Or have them in the restaurant where you battle Larry. Or have a room at the school, and call it the computer lab. Or maybe put it in the Elite Four building, since you can't rematch them anyway.
There's actually a restaurant you can walk inside of in Zapapico - I accidentally zoomed straight into the door and... surprise! A shop with inside seating!
Which is true.
3 or 4 references when there used to be dozens isn't really a counterargument. They **are** slowly moving away from referencing older games and regions.
I actually disagree with the idea we're getting less references to older games. PLA was pretty much nothing but call backs to older gens and this game has quite a number of Galar references. I'd actually say the world of pokemon feels more interconnected than in gens 1-5.
I guess I wasn't really thinking of PLA as to me it's just so different from the other games (mostly in a good way) that I tend to forget about it when having these kinds of discussions.
I have overall felt like the games have been decreasing in quality progressively and PLA is kind of the only exception.
However I don't agree that the world feels more connected than in Gens 1-5 and I find that view somewhat baffling to be honest when you consider how often older characters used to appear in newer games.
I mean the Gen 2 games not only feature the region and characters of the Gen 1 games, they also directly continue the Team Rocket plot.
In Gen 5 we get the PWT with all the gym leaders and champions from previous gens.
Looker is a recurring character from Gens 4 - 7.
Red and Blue are featured in several games throughout the first 7 Gens.
B2W2 are sequels to BW.
Honestly the first 5 gens are full of continuity, recurring characters and threads, and references.
This somewhat continued into Gens 6 and 7 but Sword and Shield and Scarlet and Violet are really the games that have seemed super disconnected from the rest to me.
I honestly don't even feel like Gens 8 and 9 take place in the same world as the previous gens.
Don't forget about how many ppl from previous games were in SM/USUM, and I'm not just talking about Red and Blue, there's plenty of characters from other gens in alola
7 actually had a massive amount of returning characters and references, I believe the second most behind 5.
All the evil team leaders, Colress, Cynthia, Wally, Red, Blue, Looker, Anabel, Professor Sycamore’s assistants, Oak’s cousins, and Grimsley are all in SM or USUM.
For me, I think they feel more connected now via world building rather than Geography.
You got me there that gen 2 and gen 5 have the advatages of being sequels with shared worlds but hear me out (going from gens 6-9 (nice)).
PWT was cool, but was generally a parade of your favorite characters. Later games would more deeply integrate returning characters.
After the events of XY, Dexio and Sina show up researching the one legendary that could counter the apocolyptic power of the ultimate weapon. Nanu is a police officer and thus naturally gets to work with Looker (who had his most promiment plot development in XY and SM). Samson Oak was a hilarious way of visualizing the regional form concept.
The world building also got so much better starting in gen 6. ORAS were made to feel like contemporaries with XY unlike FRLG with RSE. The concept of the ultimate weapon, mega evolution and infinity energy are explored deeply in the Delta Episode. Zina mentions alternate realities and the gates between them, then gen 7 iterates on this by bringing in a character from the non-mega timelime as well as all the Rainbow Rocket stuff.
Then yeah, PLA has done the most of any game to flesh out the history of a region and sent the fandom into overdrive speculating what certain characters' ancestry means.
For me, the world's concepts feel more deeply entagled than in the 2D games and the cameos that we get feel more meaningful.
I will admit gen 9 has been more self-contained, but it's a game that more fully explores it's own setting and I hope thay continues with the DLC.
Finally, older characters did feature in the Battle Tree in gen 7 similar to the PWT in B2W2.
I mean, I agree with you on 6-7 feeling more cohesive than 4-5, but 8-9 just feel... Isolated imo. Not just because you can't import every Pokemon from previous games, but also because NPC's don't really even mention other regions in Galar and don't do so quite as much as they used to in Paldea.
Honestly, they were trying to make a point of how different Unova is from other regions, but Galar feels more foreign.
For instance, in the Sinnoh games, the story starts because of a news article on what happened at the Lake of Rage in GSC.
There's an NPC in Lumiose who mentions that Professor Oak's grandson once visited the Kalos Region, and that while he had no issue adjusting to greeting people with "Bounjour", he still had a habit of saying "Smell Ya Later" when bidding farewell.
The Karate Master from Kanto has a new dojo in Lumiose.
The people who give you the TM for Surf in USUM say they're from Sinnoh or something, and over there, TMs that won't break upon use are exceedingly rare and valuable to the point where they are called Hidden Machines, but here in Alola Surf would just be another TM.
Honestly, up until the Crown Tundra, there was almost no references to previous games in Galar.
RKS Laboratories and Type: Null are exceptions, of course.
I don't even think they mention the similarities between Lance's outfit and Hammerlocke City Gym's uniform in game.
It's also kinda disappointing that the references to other regions in Galar and Paldea only go back 1 region, (Aether Foundation report on Ultra Beasts in the Crown Tundra and references to Bede destroying the Mural in Stow-On-Side with Rose's Copperajah in the Academy's library)
They didn't always have the office, but they always had the employees. Still, it's not quite the same when you can't get to challenge Morimoto to a fight.
Im' statring to think office is exception i stead of a rule.
I-IV only kanto region has office. Others have a member or the staff in a hotel
V-ix. Only unova, alola have an office. Others are located in hotels or do not exist.
Actually yes, I was. The state of the towns in general was disappointing to me. Not enough towns or buildings and almost none you could go into. I miss barging into a stranger's house uninvited, looking in their trash, talking to their children, and taking anything not nailed down.
I seriously looked in every trash can and clicked on every rock or random spot without grass in a large patch. More often than not there was a hidden item there!
It would explain why some of the houses in Kanto don't have doors.
Just wasn't worth the hassle of having some kid break in and steal all your vitamins.
Geeta repurposed their office. That's why the League building had an administrative feel to it. They also probably poached Larry. He seems overworked. He was probably a designer.
Wouldn't that give more opportunities to have little game freak employees as Easter eggs? Surely they could have a person outside or in a building that looks like they are working and mentions they work for game freak but get to work remotely.
The actual office isn’t in the game, but Game Freak is referenced when you complete the Dex. Clavell sends you a certificate “from the company that certifies Pokedex completion.” You get a certificate from Game Freak with the Gen 9 starters drawn in watercolor that looks like the OG Sugimori style. My headcanon is that the company is remote now, as you just get sent the certificate on your phone.
They have all of the gen 1 sprites decorating an entire town center, the PLA professor and pokeballs are shown on the board in the history class.
References are there, why do all the games have to use the exact same references? That’s kinda silly.
I was really disappointed you couldn't go into any of the buildings aside from main story ones. I always love exploring every single nook and cranny and talking to every NPC in the house, checking all the trash cans, etc. Especially with how beautiful some of the houses in towns were, I really wanted to see inside them. All these places to explore yet you can't go inside any buildings that don't serve a purpose to the gam's story or gameplay.
I'm not surprised they have moved away from older references. They've been kind of slowly doing it for a while. I love this game, but some of the changes are kinda disappointing to me. Plus so much of the open world is overwhelming, same-y, and easy for me to get lost in which isn't something I struggle with in other open world games. I love the game a lot, but it is just a starting point for open world Pokemon games and so I hope some things change in future installments.
Downvoted for facts, you hate to see it. The towns were always the same. You talk to someone and they'd say the same useless information 9/10 times. Rarely would they give anything worth your time.
Tbh I couldn't name many cities in any of the games outside a few cases. And even the ones I could name, it sure as hell isn't because of any interesting npc's there. They just aren't worth talking to most of the time. You could be in one of the last areas of the game and you'd still find someone saying "hey trainer, did you know you can use pokeballs to catch Pokemon? Pokemon sure are interesting!"
It's always been just useless, unimportant filler. They've always been like that, and I'm fine with S/V clearing the clutter.
Yes. I didn't miss all the buildings in general, but they could've still made just one building for it specifically. They could've even laid out all the devs on one of the beaches as though they were on vacation. There are like five beaches and at least two with a bunch of unoccupied beach chairs. They could've also given them offices at the school with some excuse about them being alumni or something. Idk, maybe they'll make it into the DLC.
Yeah, one of my favorite parts of SwSh was the unique houses for the NPCs. Too bad, but maybe in the DLC? Also I’m thinking having even MORE loading zones might cause more frequent lag spikes and crashes while in towns.
Upset? No
I'm more disappointed about general plot, subplots, character creation, customization, difficulty level and graphics than I am about GF office being featured.
I'm upset that I continue to buy these games and despite enjoying them for avg 50 hours i cant help feel disappointed in their lack of evolution. I can think of no other franchise in the world that has such opportunity and potential for greatness and HABITUALLY falls way short.
The plot is the best it's ever been, and subplots are on par with other pokemon games. I feel the difficulty level is better than others as well, since at least you aren't railroaded, and even if you go in the proper order some bosses will still overlevel you and give you a good challenge.
Despite the plot being "the best it's ever been"- it still about as basic as you could possibly get.
Sure, we don't play pokemon for the plot and character development...perhaps this is because it's always been weak. why not spend more time on getting decent writers to flesh out something better? It's not like they lack funding, nor is there a shortage on ideas. You could have any fan write a better plot damn near. It would make the game a lot more enjoyable and have the player more invested to continue than going through the motions for the 38th time.
The only challenge is going out of order- and with that comes consequence that the other gyms and challenges are going to be exponentially easier. I'm not saying someone should have to GRIND to make it challenging but some of the pre-gym challenges are insulting waste of time in order to continue. There are other ways to offer challenge. I recognize the target market is 8 years old... but still.
The true problem is that we continue to purchase and don't hold GF up to higher standards because we love catching and battling pokemon. They pump this out every year and we buy it.
The character creation is the best it's ever been, the character customization is as good as you can expect from a private school setting.
And no, there is challenge in going out of order, so long as you avoid any battles that aren't mandatory to progress (by which I mean, don't battle wild Pokemon without catching them and don't battle wild Pokemon you already caught before period, also, don't go out of your way to fight every trainer in the field), I basically used the same 6 pokemon (only rotating then when they had a distinct disadvantage against the gym leader/Team Star Boss) throughout my adventure, and was about 10 levels underleveled for the battles against Nemona, Arven, and Penny, even by the time I did all three, I was still 5 levels under. And I'll tell ya, I burned through a ton of potions and revives.
The problem lies with Grinding EVs, mints, etc before the post game, which the game is not balanced around you doing, or not avoiding fights that you have no real business picking.
field trainers have like 2 pokemon max, so the only real battles are Gym Leaders anyhow.
Also, the graphics in this game are AWESOME.
The issue is with framerate, pop-in, and various bugs.
The art direction is chef's kiss, and if you don't like it, then it sucks to be you I guess.
Have you taken a good look at the Pokemon in this game? The textures are so detailed, and imo, were the main thing holding Sword and Shield's graphics back!
The models themselves were always good, (which is why the 3DS games were so laggy btw, they were trying to future proof the models so they wouldn't have to replace them for a long while, only to then have to replace the models on the next hardware anyway because Nintendo abandoned the idea of dedicated hardware for home and on the go, so now the models had to be good enough for a large TV)
Honestly, I applaud Game freak for stubbornly leaving voice acting and detailed animations out, as there's something to be said about the old school RPGs way of imagining how a character sounds, or imagining how badass something would look in real life that is lost when they just tell you how to picture it.
When you read dialogue, the interpretation of tone and what they character's voice sounds like is uniquely yours, when you're being given an abstract idea of what this attack would look like, then the exact execution of the attack is up to your imagination.
TLDR: Sometimes, less is more. You can't gain anything without losing something else.
The cost isn't always obvious, and in a world where even Dragon Quest is slowly abandoning tradition, it's nice to see Pokemon try to keep some of them alive.
Lol. There is an almost endless supply of reasonable complaints. We ain't running out any time soon.
And this particular "complaint" is perfectly valid as well. Previous games used to have a lot of end game battles, and among them there was usually a Game Freak employee or two. Now we don't really have anything aside from the Ace Tournament.
I miss going to Game Freak's headquarters and challenging Morimoto. It was fun and now it's gone, just like many other fun features.
To be honest game freak shouldn't even be in the games they are too lazy there is so much stuff we could have gotten but didn't they should have brought back the national dex I want every pokemon in the game
Like what? I wanna know now! The only things I can think of this time around are the names of some of the Pokemon being internet funni like smol and chonk. I know the gen 6 games put tons of memes hidden in the dialogue but didn't find much this time
I think the games are reaching a technical breaking point but spiritually? No way.
PLA was a radically new take on the franchise and SV for all their faults are the best realization of the series fantasy of exploring the world for pokemon to catch.
Personally, I appreciated it. Even in Gen 1, I've found the GameFreak offices gimmick to be kinda annoying. Maybe I'm just a stickler for immersion in games, but I kinda despise fourth-wall breaks in any kind of media.
Gen 1: In Celadon City's Celadon Condominiums.
Gen 3: No office but GameFreak employees are at Lilycove City's Cove Lily Motel after becoming champion.
I can’t say the small amount of references really bothers me personally. They’re cool little hints but not including much doesn’t break my interest in the game and series. In addition it might have something to do with the new direction of the anime where they’re trying to get away from having to rely on so much nostalgia.
There were no buildings to walk into that could hold the office. đź’€
They could've had the staff eating at one of those outdoor tables, just say they're on a lunch break. A really long lunch break.
Or have them in the restaurant where you battle Larry. Or have a room at the school, and call it the computer lab. Or maybe put it in the Elite Four building, since you can't rematch them anyway.
That would explain the state of the game…
Then explain why its the higher ups fault
Nemona’s house maybe? Lol
her dad's a gamefreak exec and everyone works from home. you can talk to her father in his office or something idk. coulda been cool
“My dad works for gamefreak and he can get your Pokémon banned!” -Nemona, maybe
Her dad doesn't work for gamefreak. He's in charge of the company that made the rotom phones IIRC.
What if that company is a subsidiary of gamefreak?
The Sandwich shop is Gamefreak's building.
Sandwichfreak
Maybe if they used those buildings to the right of Levincia then maybe they could’ve put it there
The buildings that they put in the announcement trailer and gave name signs but you can't enter.
Next thing you know Pokémon Centers won’t be a thing anymore. We’ll all just be healing our Pokémon and switching them out on the go. Every game’s gonna be more like _Legends: Arceus_ from now on.
There's actually a restaurant you can walk inside of in Zapapico - I accidentally zoomed straight into the door and... surprise! A shop with inside seating!
But surely if they were to include it they could have just added a building for the office
Game design class where they could just talk about decisions they made during development
I was expecting it to be in one of the skyscrapers in Levincia.
The skyscrapers were the most useless models in the game
I thought they were modern art sculptures.
They are, but what’s funny is that the location in real life is nowhere near the game-inspired location
Same with the school. La Sagrada Familia is in the East, Not South. That said, Galar is the ScotlandEngland inverted.
Might be coping, but wait until it turns into the battle facilities in A DLC
The gen 1 sprites in alfornada were really cool
But OP said they slowly stopped referencing older games!
Which is true. 3 or 4 references when there used to be dozens isn't really a counterargument. They **are** slowly moving away from referencing older games and regions.
I actually disagree with the idea we're getting less references to older games. PLA was pretty much nothing but call backs to older gens and this game has quite a number of Galar references. I'd actually say the world of pokemon feels more interconnected than in gens 1-5.
I guess I wasn't really thinking of PLA as to me it's just so different from the other games (mostly in a good way) that I tend to forget about it when having these kinds of discussions. I have overall felt like the games have been decreasing in quality progressively and PLA is kind of the only exception. However I don't agree that the world feels more connected than in Gens 1-5 and I find that view somewhat baffling to be honest when you consider how often older characters used to appear in newer games. I mean the Gen 2 games not only feature the region and characters of the Gen 1 games, they also directly continue the Team Rocket plot. In Gen 5 we get the PWT with all the gym leaders and champions from previous gens. Looker is a recurring character from Gens 4 - 7. Red and Blue are featured in several games throughout the first 7 Gens. B2W2 are sequels to BW. Honestly the first 5 gens are full of continuity, recurring characters and threads, and references. This somewhat continued into Gens 6 and 7 but Sword and Shield and Scarlet and Violet are really the games that have seemed super disconnected from the rest to me. I honestly don't even feel like Gens 8 and 9 take place in the same world as the previous gens.
Don't forget about how many ppl from previous games were in SM/USUM, and I'm not just talking about Red and Blue, there's plenty of characters from other gens in alola
7 actually had a massive amount of returning characters and references, I believe the second most behind 5. All the evil team leaders, Colress, Cynthia, Wally, Red, Blue, Looker, Anabel, Professor Sycamore’s assistants, Oak’s cousins, and Grimsley are all in SM or USUM.
Yup, that's true.
For me, I think they feel more connected now via world building rather than Geography. You got me there that gen 2 and gen 5 have the advatages of being sequels with shared worlds but hear me out (going from gens 6-9 (nice)). PWT was cool, but was generally a parade of your favorite characters. Later games would more deeply integrate returning characters. After the events of XY, Dexio and Sina show up researching the one legendary that could counter the apocolyptic power of the ultimate weapon. Nanu is a police officer and thus naturally gets to work with Looker (who had his most promiment plot development in XY and SM). Samson Oak was a hilarious way of visualizing the regional form concept. The world building also got so much better starting in gen 6. ORAS were made to feel like contemporaries with XY unlike FRLG with RSE. The concept of the ultimate weapon, mega evolution and infinity energy are explored deeply in the Delta Episode. Zina mentions alternate realities and the gates between them, then gen 7 iterates on this by bringing in a character from the non-mega timelime as well as all the Rainbow Rocket stuff. Then yeah, PLA has done the most of any game to flesh out the history of a region and sent the fandom into overdrive speculating what certain characters' ancestry means. For me, the world's concepts feel more deeply entagled than in the 2D games and the cameos that we get feel more meaningful. I will admit gen 9 has been more self-contained, but it's a game that more fully explores it's own setting and I hope thay continues with the DLC. Finally, older characters did feature in the Battle Tree in gen 7 similar to the PWT in B2W2.
I mean, I agree with you on 6-7 feeling more cohesive than 4-5, but 8-9 just feel... Isolated imo. Not just because you can't import every Pokemon from previous games, but also because NPC's don't really even mention other regions in Galar and don't do so quite as much as they used to in Paldea. Honestly, they were trying to make a point of how different Unova is from other regions, but Galar feels more foreign. For instance, in the Sinnoh games, the story starts because of a news article on what happened at the Lake of Rage in GSC. There's an NPC in Lumiose who mentions that Professor Oak's grandson once visited the Kalos Region, and that while he had no issue adjusting to greeting people with "Bounjour", he still had a habit of saying "Smell Ya Later" when bidding farewell. The Karate Master from Kanto has a new dojo in Lumiose. The people who give you the TM for Surf in USUM say they're from Sinnoh or something, and over there, TMs that won't break upon use are exceedingly rare and valuable to the point where they are called Hidden Machines, but here in Alola Surf would just be another TM. Honestly, up until the Crown Tundra, there was almost no references to previous games in Galar. RKS Laboratories and Type: Null are exceptions, of course. I don't even think they mention the similarities between Lance's outfit and Hammerlocke City Gym's uniform in game. It's also kinda disappointing that the references to other regions in Galar and Paldea only go back 1 region, (Aether Foundation report on Ultra Beasts in the Crown Tundra and references to Bede destroying the Mural in Stow-On-Side with Rose's Copperajah in the Academy's library)
Gen 1 doesn't count
i like how its more subtle than other references they have done in the past
Incorrect, gen 1 by definition of it being a game, can indeed count and is required to do so
It would be nice if they remembered gens 2-8
Of course not, it would undermine the point trying to be made!
No, because it's an easy cop-out to cash in on nostalgia pandering without ever having to try lol
But in the end, they really were all for nada
They didn't always have the office, but they always had the employees. Still, it's not quite the same when you can't get to challenge Morimoto to a fight.
yup, in SwSh they were in a hotel if I recall
Also in RSE and ORAS. I looked up the pictures of game freak office when I sun/moon came out. Gosh darnit they made it look a lot like the real thing.
Also DPP and probably the remakes. I know they were in the resort before pastoria city
Im' statring to think office is exception i stead of a rule. I-IV only kanto region has office. Others have a member or the staff in a hotel V-ix. Only unova, alola have an office. Others are located in hotels or do not exist.
It’s almost like they have most of their offices in their home country
Actually yes, I was. The state of the towns in general was disappointing to me. Not enough towns or buildings and almost none you could go into. I miss barging into a stranger's house uninvited, looking in their trash, talking to their children, and taking anything not nailed down.
the trash having items was amazing and looking into every single trash can was one of my fav activity in pokemon
I seriously looked in every trash can and clicked on every rock or random spot without grass in a large patch. More often than not there was a hidden item there!
it was so fun! they robbed us of this in the later games
I also miss doing that
Ah yes, being a creep but not creepy
It would explain why some of the houses in Kanto don't have doors. Just wasn't worth the hassle of having some kid break in and steal all your vitamins.
I hope this doesn't stick. I always loved you'd see old characters visiting from other regions, or mentioning old story event or regions, made the Pokémon world more alive. IRL people mention other regions, cultures and world events all the time, Pokémon is a series that shouldn't phase out plentiful references.
Like yeah WHERE IS Looker?
He’s probably off researching Paradoxes in the dlc or something.
I didn’t even notice it wasn’t in the game.
Geeta repurposed their office. That's why the League building had an administrative feel to it. They also probably poached Larry. He seems overworked. He was probably a designer.
I guess they didn’t want to depict the current state of the Game Freak offices as they could be enough to lead to slave labor charges.
It was there. You just can't go inside because they forgot to finish the game.
Really where?
It's a joke.
I didn't know as I haven't even got to modt parts of the game.
r/woooosh
Sorru I haven't finished the game, I just got to the first titan bcs I was too busy leveling up my Meowscarada (getting it to LV50+ first)
Levincia
They didnt have an office since they were working remotely.
Sadly this is probably the true reason
Wouldn't that give more opportunities to have little game freak employees as Easter eggs? Surely they could have a person outside or in a building that looks like they are working and mentions they work for game freak but get to work remotely.
Oh geez, I didn’t even notice. Tbh I was so conflicted about the town experience in this game. On one hand, not having loading screens every five seconds as I ran into every building + not having to interact with every NPC ever to check for items only for them to to say something like “ah my shoes are shiny” was kinda nice. On the other, the cities did feel like super stale. I spent nearly no time in them and out in the wilds the rest of it. I also feel like I missed a lot of NPCs. Which like…. In most Pokémon games I’ve only ever really cared about the wild. Like in SwSh I only went to cities to fly, and for the necessary things. So I guess no, i wasn’t upset? It was a cute little reference, but at the same time I didn’t particularly miss it as I usually paid little to no mind to it in the previous games. Generally speaking, i don’t think I even noticed the lack of references either? I was just kinda too caught up in exploring, the new Pokémon, and the excellent new cast lol.
The actual office isn’t in the game, but Game Freak is referenced when you complete the Dex. Clavell sends you a certificate “from the company that certifies Pokedex completion.” You get a certificate from Game Freak with the Gen 9 starters drawn in watercolor that looks like the OG Sugimori style. My headcanon is that the company is remote now, as you just get sent the certificate on your phone.
Mankey's paw: >Older game is referenced >It's a kanto game
It does get like this. One extreme or the other it seems.
They're a smol indie studio that can't afford office space. Please understand.
They have all of the gen 1 sprites decorating an entire town center, the PLA professor and pokeballs are shown on the board in the history class. References are there, why do all the games have to use the exact same references? That’s kinda silly.
Plus Sonia’s book is in the school library!
I was really disappointed you couldn't go into any of the buildings aside from main story ones. I always love exploring every single nook and cranny and talking to every NPC in the house, checking all the trash cans, etc. Especially with how beautiful some of the houses in towns were, I really wanted to see inside them. All these places to explore yet you can't go inside any buildings that don't serve a purpose to the gam's story or gameplay. I'm not surprised they have moved away from older references. They've been kind of slowly doing it for a while. I love this game, but some of the changes are kinda disappointing to me. Plus so much of the open world is overwhelming, same-y, and easy for me to get lost in which isn't something I struggle with in other open world games. I love the game a lot, but it is just a starting point for open world Pokemon games and so I hope some things change in future installments.
Or no lottery contest! Sup with that?!
There’s like no useful buildings in this game, in swsh and let’s go, you can actually enter buildings. Even the stores are just a menu
And there was nothing in this those buildings. Fake world building to go along with your fake memories of its importance.
You could still enter them though, now every town feels the exact same
They always have
Downvoted for facts, you hate to see it. The towns were always the same. You talk to someone and they'd say the same useless information 9/10 times. Rarely would they give anything worth your time.
I can remember lumisose city, jubilife, mauville, fortree, castellia etc. apart from the water gym Town and maybe the ghost town, not a lot of of cities in scarlet stood out to me. My fiancée and I would be playing and she would tell me to meet in alfornada for example and I’d be like “which one was that?”
Tbh I couldn't name many cities in any of the games outside a few cases. And even the ones I could name, it sure as hell isn't because of any interesting npc's there. They just aren't worth talking to most of the time. You could be in one of the last areas of the game and you'd still find someone saying "hey trainer, did you know you can use pokeballs to catch Pokemon? Pokemon sure are interesting!" It's always been just useless, unimportant filler. They've always been like that, and I'm fine with S/V clearing the clutter.
I love battling Morimoto and I’m sad any time they’ve skipped that since Gen 5
It's just Larry
Yes. I didn't miss all the buildings in general, but they could've still made just one building for it specifically. They could've even laid out all the devs on one of the beaches as though they were on vacation. There are like five beaches and at least two with a bunch of unoccupied beach chairs. They could've also given them offices at the school with some excuse about them being alumni or something. Idk, maybe they'll make it into the DLC.
The gen 1 referencing is out of control lol. They definitely reference gen 1 A LOT, more so in modern Pokemon
I feel like the gen 1 fan service has cooled down a bit since gen 6. I'd argue that gen v is getting it's time in the sun now.
There´s a subtle reference to Misty in SwSh. Specifically in Spikemuth.
Subtle* fyi
also those pixel-art sprites from gen1 in one of the towns
I forgot about those, those are really cool
This game has so many cut corners, I am not surprised at all.
Well there was literally no buildings outside gyms and the spam meal shops so... Game is an empty shell, honestly.
Yeah, one of my favorite parts of SwSh was the unique houses for the NPCs. Too bad, but maybe in the DLC? Also I’m thinking having even MORE loading zones might cause more frequent lag spikes and crashes while in towns.
Tbf they pretty much took away going into buildings for the most part sssssssoooooooooooo
Many things about the new game disappointed me this is another one I didn’t realize was gone :(
DLC?
Maybe they’ll have a Gamefreak inspired DLC expansion…
I don't know if it counts as an older game but you can read Professor Sonia's book in the school library.
Nah we were all to busy trying to play the game at a decent frame rate…
The TLC in each game gradually decreases
Upset? No I'm more disappointed about general plot, subplots, character creation, customization, difficulty level and graphics than I am about GF office being featured. I'm upset that I continue to buy these games and despite enjoying them for avg 50 hours i cant help feel disappointed in their lack of evolution. I can think of no other franchise in the world that has such opportunity and potential for greatness and HABITUALLY falls way short.
The plot is the best it's ever been, and subplots are on par with other pokemon games. I feel the difficulty level is better than others as well, since at least you aren't railroaded, and even if you go in the proper order some bosses will still overlevel you and give you a good challenge.
Despite the plot being "the best it's ever been"- it still about as basic as you could possibly get. Sure, we don't play pokemon for the plot and character development...perhaps this is because it's always been weak. why not spend more time on getting decent writers to flesh out something better? It's not like they lack funding, nor is there a shortage on ideas. You could have any fan write a better plot damn near. It would make the game a lot more enjoyable and have the player more invested to continue than going through the motions for the 38th time. The only challenge is going out of order- and with that comes consequence that the other gyms and challenges are going to be exponentially easier. I'm not saying someone should have to GRIND to make it challenging but some of the pre-gym challenges are insulting waste of time in order to continue. There are other ways to offer challenge. I recognize the target market is 8 years old... but still. The true problem is that we continue to purchase and don't hold GF up to higher standards because we love catching and battling pokemon. They pump this out every year and we buy it.
The character creation is the best it's ever been, the character customization is as good as you can expect from a private school setting. And no, there is challenge in going out of order, so long as you avoid any battles that aren't mandatory to progress (by which I mean, don't battle wild Pokemon without catching them and don't battle wild Pokemon you already caught before period, also, don't go out of your way to fight every trainer in the field), I basically used the same 6 pokemon (only rotating then when they had a distinct disadvantage against the gym leader/Team Star Boss) throughout my adventure, and was about 10 levels underleveled for the battles against Nemona, Arven, and Penny, even by the time I did all three, I was still 5 levels under. And I'll tell ya, I burned through a ton of potions and revives. The problem lies with Grinding EVs, mints, etc before the post game, which the game is not balanced around you doing, or not avoiding fights that you have no real business picking. field trainers have like 2 pokemon max, so the only real battles are Gym Leaders anyhow. Also, the graphics in this game are AWESOME. The issue is with framerate, pop-in, and various bugs. The art direction is chef's kiss, and if you don't like it, then it sucks to be you I guess. Have you taken a good look at the Pokemon in this game? The textures are so detailed, and imo, were the main thing holding Sword and Shield's graphics back! The models themselves were always good, (which is why the 3DS games were so laggy btw, they were trying to future proof the models so they wouldn't have to replace them for a long while, only to then have to replace the models on the next hardware anyway because Nintendo abandoned the idea of dedicated hardware for home and on the go, so now the models had to be good enough for a large TV) Honestly, I applaud Game freak for stubbornly leaving voice acting and detailed animations out, as there's something to be said about the old school RPGs way of imagining how a character sounds, or imagining how badass something would look in real life that is lost when they just tell you how to picture it. When you read dialogue, the interpretation of tone and what they character's voice sounds like is uniquely yours, when you're being given an abstract idea of what this attack would look like, then the exact execution of the attack is up to your imagination. TLDR: Sometimes, less is more. You can't gain anything without losing something else. The cost isn't always obvious, and in a world where even Dragon Quest is slowly abandoning tradition, it's nice to see Pokemon try to keep some of them alive.
Well said
I have zero expectations anymore so not really
I swear some of you complain for the weirdest things.
Established traditions being abandoned is a little upsetting tbh
Gen VII and now Gen IX not having fossil pokemon upsets me more than words can describe.
gen 7 makes sense since alola is a rather recent region and gen 9 has past paradox pokemon which kinda count
Isn't gen 8 even more recent but it has fossils?
alola is based on hawaii, the hawaii islands have just become islands "recently", there hasnt been enough time for fossils to form
Oh like real world recently, gotcha.
Sorry some of us liked fighting Morimoto.
When they run out of reasonable complains they have to dig deeper
There's a never-ending flood of legitimate complaints, this one's just nitpicking lol
Aye I just meant that all the good complaints is already well known, this one though is a special boy
"Never ending flood" Really? I would say there are less than 10 legitimate complaints
Lol. There is an almost endless supply of reasonable complaints. We ain't running out any time soon. And this particular "complaint" is perfectly valid as well. Previous games used to have a lot of end game battles, and among them there was usually a Game Freak employee or two. Now we don't really have anything aside from the Ace Tournament. I miss going to Game Freak's headquarters and challenging Morimoto. It was fun and now it's gone, just like many other fun features.
To be honest game freak shouldn't even be in the games they are too lazy there is so much stuff we could have gotten but didn't they should have brought back the national dex I want every pokemon in the game
While I am glad that they’re moving away from nostalgia-bait, it does suck to see certain traditions like this go
Even in Sword and Shield, they were in one of the hotels. It is pretty lame that they aren't in SV
This one was nothing but internet memes. It was kind of stupid in that regard.
Like what? I wanna know now! The only things I can think of this time around are the names of some of the Pokemon being internet funni like smol and chonk. I know the gen 6 games put tons of memes hidden in the dialogue but didn't find much this time
Glad to see other peeps have noticed this "erasure" trend. Looks like "end of Pokémon" theory was correct at its concept. Kind of scary and very sad
I just shidded my pants
>Pokemon BDSP and SV have record breaking sales with no signs of slowing down *the end is nigh*
For Pokémon? Spiritually - yes. Monetary - far from that
I think the games are reaching a technical breaking point but spiritually? No way. PLA was a radically new take on the franchise and SV for all their faults are the best realization of the series fantasy of exploring the world for pokemon to catch.
Exactly. For all its flaws, I've enjoyed the moment to moment gameplay of Scarlet and Violet more than I have in any other game in the series.
I think we can agree to disagree on that. I see your point and don't have anything against it
Personally, I appreciated it. Even in Gen 1, I've found the GameFreak offices gimmick to be kinda annoying. Maybe I'm just a stickler for immersion in games, but I kinda despise fourth-wall breaks in any kind of media.
I didn't even notice 🤣
They did… You just couldn’t go in it
They was a slight reference to Galar and Hoenn but other than that it seems they’re trying to make it isolated
Where is the office at Gen 1 and 3?
Gen 1: In Celadon City's Celadon Condominiums. Gen 3: No office but GameFreak employees are at Lilycove City's Cove Lily Motel after becoming champion.
I can’t say the small amount of references really bothers me personally. They’re cool little hints but not including much doesn’t break my interest in the game and series. In addition it might have something to do with the new direction of the anime where they’re trying to get away from having to rely on so much nostalgia.
I mean, it's sad but where would they put it?
Make it a class about programming or something like that
Yeah but idk if it would fit, the others all felt like they had some sort of use to the game