Watch Live: New 'Pokemon Sword & Shield' Info During E3's Nintendo Direct!

[Blob55]

I'm more bothered by the fact that they are ready to dump both mega evolutions and Z-moves from gen 8 onwards...that's just not cool, Gamefreak. Dynamax has a lot to live up to now. (I still hate the visual representation of it though.)

Dynamax doesn't even look anywhere near as good as either Z-Moves or Megas. At least those two built up on old mechanics, like hold items and forms. Dynamax just looks like a lame mode there's only used in Gyms and wild Pokémon, but the latter you have to team up with 3 randos.

Imagine how easy it is to screw someone up in a Dynamax battle! Let's say you have your starter, someone has a Magikarp, someone else a Raichu and someone else a Gyarados. What if the Magikarp person uses Dynamax on their Pokémon and only uses Max Guard, effectively trolling everyone else?

Plus I like the designs of Megas way more than Giant version of *insert Pokémon here*.

 

[Wechselbalg]

Where is that?

At 00:22.

Spoiler: Youtube vid

 

[Wechselbalg]

Dynamax doesn't even look anywhere near as good as either Z-Moves or Megas. At least those two built up on old mechanics, like hold items and forms. Dynamax just looks like a lame mode there's only used in Gyms and wild Pokémon, but the latter you have to team up with 3 randos.

Imagine how easy it is to screw someone up in a Dynamax battle! Let's say you have your starter, someone has a Magikarp, someone else a Raichu and someone else a Gyarados. What if the Magikarp person uses Dynamax on their Pokémon and only uses Max Guard, effectively trolling everyone else?

Plus I like the designs of Megas way more than Giant version of *insert Pokémon here*.

Yeah the visual representation of it looks pretty lame, but if all of those leaks turn out to be true then there will be a second form of dynamax which will change the look of some pokemon similar to mega evos which could be interesting.

I assume that in PvP you will be able to use dynamax as well and what I'd really like to know is how dynamax will change competitive battling compared to megas/Z-moves. Right now I like the 1 mega plus 1 Z-move per battle format, but dyanamax is both of them rolled into one, not to mention that allegedly any pokemon can dynamax which could make games more random, since you can't really know which pokemon will use it as opposed to mega evolutions. But since we have no details yet whatsoever it's way too early to tell if this will be for the better or for the worse.

 

[Blob55]

Yeah the visual representation of it looks pretty lame, but if all of those leaks turn out to be true then there will be a second form of dynamax which will change the look of some pokemon similar to mega evos which could be interesting.

I assume that in PvP you will be able to use dynamax as well and what I'd really like to know is how dynamax will change competitive battling compared to megas/Z-moves. Right now I like the 1 mega plus 1 Z-move per battle format, but dyanamax is both of them rolled into one, not to mention that allegedly any pokemon can dynamax which could make games more random, since you can't really know which pokemon will use it as opposed to mega evolutions. But since we have no details yet whatsoever it's way too early to tell if this will be for the better or for the worse.

Seems like it's for the worse, because there could be one Pokémon you want to use a Z-Move for and another for Mega, so having them be the same thing basically means everyone's going to use the same OP Pokémon. Like let's say Blaziken makes it to the games, anything that isn't SE against Fire and Fighting will likely get kicked super hard by it.

 

[OVERGRO]

At 00:22.

Spoiler: Youtube vid

Can we get a more official information source before I cry myself to sleep?

EDIT: Yes, Masuda said during Treehouse it "replaces" Megas / Z-moves but in the context I assumed he meant that it replaces it as the main gimmick, the way Z-moves "replaced" Megas as the competitive gimmick of the last generation. Imo this doesn't 100% confirm they are being eliminated entirely, until they explicitly state that.

 

[Zielo]

While a lot of us are disappointed at the news regarding the Home transfer issue, I remember someone (it was either WPM, or Jwittz, some pokemon figure I follow...) saying that they would take an advanced, breath of the wild-esque Pokemon game if it meant not being able to have every single Pokemon in it. I also stand by this statement. I would rather have a fully fleshed out expanded Pokemon world with a more limited pool of Pokemon than have a game that has all of the Pokemon, but content had to be cut in order to include them all.

That being said I have no idea their reasoning for it, but if less Pokemon = a smoother, larger game, then I'm ok with that.

 

[The Binder Guy]

Oh, and to add insult to injury I found an old video showcasing Pokemon Bank's announcement...

Spoiler: Youtube Link

"For everyone who's played the Pokemon series for a long time, I'm sure all of the Pokemon you have trained are very important to you" indeed.

That being said I have no idea their reasoning for it, but if less Pokemon = a smoother, larger game, then I'm ok with that.

It was mentioned in the Treehouse stream that their reasoning behind it is self-set time constraints and difficulties in animating that many Pokemon in said time frame, but the current Twitter talk has shown that a lot of people are fine with delay if it means getting every Pokemon in Sword and Shield while the former is INCREDIBLY shaky at best given that the animations have been the same since XY(not to mention that the models are future-proofed to heck and back, that's part of the reason why the 3DS era was so sluggish when more than two Pokemon entered a battle).

 

[Blob55]

While a lot of us are disappointed at the news regarding the Home transfer issue, I remember someone (it was either WPM, or Jwittz, some pokemon figure I follow...) saying that they would take an advanced, breath of the wild-esque Pokemon game if it meant not being able to have every single Pokemon in it. I also stand by this statement. I would rather have a fully fleshed out expanded Pokemon world with a more limited pool of Pokemon than have a game that has all of the Pokemon, but content had to be cut in order to include them all.

That being said I have no idea their reasoning for it, but if less Pokemon = a smoother, larger game, then I'm ok with that.

But that doesn't make any sense, because Switch cartridges go up to 40GB, how would they not be able to fit all Pokémon in that amount of space?

 

[Blob55]

Oh, and to add insult to injury I found an old video showcasing Pokemon Bank's announcement...

Spoiler: Youtube Link

"For everyone who's played the Pokemon series for a long time, I'm sure all of the Pokemon you have trained are very important to you" indeed.

It was mentioned in the Treehouse stream that their reasoning behind it is self-set time constraints and difficulties in animating that many Pokemon in said time frame, but the current Twitter talk has shown that a lot of people are fine with delay if it means getting every Pokemon in Sword and Shield while the former is INCREDIBLY shaky at best given that the animations have been the same since XY(not to mention that the models are future-proofed to heck and back, that's part of the reason why the 3DS era was so sluggish when more than two Pokemon entered a battle).

The textures are new apparently, but it's still a lame excuse considering XY put the effort in.

 

[Zielo]

Ah ok, I forgot about that bit, time constraint makes sense. Still, what would be stopping them from just adding an update or patch to it later?
I don't recall if a statement was made that it will never happen, or if it was more of a "for the time being" type of announcement.

Edit:
So I went back to rewatch this segment, and while they don't specifically confirm nor deny that it's a permanent thing, they sorta talk as if it is. I also noted that they stated there would be more explained on the topic in later interviews, so I wouldn't rule out that they won't just update into it later.
Memory fails me as to how this sort of thing went in previous generations.

 

[Card Slinger J]

In an interview with USgamer, Junichi Masuda has reiterated that the volume of higher quality animations required due to the Nintendo Switch for such a large amount of Pokémon was a big part in their decision to cut connectivity with Pokémon not in the Galar Pokédex. With that, it also brought the balance of the competitive scene into the fold in order to make the best decisions and keep the competitive nature of the game which results in them going back to reevaluate the best selection. The quote from the interview is as follows:

There are a couple of different parts to the thinking behind it, but really the biggest reason for it is just the sheer number of Pokémon. We already have well over 800 Pokémon species, and there's going to be more added in these games. And now that they're on the Nintendo Switch, we're creating it with much higher fidelity with higher quality animations. But even more than that, it's coming down to the battle system. We're making sure we can keep everything balanced and give all the Pokémon that appear in the games a chance to shine.

We knew at some point we weren't going to be able to indefinitely keep supporting all of the Pokémon, and we just found that Sword and Shield would probably be a good point to go back and reevaluate what would be the best selection of Pokémon that appeal to the widest audience while keeping into consideration the balance of the battle system. It isn't just going to be all-new Pokémon in the Galar region Pokédex; there's still going to be a lot of favorites that fans will be able to bring over that they've adventured with previously. But yeah, it was pretty much just balancing and getting this optimal selection of Pokémon for the adventure we wanted to provide.

"Lots of people are talking about what's happening in Sword / Shield, and not really focusing on the entire thing that Junichi Masuda said. He's not just saying they're cutting out certain Pokémon from Sword / Shield: He's saying that this is an entire policy shift for Nintendo / Game Freak. Because of this, from this game forward, our policy will change. The Pokémon that will appear will be specially selected to fit the stage of adventure."

Don't ever expect to see every Pokémon in one game ever again, even If they release a Gen 4 remake, it'll still have different Pokémon available compared to Sword / Shield, and the pool won't be compatible.

 

[PokeMedic]

You will be unable to transfer any Pokemon to Sword and Shield that does'nt exist in the Galar Region Pokedex

There will be no National Pokedex

And with this blow, history is changed.

 

[Wechselbalg]

Suck it up, buttercup. Think of it as VG having a rotation as well, since it sounds like the different games from now on are going to have a different set of pokemon available. I don't like the fact that megas are leaving for good but at the end of the day we are getting more and different content instead so it's all good.

 

[OVERGRO]

Suck it up, buttercup. Think of it as VG having a rotation as well, since it sounds like the different games from now on are going to have a different set of pokemon available. I don't like the fact that megas are leaving for good but at the end of the day we are getting more and different content instead so it's all good.

I guess the question sort of becomes how many Pokemon will be included in the Galar dex in order to give it the feel of a big universe with wide variety to help us forget that not every Pokemon will be included. USUM had 403. Imo Galar is gonna need ~650-700 (out of the ~875 total we'll probably hit after SwSh), with a mix of populars (lots of Gen 1 already confirmed) and niche Pokemon (ex: Maractus). That being said, realistically I'm guessing we'll get about 500 (~55-60% of the NatDex).

 

[Wechselbalg]

I guess the question sort of becomes how many Pokemon will be included in the Galar dex in order to give it the feel of a big universe with wide variety to help us forget that not every Pokemon will be included. USUM had 403. Imo Galar is gonna need ~650-700 (out of the ~875 total we'll probably hit after SwSh), with a mix of populars (lots of Gen 1 already confirmed) and niche Pokemon (ex: Maractus). That being said, realistically I'm guessing we'll get about 500 (~55-60% of the NatDex).

Some of the pokemon that have already been confirmed by the demo, trailers and screenshots (off the top of my head): Vulpix, Tyranitar, Snover, Wingull, Bunnelby, Bounsweet, Grubbin, Hoothoot, Electrike, Frillish, Milotic, Duskull, Machoke, Vespiquen, Bewear, Hippopotas, Butterfree, Lucario, Togekiss, Meowstic, Hydreigon, Weavile. This list already includes favourites and niche pokemon and I'd expect that by the time the full regional dex will be published on sites like bulbapedia, most people will have calmed down about this "issue."
Besides, we have a lot of new pokemon to look forward to, which is supposed to be one of the main selling points of a new generation.

 

[Blob55]

I guess the question sort of becomes how many Pokemon will be included in the Galar dex in order to give it the feel of a big universe with wide variety to help us forget that not every Pokemon will be included. USUM had 403. Imo Galar is gonna need ~650-700 (out of the ~875 total we'll probably hit after SwSh), with a mix of populars (lots of Gen 1 already confirmed) and niche Pokemon (ex: Maractus). That being said, realistically I'm guessing we'll get about 500 (~55-60% of the NatDex).

The problem with rotating Pokémon is that we can go through whole Generations where some Pokémon don't exist. So Pokémon that are easy to overlook like Sawsbuck and Torkoal may not make it until next Generation, which really sucks! Plus the Sinnoh Dex was made before Pokémon were supposed to be Region locked and 210~ Pokémon isn't enough of a variety. Especially since 1/3 of them are already in Galar (Eevee, Budew, Combee, Magikarp, Onix, Machop, Drifloon, Gastly, Goldeen, Bronzor, Cleffa, Pichu, Hoothoot, Munchlax, Riolu, Wooper, Wingull, Hippopotas, Feebas, Snover, Sneasel, Ralts, Togepi, Rhyhorn, Duskull, Mantyke and Snorunt lines (71 total (ex. Sylveon))).

 

[Card Slinger J]

I think the main issue here has less to do with the National PokéDex being cut from Sword & Shield (because we all knew it was going to happen at some point) and more to do with Nintendo / Game Freak's refusal to meet everyone's expectations of the Pokémon video game franchise which is already a daunting task in itself. Instead of keeping certain features that worked such as the Vs. Seeker and Super Training, they end up removing them by adding in new gimmicks that weren't as useful. It even got to the point where the adventures themselves have become less of a challenge compared to how it was in the past. It's clear to me now that with a new Nintendo Switch title currently in development known as "Town", that they're tired of making new Pokémon games.

Worst case scenario is that everyone's going to boycott Sword & Shield to play competitively on Pokémon Showdown since it will supposedly have all 800+ Pokémon from the National PokéDex including all the new Galar region Pokémon which is supposed to include Mega Evolution, Z-Moves, and Dynamax. In other words you'll have two separate meta's one that includes the National PokéDex and the other that doesn't which has been cherry picked by Nintendo / Game Freak themselves. To be fair the official retail games have been losing money since Gen 5 when Online Battle Simulators for Pokémon were first introduced. Why pay a $60 price tag for a game that you can literally play for free online that has the same graphic capabilities as the Nintendo Switch?

 

[Zielo]

Worst case scenario is that everyone's going to boycott Sword & Shield to play competitively on Pokémon Showdown since it will supposedly have all 800+ Pokémon from the National PokéDex including all the new Galar region Pokémon which is supposed to include Mega Evolution, Z-Moves, and Dynamax. In other words you'll have two separate meta's one that includes the National PokéDex and the other that doesn't which has been cherry picked by Nintendo / Game Freak themselves. To be fair the official retail games have been losing money since Gen 5 when Online Battle Simulators for Pokémon were first introduced. Why pay a $60 price tag for a game that you can literally play for free online that has the same graphic capabilities as the Nintendo Switch?

Except the ratio of people who buy a new Pokemon game just to play it vs. the ratio of people who only play Pokemon for the meta and to battle competitively is very, very small. No one (no large amount of people enough for Nintendo/GF to pay attention to, anyway) is going to boycott the new games just because the competitive pool will be smaller.
Yes, the competitive play scene is big, but it's not everything and it's nothing compared to the number of people that don't do competitive play and just want to play a Pokemon game for the experience. If Pokemon suddenly lost all its competitive VG players, it would hurt yeah but it's not like it's what makes up the entire franchise.
If people only played Pokemon for competitive then yes, the battle simulators would be the only thing people ever used.

Also, GF has made other titles in the past aside from Pokemon, it's nothing new. It doesn't mean that they're tired of Pokemon (although, let's be honest, at least some probably are), I'm glad that they want to expand their range more and more.
I agree with you on that first part though, I wish they wouldn't keep replacing the gimmicks with ones that don't work as well. When they strike a goldmine, they should hold onto it for future generations, not pretend they don't exist anymore or quietly shove them on the backburner.
I recall in reading a past interview how one of the creators discussed this regarding X and Y, and how bringing new gimmicks (in this case, customization) to the games is what separates them from other generations, and without the new/replaced additions, what else could they bring to the table to spice up the newer games and make them different enough so that its not just a copypaste? (jokes on them, it kinda is no matter how you look at it).

I want to say they were initially considering customization only being a Kalos thing, but because there was so much feedback from players on keeping it, they changed their mind, but don't quote me on that.

 

[Card Slinger J]

Also I found an interesting post on reddit regarding Japanese opinions on the National Dex cut:

https://www.reddit.com/r/pokemon/comments/c187sz/japanese_opinion_regarding_national_dex_cut/

People here in Japan are very angry about this also. This is a huge deal for two reasons, the first reason is that in Japan we are rarely vocal about our opinions because we don't like to start conflict. If we are very passionate about something and tell people our opinion publicly, it must be very important. Pokemon is a very popular video game series in Japan and a lot of people care about it. We want Gamefreak and Nintendo to put as much effort into these games as they can to make it the best quality game it can be.

They could have definitely added all of the Pokemon and had no real reason to cut them. The Switch can definitely handle 1000+ Pokemon models, it is much more powerful than the 3ds and that could handle 800+ Pokemon plus their walking/running animations. They already had every old Pokemon model from Sun and Moon to use and just had to update it graphic wise. Plus they already had the 151 Kanto models finished in Let's Go.

They could have put Sword & Shield as a priority and had the best team working on the game but they didn't, instead they side lined Pokemon in favor of a new game and had their secondary team developing Pokemon. They didn't hire enough people to work on the game and treated it like it wasn't important.

The second reason this is a problem, is that when they realized they weren't going to have enough time to update every Pokemon model and put it into the game, they chose not to hire more people and do it. Instead they came up with an unconvincing excuse all so that they wouldn't have to spend any extra time, money, or effort into developing the game. They figured they could get away with cutting content because they figured people would buy the game no matter what terrible decisions they make. They think saving money is more important than making a great game.

And corporate greed is one of the biggest issues people have with this whole thing. Gamefreak and Nintendo are planning on cutting a ton of Pokemon that people love from their future games because they don't want to bother hiring more people or spending more time and money to make the games fun for everyone. It's about more than just the fact that they are not including all of the Pokemon.

Gamefreak and Nintendo have been prioritising other games over Pokemon for a while now and have not been putting nearly enough effort into recent games.

They have been making games with unfinished areas like X and Y or no post game. They have started handing out legendary and mythical Pokemon as gifts instead of introducing them through in-game events that allow us to catch them in a unique area of the game and add to their lore.

And sometimes they add extra things in a version two of the game but we shouldn't have to pay for a whole other game just so we can get a finished version. But it seems like for every step forward they take another two steps back. Some people are pretending not to notice these these things and are still looking through rose colored glasses (I hope I used that English phrase right). The problem with that is that it allows Gamefreak to get way with almost anything, that is partially why there was a drop in quality.

They don't listen to their fans for the most part and that has to change. Pokemon is an important franchise that deserves a super high quality game with a ton of time and effort like Breath of the Wild or Mario Odyssey. The semi-open world areas of Sword & Shield look beautiful and the Pokemon in the over-world is a great new feature. But at the same time they got rid if very popular and creative things like Mega Evolution in favor of one time gimmicks. And if you like those gimmicks that is fine, but it shows that they are not listening to what the majority of fans want.

And now they are giving us an unfinished product that has even less than their 3ds games did. That is not acceptable and that is the biggest problem, Nintendo and Gamefreak think it is okay to put less effort into Pokemon games because we will buy them any way. People want to let them know that we are tired of our favorite games being set to the side . We want them to prioritize Pokemon for once. Sword & Shield deserve to be the best quality Pokemon games they can be. (Someone said I should put this on Reddit, I am a guy in Japan, so I can't use English websites. Anyone reading this can put this on that site or any other discussion site and add their own points if they want.)

 

[Blob55]

Except the ratio of people who buy a new Pokemon game just to play it vs. the ratio of people who only play Pokemon for the meta and to battle competitively is very, very small. No one (no large amount of people enough for Nintendo/GF to pay attention to, anyway) is going to boycott the new games just because the competitive pool will be smaller.
Yes, the competitive play scene is big, but it's not everything and it's nothing compared to the number of people that don't do competitive play and just want to play a Pokemon game for the experience. If Pokemon suddenly lost all its competitive VG players, it would hurt yeah but it's not like it's what makes up the entire franchise.
If people only played Pokemon for competitive then yes, the battle simulators would be the only thing people ever used.

Also, GF has made other titles in the past aside from Pokemon, it's nothing new. It doesn't mean that they're tired of Pokemon (although, let's be honest, at least some probably are), I'm glad that they want to expand their range more and more.
I agree with you on that first part though, I wish they wouldn't keep replacing the gimmicks with ones that don't work as well. When they strike a goldmine, they should hold onto it for future generations, not pretend they don't exist anymore or quietly shove them on the backburner.
I recall in reading a past interview how one of the creators discussed this regarding X and Y, and how bringing new gimmicks (in this case, customization) to the games is what separates them from other generations, and without the new/replaced additions, what else could they bring to the table to spice up the newer games and make them different enough so that its not just a copypaste? (jokes on them, it kinda is no matter how you look at it).

I want to say they were initially considering customization only being a Kalos thing, but because there was so much feedback from players on keeping it, they changed their mind, but don't quote me on that.

I will be so disappointed if there's a Battle Tower clone, because what's the point of having one if so many Pokémon are off limits?

Yeah, GF needs to stop getting rid of old mechanics. My favourites are: PokéNav Plus, Vs Seeker, Item Finder, Super Training, Medal Rally, toggle for running, GB Sounds, Pokémon following you, and PokéGear Radio.
I know not all of those can come back for SwSh, like GB Sound, but the Rotom Dex should have PokéNav features like the DexNav.