r/gaming • u/SgtElectroSketch • 20h ago
With GameFreak's Beast of Reincarnation, Pokopia, and now the OoT Remake, there is no reason for Pokemon to not have a higher level of fidelity on Switch 2.
https://imgur.com/a/Q4wc3hWWe seriously have to stop accepting the laziness of the Pokemon Franchise that we've seen in the mainline games.
Unfortunately, they know we will still buy it either way.
Edit: I know Gamefreak did not make Pokopia or OoT
I should have separated them better. The connection between the 3 games is Game freak + Nintendo + Pokemon Company
Edit 2: Graphical fidelity does not have to mean hyper realism. Games can be stylized and be high fidelity, without looking like real life. Recent HD2D games are examples of what I would call high fidelity, and they're pixel art.
High fidelity just means quality, care, and style. Beautiful environments, things that make you stop and say "Holy shit", it doesn't have to look like a photograph to do that.
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u/thenagz 19h ago
"They know we will still buy it either way"
Well, sounds like you're part of the problem man lol
Pokémon mainline games could've been technically better for a long time now, there's nothing new here. Being conservative has served Game Freak very well, they don't have much reason to spend a lot more or to take risks with the games
Another thing to consider is that designing the new pokémon is, by far, the most important aspect of every new iteration. It's a lot of work - imagine if Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest had to design an entirely new enemy roster for every new game, and if those monsters had to be super marketeable as well.
Though I'm not sure if Game Freak alone is responsible for the designs or not
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u/RatBot9000 18h ago
I dunno if Scarlet and Violet's problems were one throwing more money at would have immediately helped. I think Game Freak were just woefully under prepared for an open world game and then, for some godawful reason, thought they could push one out in 3 years when most companies take 5 years minimum.
There was a hubris issue there and I'm hoping all the talk about performance issues has humbled them. They certainly made sure Legends ZA ran at a mostly consistent frame rate, but you could still see some of the issues that plagued Scarlet and Violet, such as pop-in at close range.
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u/TheBraveGallade 16h ago
though there is another side of the coin: the frequency of realeses.
MULTIPLE japanese companies have gone out and said that they sre stuggling to attract new young people to thier franchises casue the realeses have become too far apart. 5 years is just too long of a term for a franchise to really 'stick' to a kid and make them a lifelong fan.
so in that reguard pokemon's doing the best out of everyone else in japan.
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u/---TheFierceDeity--- 11h ago
Yep, Final Fantasy celebrates its 40th anniversary next year and in the 10 years since it's 30th it's released a single numbered mainline title. 10 years, 83% of the average school aged kids entire school life. One game.
Meanwhile since 2016 Pokemon has released 6 mainline games (Legends are mainline according to GameFreak) and 2 remakes (counting Ultra Sun and Moon as remakes)
A kid in first grade schooling could've played Sun and Moon on their 3DS and by the time they graduate in 2028 they'll have had played Ultra Sun & Moon, Let's Go Pikachu & Eevee, Sword & Shield, Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl, Legends: Arceus, Scarlet & Violet, Legend: ZA and Wind & Waves. Not to mention the 4 DLC's between Sword, Shield, Scarlet and Violet that were bigger than any of the changes the old "Third Versions" used to make.
All that, and that same kid played FF15 in 2016 and FF16 in 2023. With a remake series of FF7 sprinkled between.
Regardless of the quality debate, Pokemon has ingrained itself into that kid's childhood, while Final Fantasy has likely not.
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u/TheBraveGallade 11h ago
its the engagement with the fandom to, and this is ESPECIALLY true with kids. pokemon comes out often enough that kids that are fans of pokemon can continuously engague with 'new things'. by the time a kid is 'done' with a pokemon game the marketting for the next game is likely about to ramp up.
the largest gap between mainline pokemon realeses is 2 years.... though at least now they seem to have split dev teams between legends and mainline, meaning the dev timeline is now 4.
hell, when it comes to mainline, SV took 3, which makes sense considering its scope. winds and waves took FIVE, which is a first. we just got ZA last yea though
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u/Upper_Address_2778 9h ago
This argument goes out the window when it's supplemented by manga, anime, tcg, plushies, and YouTube videos
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u/---TheFierceDeity--- 11h ago
It's not hubris but demand. Pokemon's games are the "source material". And the entirety of the rest of the franchise, which actually makes all the money, demands there be regular, new source material.
I'm sure from a developer standpoint GameFreak would LOVE 5 years to make each new game. But the TCG cash cow, the merchandise, the anime all demand a constant, regular flow of new Pokemon and settings.
Even Wind and Waves which is taking a highly irregular 4 years to make has upset the anime's "routine" where they just finished their big epic story arc culminating in beating the big bad guy and involving a legendary Pokemon and now...they're in a odd time padding arc. That seems to be taking side games like Pokopia as the inspiration. While it's not bad it's clear the anime writers specifically designed the season to only last 3 years and now they gotta stall for time for another year.
That is the be all, end all of Pokemon's problem: the games hold up the entire franchise, and the rest of the franchise makes all the money so the games have to be constantly churned out.
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u/secretdrug 18h ago
Yep. Put your money where your mouth is people. Speak with your wallets. This is capitalism 101. If you keep throwing money at the shitty company when theres better competition then they have no reason to improve or innovate.
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u/FrantixGE 3h ago
New Pokémon have literally been fridges and trash bags… I’d say they haven’t been very creative the last years 😅
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u/FoxyBastard 16h ago
sounds like you're part of the problem man lol
Honestly, "We have to stop accepting this!"
How do I accept it less than not having bought a Pokemon game since Black/White?
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u/YourMomIsCool96 20h ago
Is it a hot take to say that the reveal trailer for Pokemon WiWa looked good?
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u/Odd-Banana-7227 19h ago
Yeah I thought the graphics looked fine. Definitely a big improvement from what they managed on the Switch 1.
Now let's see if it runs like ass or if they're actually taking it seriously this time lol
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u/ApocalypticWalrus 15h ago
On the bright side with this one they've had actual years so I'd imagine this one wont scream "rushed" like swsh and sv did (both in very different ways but still).
Whether its up to par we'll see, but I'd imagine it'll atleast be an improvement in that regard.
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u/cardgamesareforplay 15h ago
The trailers for gen 9 had performance issues too lol they don't really hide issues
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u/TheBusStop12 14h ago
Yeah, they actually showed the 1fps windmills and sunflora in the trailers. If there's one thing you could commend GameFreak for is that they are very honest about that kind of stuff in their promotional material
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u/tracy_ogbert_jordan 11h ago
I could be wrong but I think that's just a Nintendo thing. My understanding is they don't do any sort of bullshots in their trailers. So even if the trailer was "in engine" rather than "in game", I would expect the final game to look similar.
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u/cardgamesareforplay 10h ago
Nah it's game freak cause beast of reincarnation had frame drops in the trailer too (which ended up in the game somehow even when game freak isn't actually programing the same thing happens)
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u/lactatingRHINO7 20h ago
I think many people here genuinely don't remember because it definitely looked pretty nice. Not the greatest looking game of all time obviously but far and away beyond the level that the Switch 1 games looked.
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u/SouthIsland48 19h ago
Lets see FPS when it releases
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u/RatBot9000 18h ago
The trailer looked like 60, which is good because the trailers for Scarlet and Violet ran just as well as the game itself lmao
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u/CankleDankl PC 19h ago
I'd even take 30 as long as shit doesn't go down to like 3 fps in the distance and the game doesn't look like dogshit
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u/Icehellionx 19h ago
distance... I liked S/V okay but the low frame rate distances would kick in literally before it reached the back of a closed classroom. That shit was ROUGH.
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u/The_Sturk 19h ago
If you ever played S/V on Switch 2, the performance is drastically improved. That one windmill town was moving at the correct speed regardless of distance and water/lakes did not tank the FPS
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u/YewWahtMate 19h ago
I think it's all relative. It looked good in comparison to where Pokémon mainline titles have been these last few years. Does it look good across the market? Not really is what I would say.
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u/HydraTower 19h ago
Idk man that water looked pretty damn nice.
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u/1minatur 18h ago
Water looked great. Some of the textures were pretty obviously low res, on top of pretty blocky terrain. Head and shoulders above the previous entries, but I'd agree with the other person that it's behind the rest of the market.
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u/RatBot9000 18h ago
Do we expect an improvement before launch do you think? That trailer is 6 months old and the leaks are saying November 2027. Depending on how much of the game they have done, that's still a decent amount of time to give it a bit of polish.
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u/Majestic-Math-7905 19h ago
Well, it only really has to be 'much better' than the last game, not the market. The benchmark for a game can't be the highest level of fidelity, speciallky for a switch 2 game. It's not for high end PC or a ps5 pro
If it is 'much better' and runs 'much better' and looks 'much better', it's fine. each iteration improves on the previous one
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u/matticusiv 18h ago
Looked like a big leap from their last couple games, to be fair they didn’t show a whole lot yet.
Hope for the best, expect the worst lol.
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u/jcjny213 19h ago
It’s not but that won’t stop Pokemon fans from constantly posting things like this
WiWa, judging from the trailer, is going to COMFORTABLY be the best looking Pokemon game ever. Not even close.
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u/javsent 18h ago
If all other 3d pokemon games have looked like ass, is that a tough bar to raise? Is it wrong to want a game that actually looks good compared to other IPs?
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u/Yarra10313 19h ago
It looked incredible…
…for Pokemon. And that’s always been the issue. They make small jumps from game to game but still haven’t caught up to where AAA gaming was during the PS3 era
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u/novelgpa 20h ago edited 20h ago
I mean, we've seen 1 (one) trailer of WiWa and I thought it looked pretty good.
Are you implying you want Pokemon to have a realistic art style like Beast of Reincarnation (which was mostly outsourced to other studios, and isn't even on Switch 2) and OoT?
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u/WonderSuperior 20h ago
Let's start small with a stable 30fps at 1080p. Don't want to overwhelm a small indie company.
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u/PsychoCobra1 20h ago edited 20h ago
Doesn’t ZA target 60 fps and dynamic 4K when docked on Switch 2?
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u/TyroPirate 18h ago
Where did you read that they want a realistic art style? They listed pokopia, which is idk about your eye sight, but I dont see realism there. But its a great arts style for pokemon imo. Combine that art style with the more details that you see in the OoT trailer, with Link's clothes for example and maybe, just... maybe... we could see some actually fur/scales/feather on pokemon now on the switch 2 instead of them all continuing to look like plastic figures.
Stuff like this is clearly what op is getting at, and bringing up Beasts because even itlf it was contracted out, Gamefreak ultimately directed it and they have contractors that can make higher fidelity graphics for them while GF, idk, maybe optimizes the games better to run at a stable frame rate?
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u/Expert-Improvement78 20h ago
It looked decent for Pokémon standards. But nowhere near what other games in the switch 2 put out.
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u/kyuubikid213 20h ago
Yes. Gamers are children that equate realistic graphics with good graphics.
Every time this discussion comes up, it's because Pokémon doesn't have a realistic art style.
You'll see a similar discussion when people are talking about Persona's art style.
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u/Gazmanic 17h ago
You ever seen zelda BOTW? That game isn't realistic, it's stylised, the game ran better and looks better than sword and shield WHILE RUNNING ON A POTATO. The reason the games look like shit is because there core audience don't care, and will fervently defend them online with false equivalents.
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u/msweston00 19h ago
It's not that pokemon isn't a realistic art style it's because the games look like they're 3 console generations behind when we've seen great looking games on the Switch 1 and 2.
Edit: we've all seen Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, for how it looks it should at least run well on the Switch 1 but nope. You have to spend at least another $500 to get decent performance by the game still looks bad
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u/SgtElectroSketch 19h ago
I'm all for stylized games. What I'm not for are flat empty plains or "forests" that have trees only every 50 feet. I want a jungle to look like a jungle. Imagine if every environment could be even close to what New Pokemon Snap showed.
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u/RicebinBernacky 20h ago
what's the relevance of Pokopia and Ocarina of Time? Game freak had nothing to do with those
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u/Legal_Desk_3298 20h ago
Probably stating the console can handle it and GF can make it.
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u/Veutifuljoe_0 20h ago
It’s exactly that, the 3ds had a reasonable excuse with its more limited hardware, the switch didn’t have that excuse and and now they DEFINITELY don’t have that excuse. I stand by my claim that Pokemon would be in a much better position right now if sword and shield had been a financial failure
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u/roxas_leonhart 19h ago edited 19h ago
Did I miss something? Am I in a minority of players for liking sword and shield?
Edit: Classic Reddit. Downvoting a genuine question.
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u/Veutifuljoe_0 19h ago
Probably, I can’t speak for everyone but imo Gen 8 is by far the worst Pokemon generation, it doesn’t help that you’re barely even the main character in sword and shield
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u/Guiff 19h ago
The fact S/V failed in some areas is the reason the Pokemon Company is being more careful with Winds and Waves.
It was the first mainline Pokemon game that was delayed for polish and broke the 3 year release window, something that has been the standard since 1996 with only gen 4 and 5 taking an extra year to develop.
But even ignoring these 2, the last 4 generations all had 3 year release windows, WW will have 5.
Fair to assume that if Sword and Shield failed, Scarlet and Violet might have been delayed and a more polished product too.
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u/SalvaIllyen 19h ago
Switch one has BotW, Witcher 3, Kingdom Come Deliverance, etc. and yet SV and SS look like they do, the console being powerful enough doesn't mean anything when GF are awful at optimising.
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u/probablypoo 19h ago
The console can handle it but Gamefreak are absolutely not able to make it as it is. Gamefreak could make the highest budget game ever and way more detailed than Red Dead Redemption 2 with their massive capital but only if they hired competent developers, which they will never do.
Their games are not even on par with indie games.
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u/DTJ20 19h ago
It likely wouldn't affect sales on a noticable scale anyway. Pokemon makes bank, regadless of effort put in.
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u/probablypoo 19h ago
You're absolutely right. It would be stupid of them to invest more since they already sell more than any other franchise. It's still disapointing thinking what could be.
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u/Ipokeyoumuch 19h ago
From what I have heard they have average competent junior developers or contractors but they bemoan the constant grind, low manpower lack of care and passion by senior staff, lack of recent tools and mentoring. However, that could be changing since emany of those reviews were around SWSH/SV era. Though on their marketing and creative side they are generally pretty satisfied since they get more perks like daycare, paid business trips, time to create, etc.
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u/ShinaiYukona 19h ago
I'm sorry, but there's no world where I want to see a Taurus ball sack go through as many variations as the horses in RDR2
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u/Vapour79 20h ago
The point being those games show what the switch 2 is capable of.
If OOT can look that good then Pokémon can certainly be better visually.
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u/SalvaIllyen 19h ago
3DS had OoT and Majora's Mask and both of those look better than XY/ORAS/SM/USUM. GF are just not good at this kind of stuff.
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u/RicebinBernacky 20h ago
ok, but we've known that already for years, that Pokemon is not coming close to pushing the hardware like other Nintendo games. So what do these three games demonstrate that we didn't already know is my question
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u/ImaginarySense 20h ago
Not everything needs to be groundbreaking, new information.
Sometimes people just want to discuss something using recent examples as talking points.
I’m positive not everything you put forth is cutting-edge relevancy
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u/tripleaamin 19h ago
With the OG Switch Pokémon hasn't come close to BOTW, TOTK, or Xenoblade. The connection between these 3 and OoT Remake is that Monolith Soft.
Why do people think the Switch 2 it would be any different. The fact that reportly Gamefreak rejected Monolith's help (The Zelda team not the Xenoblade team) really disappoints me.
Another thing to consider as well is how fast these games come out from Gamefreak.
- Pokémon: Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee! -> 2018
- Pokémon Sword and Shield -> 2019
- Pokémon Legends: Arceus -> 2022
- Pokémon Scarlet and Violet -> 2022
- Pokémon Legends: Z-A -> 2025
- Pokémon Winds and Waves -> 2027
This is a much shorter development cycle than Nintendo's other first party stuff.
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u/KnowNoDada 19h ago
Pushing the hardware? Gamefreak barely glanced in the direction of the hardware.
They could at least make the appearance of an effort.
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u/Ipokeyoumuch 19h ago
I would argue the last time they pushes the hardware was during Sun and Moon/Ultra Sun and Moon. Despite its pacing/cutscene problems the games were in a good state even if there were alleged bad programming practices present.
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u/gho5trun3r 19h ago
Because there are still people out there that push back that Nintendo hardware can't handle what we expect. Or that Pokemon doesn't work in 3D.
Neither of these are true and it's like we have to keep reminding people of the counterpoints every couple of months or else they'll forget.
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u/HumbleGarbage1795 18h ago
Game Freak developed pokopia together with Koei Tecmo/Omega Force.
GF has more to do with pokopia than beast of reincarnation.
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u/Raimeiken 14h ago
well I skipped pokemon ZA so there's me voting with my dollars
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u/PopMelon 7h ago
I've refused to buy them since Black/White. That extra-pixellated look was just terrible. I've played B/W since and the game itself is actually pretty decent but it still looks horrific. Tried some of the 3DS ones and the over-tutorialisation is unbearable.
They've got me (and my son) if they make a decent game. Otherwise I'll keep waiting.
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u/Nettysocks 19h ago
Couldn’t care about detail and fidelity in Pokemon game, it just needs to look distinct and stylish
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u/zeetandroid 18h ago
Reddit is hyper fixated on graphics and assumes all of pokemon on the switch sucks because it's not realistic. We've had so many distinct art styles now on the switch (lets go, swsh/Arceus, sv, za), which all change it up in their own way even just visually. Plus each pokemon game has so many side mechanics (photos, sync mode, cooking, multiplayer modes, shiny hunting methods) but everyone only cares about the battle frontier which hasn't been in a game for like 20 years now. If you only see the trailers and watch your favourite streamer play the game, it's obviously not going to look fun, but this is reddit where the only good games released 15+ years ago
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u/Level3pipe 11h ago
I don’t think the majority of people want realistic graphics. They just want it to run at a locked frame rate without ridiculous pop in.
They can totally do that they just choose not to
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u/twinsfan94 20h ago
Did you not see the Winds and Waves trailer?
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u/Shoddy_Meaning_7654 20h ago
Everyone forgot about it apparently on Reddit because it doesn't help the circle jerk
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u/Electric_jungle 20h ago
I think it's completely fair to not trust them until they deliver, despite the trailer looking good.
Not that this post is actually accomplishing anything.
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u/louigi1209 19h ago
Actually if there’s one thing Game Freaks has proved to be reliable on, it’s the fact that their games always are as seen in the trailers!
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u/Shoddy_Meaning_7654 19h ago
Game freak is always truthful about what's in their trailers is what's actually in the game to a fault like Pokemon Legends Arceus the first trailer for that game was pretty rough the frame rate didn't look great and it had a lot of graphical issues it didn't look perfect when it came out either still had a lot of issues but it looked a lot better than the trailers so usually the trailers look worse than the actual release game
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u/abrahammtz 19h ago
It looked like a competent, average game; did that constitute Game Freak making an effort? If so, the bar for what makes a good pokemon game is very, very low.
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u/LordTopHatMan 19h ago
Visuals aren't really what made Pokemon good though. Despite the poor graphics and even the atrocious technical issues, I still had fun with Scarlet and Violet. Should they have been better? Absolutely. Were they still good pokemon games? 100%. They would have been top 3 if they ran well.
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u/notthatguypal6900 17h ago
Beast of Reincarnation wasn't a smash hit, GameFreak just isn't a good dev.
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u/Mojo647 19h ago
I don't know if Pokémon is the kind of franchise that needs higher fidelity. We don't need everything to go into hyper realism.
As for performance, on the other hand, they really need to get their act together.
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u/victortristan 18h ago
I suspect that winds and waves were supposed to be at the direct, but Nintendo probably told game freak to work on it more when they have something like Zelda and Kirby looking amazing.
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u/Hammerheadshark55 20h ago
I dont want pokemon to have ultra realistic graphic like OoT. That would be horrible to look at. The new wind and wave looks good enough although i would prefer sword and shield style more
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u/Bloomingk 20h ago
I want a game that looks exactly like the original anime and its totally possible with current tech. Like what orbitals did for the 80s anime aesthetic.
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u/TLKv3 18h ago
All I want is Let's Go artstyle with higher fidelity and 60fps. More densely populated open world areas and locations. Cities and towns that actually have more than 3 enterable buildings with 10 total NPCs throughout. Forests that have more than 2 trees every 20 steps I walk. More PVE content.
Give me that and I don't care about anything else.
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u/BakuraGorn 20h ago
If the game had the level of fidelity and performance as a game like DK Bananza or MH Stories 3, would already be a huge progress.
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u/Shoddy_Meaning_7654 20h ago
I mean we've already seen what 2027s Pokemon winds and waves looks like, but lol reddit maybe y'all forgot since y'all have fish brains.
It doesn't look perfect but it looks solid visually like very late PS3 early PS4 level visuals at like 1080pish like 1.5-2 gens ahead of scarlet and violet
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u/CosmoJones07 20h ago
It's not "laziness".
They are always on a strict, limited budget of time. But the games are expected to keep getting bigger and better, with more and more things/content, as well as better graphics. But without the increased dev time to accommodate all that.
As such, they have to make a decision. Do we spend our finite time adding more gameplay features and story content, bigger world, more unique move animations, etc.? Or do we spend our time polishing the graphics more? And thus far, they have decided on the former a lot more.
Thankfully/hopefully, Winds and Waves appears to be getting more time in the oven than the past mainline games have. We'll see how much that helps.
But if you want to blame someone, don't blame the "laziness" of devs, that's stupid. Blame TPC's unwavering deadlines.
EDIT - Oh god I just realized I typed that out a little "too well", people are gonna think I used AI to write that lmfao
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u/lattjeful 19h ago
Yep. It all comes down to time. That’s also why the budgets are so low. There’s a lot of hands that work on Pokemon, but Japanese salaries + short dev times means the amount that actually gets spent is pretty small.
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u/StevynTheHero 20h ago
I applaud your ability to understand these concepts. Unfortunately, I don't expect most redditors to possess these thinking skills and emulate your rational attitude. They will continue with their baseline primitive emotional responses.
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u/PM_ME_UR_CREDDITCARD 13h ago
If you look at the small details like pokemon behaviour (especially in legends arceus) it's definitely not lazy.
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u/ArxisOne 18h ago
It's wild too because what we saw of WiWa was over 6 months ago and the release date is probably still over a year out. I don't expect any major graphical changes but the fact that they had it looking good has me hoping it'll be a ZA situation where all the extra time gets poured into extra side quests and stuff to fill out the game and make it feel less barebones.
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u/Sea_Back_4747 20h ago
Pokopia was co-developed by Game Freak and Koei Tecmo. Theres a ton of game freak staff in the credits and the senior director is form Game Freak. I dont know why so many people are insists gf had no involvement when they clearly did. Also WiWa's first trailer looks completely fine? I dont see anything wrong with it.
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u/TG-Benji 20h ago
The trailer for Winds and Waves looks gorgeous so not sure what point you're trying to make.
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u/AccountDeletedByMod 19h ago
Pretty much what you see in the trailer is what you get, for better or worse, I respect that.
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u/Cartman55125 20h ago
Cinematic trailers are not gameplay
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u/Stinky_Queef 20h ago
Mainline Pokemon games rarely do cinematic trailers. They always use gameplay.
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u/Dazzling_Meal4040 20h ago
Scarlet and violet trailers were largely accurate to what it looked like. Like shit if anything it looked even worse than the final product
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u/PM_ME_UR_CREDDITCARD 13h ago
Yup, usually their trailers are what you get, or they've sometimes made some small graphical improvements since. They're honest about how the games look and run at least
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u/TG-Benji 20h ago
Except it was clearly in-engine.
GF is a lot of things, but they don't have a history of showing trailers that look better than the final product.
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u/KiryuMajimaYagami 20h ago
That trailer was definitely gameplay just with custom camera angles for the trailer
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u/Shoddy_Meaning_7654 20h ago
Obviously but I don't think any Pokémon trailer has looked like a complete generation ahead of actual gameplay also it was a course of cinematic trailer the game was coming out for another like 19 months it's just a preview.
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u/Doam-bot 15h ago
tsk tsk You poor thing
Zelda Botw was on the Wii U and Xenoblade Chronicles 1 was on the Wii. Pokemon can't even reach those hieghts yet people still expect the world.
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u/TheStupid_Guy 13h ago
Thing is Beast of Reincarnation kinda sucked. It seems like they can only either do decent gameplay but bad quality, or bad gameplay but decent quality.
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u/DocWhovian1 11h ago
Why are there still posts like this when we have SEEN Winds and Waves and it looks very good and will look EVEN better next time we see it.
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u/yick04 20h ago
While I agree in principle, they also need to animate ~400 Pokemon doing around 70 different moves each on average. I'm sure some moves reuse other animations, but still.
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u/zeetandroid 18h ago
In addition to moves they also have interactions like how the pose in photos, how they react to the trainer and each other in the wild (and even the environment in some cases, like Jigglypuff flying away in rainy weather). Plus any camping style mini games where you can play with them. People just take a look at an in-battle screenshot and conclude it's all reused assets
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u/Knicks-Knacs-sKnacks 18h ago
I'd also argue that at this level of fidelity, some if not most pokemon will lose that pokemon "cuteness".
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u/sipup 20h ago
Besides pokopia, no new pokemon games have been released on switch 2 no?
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u/adorablegadget 20h ago
Legends ZA, sort of. Just performance was better because I think the game was made for the Switch.
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u/drjenkstah 20h ago
Blame Pokemon Company and their requirements for Gamefreak to just keep pumping out games. Gamefreak can make great looking games, just look at Beasts of Reincarnation.
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u/sheimeix 19h ago
I desperately hope Pokemon never looks like the OOT remake or Beast of Reincarnation. They don't look bad (while I'm not a fan of the OOT remakes look I'd be much more receptive if it was a new Zelda game entirely) but stylistically a more simple art direction fits Pokemon. Honestly, I think WiWa in the trailer pushed the Pokemon environment style about as far as I'd like it to go.
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u/Darkdart19 19h ago
Here are three things that are unrelated, so I will draw a conclusion that Pokemon should match
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u/CrusaderLyonar 20h ago
GameFreak is a relatively small studio making a very large game on a pretty tight schedule, that they have little control over.
Hopefully with Winds and Waves taking a longer time they can flesh things out more.
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u/PsychoCobra1 20h ago
Beast of Reincarnation also had its main programming and technical aspects offloaded onto another studio. It’s not like it was made in house via GameFreak either.
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u/lattjeful 19h ago
Winds/Waves look fine. Nothing mindblowing, but fine. Pokemon has never been the best looking game on any system. Look at how the GBA games look VS stuff like Golden Sun, the DS games VS Okamiden and Metroid Prime Hunters, etc. Obviously their Switch output was subpar visually, but Winds/Waves looks fairly competent which is all I need provided it’s actually a decent game.
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u/BigTWilsonD 19h ago
Slow day at the karma farm, huh? This is a games journalism tier post alright.
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u/woojewjake 16h ago
Been playing every gen of Pokemon since Bank announcement and every game is phenomenal TPC has never missed.
I understand the performance on switch 1 is terrible but when you play the games on switch 2 they are phenomenal games some of the most fun I’ve ever had playing video games
Combined with the TCG, and POGO the Franchise has never been in a better spot and just wait when they announce the Gen 5 remakes and the next Legends games combined with Gen 10
Any criticism of Gamefreak is so lazy when every game is made with so much passion and the focus of every game is the actual Pokemon 1st the battle mechanic 2nd then the region 3rd and anyone who actually plays the game past the horribly long tutorials will tell you the same.
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u/thebearsnake 14h ago
I mean, based on what we've seen, wind and waves obviously DOES have better graphics than any pokemon game ever. Arguably the biggest jump for a pokemon game yet, because though I do like S/V, That's not much of a jump even from the 3ds era. We will see how it fully shakes out next year I suppose.
Obviously, I would prefer it maintains some of it's traditional aesthetic. It does NOT need to look like OOT remake or beast of reincarnation.
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u/Mr_AppleBerry 11h ago
Why though? Pokemon has never been on the forefront of fidelity, people play it for it's design and gameplay it doesn't need to be as visually impressive as BotW.
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u/jackfwaust 20h ago
Gamefreak is one of the laziest developers out there so not happening. Pokemon is embarrassingly behind where it should be as a franchise and they’re content with minimum effort
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u/marcusbrothers 20h ago
Did you see their budgets and dev times from the leaks a while back?
I was shocked at how little funding they receive considering the value of the IP and games.
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u/RDAwesome 20h ago
The second a person says a dev is lazy, you can usually pretty much dismiss their opinion out of hand
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u/Diligent_Kangaroo_91 20h ago
I don't care about visuals as much I care about a more evolved level of gameplay.
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u/adorablegadget 20h ago
We are seeing some change as they are taking longer to make the next mainline game but only time will tell if it matters.
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u/disgracedchicken 20h ago
This is really the first time I can recall with the new era of pokemon that they are behind their original schedule. Everyone expecting WiWa out this year when the rumors started and for it to be next year (most likely holiday as that’s their spot and the other games announced for the switch for the rest of the year). Giving them over a year and a half for polish and things from the reveal trailer, I have high hopes
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u/DemonDeacon86 19h ago
ELI5, who/what is GameFreak?
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u/ensign53 19h ago
The people who make Pokemon.
Pokemon isn't actually a first party game for Nintendo, it's just been exclusive to Nintendo. The Pokemon Company is jointly owned by Gamefreak, Creatures, and Nintendo who all work together to manage the IP.
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u/CJDistasio 19h ago
Complacency says otherwise. They know they can do whatever they want and it will print money
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u/Iggy_Slayer 19h ago
The reason is they don't have to because you suckers will keep buying the same crap over and over no matter how bad it gets.
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u/Zombie-flamingo 19h ago
It might be controversial but they shouldn't try to include so many pokemon. They should limit it and focus on improving animations for them.
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u/Joshawott27 19h ago
Funnily enough, one of my thoughts when watching the Ocarina of Time trailer is that the framerate of the windmill at Kakariko Village looked rough, whereas Scarlet/Violet fixed that issue with the Switch 2 patch.
Beasts of Reincarnation also wasn’t properly developed by Game Freak either. It was part of their “Gear Project” initiative, which is largely outsourced.
Aside from Pokopia, what do you mean by graphical “fidelity”? Both Ocarina of Time and Beasts of Reincarnation have a more photorealistic art style, which would not work with Pokémon.
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u/VanillaMuch2759 19h ago
Odds are they’ll keep it as is so they can release it on the OG Switch too.
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u/GenericFatGuy 19h ago
You're forgetting the key element here:
TPC already makes all the money in the world with quality of Pokemon games they put out now, so why bother putting in more effort?
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u/Sky-todd 19h ago
They ship the cheapest mininimum viable product because people keep buying it, and the make millions off of it, so why would they change?
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u/DreamingDjinn 19h ago
Look, I'm just mad that Pokemon Stadium 1 and 2 for the N64 had more battle animations than any Pokemon game in the time since.
I don't need real-time combat. I want a battle system that looks good and feels great to play. They should crib some notes from Atlus and the Persona team or something idk
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u/thegreatmango 19h ago
I mean, the fidelity of what we saw in the Wind and Waves trailers were pretty high.
What are you using to judge where it stands, currently, Switch 1 games?
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u/illucio 19h ago
I don't like defending Gamefreak, they rush their games, their quality dropped significantly since jumping to 3D and only got worse each year.
But they do have a limitation on how many characters they can spawn on a map. That's more characters to render and having so many monster designs is limiting.
I do think Winds & Waves will be a nice jump fidelity. The leak builds of the game show that with the water builds and the little we've seen so far of the games.
But no they definitely have accepted rushed and incomplete games, making compromise after compromise in game development in order to meet impossible deadlines to the point the games become hollow and bargain bin cheap. They always feel a generation or two behind, and always hide behind the fact the console or handheld they are on are not powerful enough, when we have plenty of games since the DS days disproving that belief.
But nothing will change until it hurts their wallets, their brand name is tarnished and they start losing a ton of money because of their subpar quality.
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u/eagleblue44 19h ago
Let's wait and see what gen 10 is like. The trailer looked good to me. They took a year off from releasing a mainline Pokemon game.
I'm shocked at the number of people who were acting like the switch 2 versions of scarlet and violet fixed everything wrong with it. Yeah, the frame rate is stable and more pokemon appear but there are still lighting glitches, weird pop-in issues and looks bad.
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u/Arashii89 19h ago
Granblue fantasy relink has a good art style that would work well for Pokémon games
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u/redjoker89 19h ago
Gamefreak outsourced the majority of beast of reincarnation. It’s fine you accept that Pokemon unfortunately is a game that’s always a generation behind in terms of performance and visuals.
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u/lolwatokay 19h ago
No reason other than it clearly isn’t a requirement to become the next best selling Pokémon game of all time, every time.
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u/choaticmaster33 19h ago
Graphical Fidelity is the least of Pokemon's issues. Tbh it's a rod game freak made for its own back they should have kept pokemon 2d and just made the pixel art progressively better.
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u/Badalight 20h ago
It won't.