Captain Kinopio wrote:I can’t keep track of Pokefans outrage at this game.
I find it quite funny, I understand that they’re really passionate about the games but from some of the stuff I’ve seen it makes it sound like Sword and Shield will unplayable when I really don’t see that being the case at all. Not the generational leap many were hoping for? Sure, but a lot of fans were really expecting Pokémon Switch to reinvent itself when it was very unlikely that’d happen.
We’ll never find out either but I’d love to know how many people who have been saying about boycotting Sword and Shield will still end up buying a copy anyway
Captain Kinopio wrote:I can’t keep track of Pokefans outrage at this game.
Some of it sounds valid, some of it just sounds stupid as strawberry float.
For example, I seen someone complain about the rumoured campaign length. It's about the same as Pokémon Sun/Moon's. I don't remember any outrage about that at the time, and the game was an acceptable length to me, I didn't even do any post game playing.
With the national dex situation, I would imagine there are other reasons why they had to cut that beyond what they previously stated (and seemingly, have misled people about). But those reasons are not something that would be palatable to disclose for someone who wants to retain their employment.
I assume it's to do with the size and experience of the team working on it more than anything. They probably didn't have enough staff, and GF didn't want to hire any more people in to help.
I do feel sorry for the developers of this game. Because even though content has been cut, they are still working their balls off to put the game out. I would hope that the fanbase would be more forgiving of them.
I'm still going to get it. It's strawberry floating Pokémon. I haven't played a mainline one that I didn't enjoy.
I can only assume they've removed it due to people putting up hacked legendaries/mythicals and asking for Pokemon that are impossible, such as female Ditto's and female Gallade's.
I'm fine with the lack of National Dex, reused models & animations and low-quality Pokémon noises but no GTS is very disappointing as that was where I did the majority of my trading in previous games. Hell, even the random trade option was a great way to bulk out your Pokédex with previous gen starters and rare Pokémon.
I guess we'll find out how the games actually are in a couple of hours.
My sneaking suspicion is that because of Dexit the hardcore internet following are already predisposed to hating it, and are going through the fine with a fine tooth comb to find stuff to fuel the echoing cycle of OUTRAGE on the internet. The other day Reddit seemed desperate to find Japanese fans that were also angry, as it the fact that *even* some Japanese people were miffed meant *something*.
I'm not expecting that corner of the internet to be unbiased in their judgements. There's a helluva lot of toxic stuff there, and the reviews will offer a better perspective as, let's face it, anything that goes on Reddit that might be in any way positive is just going to get shot down.
The other thing is, the fanbase was extremely toxic over Let's Go, which I thought were pretty good, solid remakes with some of PoGo's accessibility brought over. But they got unabashed bile on Reddit and the like.
Likewise, bar the slightly tedious handholding, I quite liked Sun and Moon. They had technical issues too, but I thought they were an improvement over X/Y.
Let's face it, parts of Pokémon games have always been flawed, and Gamefreak have never been the best developers. That's not passing things off as completely fine, more that a lot of the OUTRAGE suddenly springing up seems a bit late. Or fuelled by the Dexit stuff.
The games always look a notch worse than a lot of stuff on the system. They have had performance issues in the past (Sun and Moon stuttered like hell) and they have had bugs and glitches since day one (go and see what slipped through Gen 1).
They've always chopped and changed stuff between games and removed and added stuff. The day/night cycle went from Ruby/Sapphire (which were visually underwhelming AND all the old monsters weren't available). Seasons appeared in Black and White and then disappeared again. X and Y had no real endgame. The past few games, since Black and White 2, have been pretty easy. The story has barely bloody evolved since the first games. The battle animations have always been a bit like animals waving a stick at each other (I half-suspect that it's to keep the battles as kid-friendly and as non-violent/non-contact as possible, so we are never going to get Houndoom picking up Togepi, breaking his non-existant neck with his vice-like jaws and then smashing his stupid egg shell body over a rock to get at the sweet gooey juices inside*).
People have always complained about the new designs, ever since Gen 3 really. I saw the same "they look like Digimon" stuff or "too many are bipedal" complaint that gets trotted out each new generation now. There are duff designs and great designs littered through every game. Yes, even your beloved Red and Blue.
And I'm not going in to the Dexit stuff in-depth as most people fall one way or another, but they have always fiddled and messed about with the roster, making monsters unavailable, hard to get or require extra purchases or events. It's always been compromised.
And that sums up the games themselves. They have always had little niggly flaws. I'm waiting to see if the niggly flaws in Sword and Shield are really as abject as the OUTRAGED fans say, or whether than maybe, just maybe, these aren't going to be the most objective voices. If the reviews are mediocre, then I'll sit up and listen. But I still suspect that I'll get enjoyment out of it, as all the Pokémon games tick a lot of basic boxes for me and I find them compelling, despite their flaws. It's annoying that these still don't get fixed, but this is hardly something unique to Sword and Shield.
The first games on a console tend to be weaker than their successors anyway, so I'm hoping that some of the more basic niggles will get ironed out. Not sure they'll go back on a lot of what the outraged fans want though. These seem to have an intimate knowledge of Gamefreak's structure and hierarchy and what Masuda has said, done and eaten for breakfast. Again, I'm going to wait and see what some other voices say later this afternoon.
There's a few hints of positivity on Reddit for the games, and I did see some praise for Let's Go (even if some of that was that Sword/Shield make them look like masterpieces). But there does seem to be this us and them mentality on the whole between those who have problems and those who don't mind them (I'm not going to look at the extreme sides of both). They both recongise each other and can even accept the other side, but still the warzone is there, and those who are truly in the middle on the issue (such as myself) feel they can't really say anything as one side will probably still jump in for an attack despite said comment looking at both sides.
I said before that I feel Game Freak are incompetent, but that's more due to poor optimisation and an inability to truly build on previous features. Both of those can be said to be related to the rushed development the games go through and the want to always keep the games fresh with each new release. Then there's the battle animations, which I just want to feel more dynamic with a few more... routines? I think the word is. Physical/special attack animation start, attack animation hit, fainting animation - that sort of thing. It's there for a few of the moves, but most don't feel that great to look at.
However, progression for such will take time if this series remains a yearly release for the main games. I think to XY, and how much progress was made from that to SunMoon, and there was certainly progression shown through all the games of those two generations. It might take another generation to see some real changes, but SwordShield have given the starting steps for some real progression to a full break from the traditional design these games have held onto.
And side note, I feel all this outrage wouldn't be nearly as bad had Game Freak not made such bold claims and messed up their PR for this new generation ever since E3.
I feel like there’s enough criticism you can level at Game Freak that you don’t need to go to the lengths the fanbase are to create more problems and issues.
Thirty-five more hours until unlock time. Will soon be time to go on an adventure with a Scorbunny and an Eevee (depending on how soon you get it). Certainly interested to see how it reviews, though.
I never realised how cultish the fanbase was until Let's Go.
This is pretty grim. Haven't seen anything quite that bad even on very angry Pokemon Reddit to be fair. Was glad to see the replies are like hundreds of people telling him to get strawberry floated.
Balladeer wrote:I’m really looking forward to Friday.
I'm also excited
I suspect I'm not in the minority as a player who has never completed a full pokedex, doesn't play competitively and doesn't care about GTS - I've never used it in fact
I'm just excited to explore notbritain, see pokemon wander about in the wild, and fill a campsite with bewears
Balladeer wrote:I’m really looking forward to Friday.
I'm also excited
I suspect I'm not in the minority as a player who has never completed a full pokedex, doesn't play competitively and doesn't care about GTS - I've never used it in fact
I'm just excited to explore notbritain, see pokemon wander about in the wild, and fill a campsite with bewears
I feel exactly like you im not worried about the whole dex not being in there or anything, If it plays like a pokemon game and I can do my gyms get my badges level up my team and all the usually stuff I will be very happy.
Yeah I'm the same. Cautiously excited. The issues seem real, and I see why people would care about them, but they're not that likely to really impact my experience. I'm in it for the punk-themed Team Rocket clone tbh. Team Yell Marnie
I've completed the Pokédex once in Blue and never been arsed after that, so getting rid of a huge bunch of previous 'Mon doesn't really bother me. One of the main reasons I loved Black/White so much was that it was all new Pokemon until the post-game stuff.
Mafro wrote:I've completed the Pokédex once in Blue and never been arsed after that, so getting rid of a huge bunch of previous 'Mon doesn't really bother me. One of the main reasons I loved Black/White so much was that it was all new Pokemon until the post-game stuff.
This would have been a good model to adopt at that point.
Last edited by Tomous on Wed Nov 13, 2019 2:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.
I never realised how cultish the fanbase was until Let's Go.
