey posted...

I

That

Uh

This really says a lot more about you I think

Did you read over the "a"? Because I did when I first read that, and I was very confused as well.

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Shonen_Bat posted...

except it isn't really, since it's an obviously unfinished game

I'm not saying the game is 100% terrible, it's actually fun when they gave a damn, but game freak doesn't deserve credit for taking out half of the game and selling it to us later

And now you're just making shit up. There's no evidence that they took anything out, or even that they delivered less than they planned to. It's as long as any other recent Pokemon game, you're just looking for an excuse to complain and when one doesn't exist apparently you'll just conjure one out of thin air.

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If the content was already done before Sword/Shield released it would have been in the data dump if the game. Game Freak isn't exactly great with hiding stuff and some of the data for non-Galar Dex Pokemon actually did leak out through dumping data from the game.
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yeah spikemuth is disappointing sure, aside from the cheesy arcade beat'em up references which i got a kick out of

but man that is not a particularly substantial example of anything

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TomNook posted...

Did you read over the "a"? Because I did when I first read that, and I was very confused as well.

I know I did.

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Black and White's linerity was different than games of the past and future, the environment was designed with being sweeping areas that you could explore or ignore.

Places like the desert resort were pretty vast, moreso than any route that came afterwards, but it could be explored as much or as little as you wanted with no real worry about story beats or whether you saw everything. Even most routes had optional pockets you could dip into if you wanted to explore more or less.

Im willing to bet a cool grand that if they remade black and white your rival would be at the underground entrance saying "hey look over here! What do you think is inside" and you wouldn't be able to leave the resort without talking to them.

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Unfortunately AAA publishers have grown to understand how easy it is to take advantage of players through anti-consumer practices such as this. Nintendo usually did pretty well in the past, but I guess Pokemon is the franchise to do it with. It's unfortunate to see, and even moreso to see players defend the actions, but that's just the way corporations manipulate people these days.

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i dont think you could even fully explore the desert resort in b/w until postgame, though i might remember that wrong

there were like 2 optional caves (the one with axew and the one on route 9) and pretty much everything else was left to postgame. the linearity really annoyed me relative to previous games, and was only saved by how loaded and good b2/w2 are imho

black/white og are still my least favorite main games, and hey, that's just my personal taste, i get it
but it's not like sword/shield are particularly unique in their problems

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Shonen_Bat posted...

except it isn't really, since it's an obviously unfinished game

I'm not saying the game is 100% terrible, it's actually fun when they gave a damn, but game freak doesn't deserve credit for taking out half of the game and selling it to us later

You'd have a point if the DLC was specifically filling in areas that felt lacking, but it's not. It's adding two side areas that have nothing to do with anything else and are clearly post game "third version"-esque areas. It's pretty clearly not cut content.

Unless you're still talking about the Pokemon, but we've already covered that.

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Part of the dungeon were closed off, yes, but not the entire dungeon.

I'm literally just talking about the desert resort itself. Its a big section, tons of trainers, fun little pockets of items to find, and completely skippable.

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it (and the other general areas around castelia) are undoubtedly some of the coolest parts of the game!
still frustrated the heck out of me how linear it was though

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hey spikemuth gave me more joy than most towns do

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Yeah I would agree with that. For me some of my favorite parts of the first two pokemon games were taking new routes in new playthroughs. G/S let you take on the last few gyms in any order, same with red and blue. Heck I didn't even know you could get the silph scope from giovanni until post game on my first play through.

The remakes took away all the freedom in both cases, although Kanto is still mostly free in hg/ss.

I kind of understand why they do it, Kanto and B/W post game let you explore big swaths of areas with complete freedom and its a little overwhelming and hard as a player to organize. The lizard brain always wants to see the next route/town but if you go through everything too fast its hard to keep track of what you should backtrack to do.

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genuinely surprised this is DLC and not an ultra version. there's typically a 50% drop-off from the first release to second, but that's still a lot of money left on the table when you realize the mainline games sell ~15M.

hopefully these are geared towards replayable/repeatable content (and they iron out some of the quirks of raid battles). could be really neat.

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Naye745 posted...

the idea that gamefreak is lacking in time to make the games as content-filled as stuff like platinum and b2/w2 because they're being asked by nintendo to pop one out every year also seems like understandable criticism

I don't think Nintendo is to blame for Game Freak having to pump out new games every year. This is all on the Pokemon Company, who depend on the games to provide a starting point for merchandise and TCG products and they carefully coordinate their merchandise and TCG schedule to fit into the length of each generation. So when a new generation comes out, it introduces new Pokemon that can then be used for merchandise and TCG products. The first games of each generation can't be delayed for this reason, and there's also the anime which has to fit into the length of the generation.
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GuessMyUserName posted...

hey spikemuth gave me more joy than most towns do

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yeah fair enough. i just meant the people actually directly working on making content for the games are potentially on a schedule that's not their call, whether that's nintendo or the pokemon marketing machine

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Why do people think the anime has any effect on the game release schedule? The anime is heavily episodic so padding can be pretty much added anywhere. They can, and have, gone something like 50 episodes between badges in the past. If anything, it feels like the anime forces its schedule to match the game releases.
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SantaRPidgey posted...

Yeah I would agree with that. For me some of my favorite parts of the first two pokemon games were taking new routes in new playthroughs. G/S let you take on the last few gyms in any order, same with red and blue. Heck I didn't even know you could get the silph scope from giovanni until post game on my first play through.

Did you actually do the Poke Doll trick on Marowak on your first playthrough?


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I'm with the angry people in this topic about this game being less content than older games, just less angry and hyperbole. Straight paths, doors that don't open, no side areas, very few trainers and an exp share to hide that, no extra (game or post-game) cities. This game was definitely rushed to meet a deadline, as it was polished in many areas, and severely lacking in others. BW was linear in terms of route to city to route, but each area was expansive and still had puzzles and things to find and hidden areas in Pinwheel Forest and such.

Pokedex is fine with me as they are patching in the new pokemon for free, so that should please the dexiters 40% that now they can trade in their Poliwhirls or whatever.

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Mewtwo59 posted...

Did you actually do the Poke Doll trick on Marowak on your first playthrough?

Yeah, my friend told me it was how to get past that part.

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Team Rocket Elite posted...

If the content was already done before Sword/Shield released it would have been in the data dump if the game. Game Freak isn't exactly great with hiding stuff and some of the data for non-Galar Dex Pokemon actually did leak out through dumping data from the game.

Although they finally got smart and managed to hide any potential Mythicals this time around. The datamine included data that hints at 2 slots in the Pokedex for which no data could be discovered, which was assumed to be potential Mythicals.
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It wouldn't surprise me if the reason for that was they didn't have time to finish making the Mythic Pokemon and knew they could patch them in later.
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There's supposedly 8 spots now, three of which are presumably taken by the new things announced today.

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Hbthebattle posted...

There's no evidence that this happened, considering the packs seem to be in areas completely disconnected from the main game

I agree with this
SwSh feels incomplete, yes, but it's not like those areas were cut or something.

I said it before in this topic, but what I do believe was cut are the starters Gmax forms and the Kanto starters Gmax forms
Everything else in those DLC was not intended to be in the base game at all


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Nanis23 posted...

SwSh feels incomplete, yes, but it's not like those areas were cut or something.

SwSh doesn't have cut areas...but it definitely has areas planned that they never had development time to get to.

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red13n posted...

SwSh doesn't have cut areas...but it definitely has areas planned that they never had development time to get to.

Of course, I totally agree with this
I am just saying it isn't the DLC fault that the games came out like this, they were just rushed

Thinking about this..getting DLC instead of a third version will also mean that with Rose being the villain for no reason and a stupid motive will forever remain stupid

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red13n posted...

SwSh doesn't have cut areas...but it definitely has areas planned that they never had development time to get to.

Gamefreak seems to have a lot of problems with planned stuff that they just seemingly abandon.

When are we ever going to get Eternal Flower Floette?
What was up with that golf course in Sun and Moon?
And the Azure Flute...
And the Lock Capsule...
And the Altering Cave...
And the truck.


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Oh my god just caught a Galarian Slowpoke
And if it's any indication of things to come..
Not only his design is the exact same as regular Slowpoke but with the head and tail painted with gold and it took like 5 minutes to make, the typing is super boring (pure Psychic instead of Water/Psychic) and the worst of all - the stats are the exact same and the movepool is the exact same besides Acid (which was showcased in the trailer to hype it as new...) replacing Water Gun. Everything else is exactly the same

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aww I thought slowpoke was going to be fire type because I guess I confused acid for a fire ball

maybe the bro and king will get new secondary typing
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GTM posted...

BW was linear in terms of route to city to route, but each area was expansive and still had puzzles and things to find and hidden areas in Pinwheel Forest and such.

This, the comparison between them is nonsense imo

I'm replaying BW on and off and the breadth of stuff to do between cities and alternate paths and optional areas as well as the stuff ON the routes (weather institute, houses, construction cabins, food trucks, etc) leaves SwSh thoroughly in the dirt.

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Oh wait someone mentioned that Slowpoke having the golden parts of him being the tail and head are because it's where Shellder bite it
And if it's poison like assumed, Shellder will not bite those parts and why Slowpoke evolves in a different ways
This makes the lazy design better. but still

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oh that would be interesting if the evolutions are shellderless

or maybe the spice on slowpoke attracts a different Pokmon to bite it so Slowbro ends up with a stunfisk on its tail or something... that could be fun
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Is Shellder in the dex? That could be why it gets another Pokmon to bite it.
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Shellder & Cloyster are in SwSs

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tazzyboyishere posted...

Nintendo usually did pretty well in the past, but I guess Pokemon is the franchise to do it with.

Yes, Nintendo never utilised anti-consumer practices before, like releasing three versions of the same game, or making a new handheld because they "forgot" to add a backlight for the original release or making an HD remake of a game that got a unique art style so it wouldn't age poorly and ever need a HD remake or releasing their old games but linking them to the console so if you wanted them on your handheld you would have to buy them again for your handheld.

Nintendo, the pure-hearted company, finally succumbed to corruption.

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Honestly, the quality of life changes made WWHD worth it, even if it really didn't need a graphical improvement.
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I haven't really wrapped my head around what I think, I probably like it. But reading through this topic made me react on two things.

The first being the page 1 comments about how the games are giving gen 1 an eternal orgasm after being reminded the games had 48 of the gen 1 Pokemon. Seriously, just shut up. I usually try to ignore how I think that the people annoyed by how gen 1 tends to get the most exposure and call other people genwunners are a way more annoying themselves, but this is ridiculous. They include way more of gen 5 and probably some others and even so, the complaint continues because of gigantamax forms. Even among people that like all generations, gen 1 is by far the most popular, so yeah of course gen 1 has the most gigantamax forms, but they took a huge step in the direction you anti-gen 1 people wanted by not at all favoring gen 1 in the Pokedex selection when it mattered most as well as making regional variants of more than just 1.

The other thing being the whole "they're making us pay full price for an unfinished game and then making us buy dlc" case. I do think people are giving GameFreak more credit than deserve in here in general. I do also think people here kind of forget what we used to get. GTM summed up a good part of my thoughts here:

GTM posted...

I'm with the angry people in this topic about this game being less content than older games, just less angry and hyperbole. Straight paths, doors that don't open, no side areas, very few trainers and an exp share to hide that, no extra (game or post-game) cities. This game was definitely rushed to meet a deadline, as it was polished in many areas, and severely lacking in others. BW was linear in terms of route to city to route, but each area was expansive and still had puzzles and things to find and hidden areas in Pinwheel Forest and such.

That's just it. We've always had our complaining to do as great fans, but the current case is not like it used to be. Not to mention BW comparison doesn't hold at all unless you literally only look at the linearity and even if you do, BW didn't hold you hand through it the same way. And like, have you forgotten the Team Plasma story completely? That's the most story we ever had, where SS hit a new minimum.
Back on track, maybe USUM only giving you more postgame, 100 more Pokemon and two trainers talking to you throughout the game vaguely teasing the post game made us forget how it used to be. Doesn't help that gen 6 didn't had neither third versions or DLC, so it had been a while. But this:

LusterSoldier posted...

This is no different than their previous model of releasing a more complete version of the game through a third version or sequels. You still had to pay for a second game to get the full experience. Only with the DLC model, you don't have to play through the game again as the DLC allows to continue playing the game from your existing save file.

is just wrong outside of perhaps gen 7. RS, DP and BW were, however flawed one may think they were, full games. The third versions were no full experience, they were a different experience. Emerald and Platinum were different, they did things differently, and on top of that they also fixed had a bunch of things people did not like about their predecessors. They didn't just add things although they did that too. BW2 did this even more by being sequels and by having the largest amount of stuff to do as of yet even though previous titles had an additional region to explore.

We're getting new areas now, and I'm happy we are, but if you buy the games after the DLC arrives, you're going through the exact same game, nothing people disliked about SS has been fixed or changed. GTM made a few points about it already, but to add into it, SS has no aread that become worth revisiting other than two times going into the gym again. At no point does the game have something popping up a previous place that you can go back and go. The closest thing to this is the only new place to access once you can bike on water. The amount of trainers probably hit a new low. A lot of builders are really just background material, making the game seem bigger than it is. The routes are all short and mostly empty. Try walking from your home and down to the Pokemon game in the beginning then fly to some other route than that. It is so clear how much more effort they put into those two than the rest in the game. I can't really understand how people can claim that we got everything they intended to give us. I enjoyed SS, but there's no denying that these games have a lot of places that are made to look like it had more content than it has. Previous titles just simply weren't like this to the same extend and before the 3ds games, basically not at all.

Seriously, go back and play gen 3-5 if you think that we always got an unfinished game first and then bought the full experience afterwards. Regardless of what one thinks of any Pokemon games, it's just flat out not the same situation.

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ctesjbuvf posted...

Seriously, go back and play gen 3-5 if you think that we always got an unfinished game first and then bought the full experience afterwards. Regardless of what one thinks of any Pokemon games, it's just flat out not the same situation.

Nobody's actually saying this.

What the other side is arguing is that the third games don't add much in the way of content, so you're effectively playing the same game over again. You're right that they do sometimes come with some improvements to certain things people didn't like previously, such as battle speed or the like, but ultimately it's the same experience.

The reason it's the "same" situation to those of us on that side is because we don't really feel like SwSh are unfinished games.

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No one can look at the final segment of the game and say it's the way it was intended to be
It was clearly rushed


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And to be fair, I think it's mainly just a difference in opinion of what people want out of the game.

I, for instance, don't really like stuff that feels like padding and fluff. It doesn't bother me that you can't enter a lot of the houses/such you see in SwSH since in previous games, you could spend time going through a town and half of the buildings would have a person inside that says something like "My Pokemon is so cute!" or "My Spearow delivers my mail!" Likewise, I was never fond of going out of my way down a side path to end up with a Great Ball for my troubles.

Obviously, people do like that, and that's cool. I don't, so I see it as more of a streamlining that I was okay with.

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HashtagSEP posted...

And to be fair, I think it's mainly just a difference in opinion of what people want out of the game.

I, for instance, don't really like stuff that feels like padding and fluff. It doesn't bother me that you can't enter a lot of the houses/such you see in SwSH, since in previous games, you could spend time going through a town and half of the buildings would have a person inside that says something like "My Pokemon is so cute!" or "My Spearow delivers my mail!" Likewise, I was never fond of going out of my way down a side path to end up with a Great Ball for my troubles.

Obviously, people do like that, and that's cool. I don't, so I see it as more of a streamlining that I was okay with.

Kinda like the homes in Wyndon...
But I don't remember the NPC dialogues being so bad? I thought there was a lot more world building in previous games, talking about the history of the region, talking about various Pokemon that are in the region, hinting at other regions or other characters etc
There is nothing like that here
I actually talked with every NPC just to find out how to evolve my Yamask. true story. I wanted to play it blind and not look it up
But there was nothing of the sort. You would think they would drop a npc stating a rumor or something..but nothing


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Nanis23 posted...

No one can look at the final segment of the game and say it's the way it was intended to be
It was clearly rushed

I do think it was intended to be that way, for a few reasons.

1. The post game content that exists feels more like fluff to give you a reason to get the dog, when getting the dog could have easily been tied into the final segment and more time could have been spent on that, instead, but they didn't choose that.
2. The game's very big on portraying Leon as this infallible champion, and that is further pushed by the fact that he keeps taking care of stuff before you even get to it. But then the ending is set up so that Leon couldn't do it/failed and you have to step in as the ONE TRUE HERO like every Pokemon game.
3. The DLC isn't adding anything to those parts as if there was cut/missing content. It's adding more post game stuff.

It makes it feel intentional. I wouldn't argue that it was a good design choice, but it feels like something they intended.

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Nanis23 posted...

Kinda like the homes in Wyndon...
But I don't remember the NPC dialogues being so bad? I thought there was a lot more world building in previous games, talking about the history of the region, talking about various Pokemon that are in the region, hinting at other regions or other characters etc
There is nothing like that here
I actually talked with every NPC just to find out how to evolve my Yamask. true story. I wanted to play it blind and not look it up
But there was nothing of the sort. You would think they would drop a npc stating a rumor or something..but nothing

B/W had a decent amount of that, but towns are mostly full of NPCs saying generic things in most of the games. You'd get some in like, story-oriented dungeons, which yeah, Sw/Sh does lack, but your typical house was

"I like to chase my Wingull in circles!"
"My daughter loves her Wingull!"

And I don't think any game ever told you how to evolve all the Pokemon or anything like that via NPCs.

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Tbh I'd rather think the game was unfinished due to time constraints than think Game Freak purposely gave us a shit barebones story.

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HashtagSEP posted...

Nobody's actually saying this.

What the other side is arguing is that the third games don't add much in the way of content, so you're effectively playing the same game over again. You're right that they do sometimes come with some improvements to certain things people didn't like previously, such as battle speed or the like, but ultimately it's the same experience.

The reason it's the "same" situation to those of us on that side is because we don't really feel like SwSh are unfinished games.

I mean, if you got what you wanted out of them, that's fair and great. Though I mean, they reached the goal of making the games, but certainly they didn't get as much done as they had wanted, hence why they're being called unfinished by some. And yeah, it's similar enough beyond the same world and roughly same story, but I think it's just as fair to call Platinum a new experience for all changes and added stuff, as it would be to say SS weren't unfinished. When I read through the topic, I found myself agreeing with everything "your side" said, if you only compared to what USUM did to SM, but not when compared to the first 5 gens. I played them again fairly recently, and I do think they used to keep the third titles fresh enough. It also helps that they were released years later instead of a single year. BW2 were 1.5 year I think, but they were also the biggest new experience by a vast amount. I'm sad that was the only time they pulled that move.


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