[Sword & Shield] All 800+ Pokemon will NOT be available in Sword and Shield at launch, even via Pokemon Home

[Treecko]

I have a lot of mixed thoughts on this news. On one hand, I understand that rendering and animating 800+ Pokémon , while also working in their individual expressions, personalities and behaviors, in 3D is not an easy process. I can see how not allowing certain Pokémon such as legendaries and mythical might balance out competitive play a little. On the other hand, a lot of people have Pokémon that they've had for years and have special attachments to. And then being told you can't bring that special Pokémon you've had for 10-15 years over is really upsetting. I'm lucky most of my faves are probably popular enough to make the cut, but some with really obscure faves will have have to never see or use some of those Pokémon again.

I really hope a patch is implemented to include the rest. If they were concerned about how time consuming it is to animate all those Pokémon, then just do it in several patches like what they do with Pokémon Go. I'd rather wait a few months/year to have all 800/900 Pokémon transferable, than to miss out on some faves cause they're not considered popular or profitable enough.

 

[mikey]

I honestly think people need to calm down about this.

Yeah, it's a dumb decision, but I am sure a patch or something will eventually come out fixing this. And if not, so what? This is exactly what happened with Ruby and Sapphire. You couldn't transfer your favorites from RBY and GSC to those games, and they are a fan favorite still today.

 

[Saphron]

...Gamefreak never patches their games to add new content into them. They didn't add support for new megas from ORAS in XY for example. This really isn't the same as Ruby and Sapphire at all. Those Pokemon were still programmed into the game. This implies the cut Pokemon are simply not going to exist in SwSh. I find it more likely they'll sell us a barely changed third version and use having all Pokemon as a selling point.

 

[Roaring Moon]

100% gen 1 pokemon will be included, i bet hahaha.

Yeah, that's a pretty safe bet, since they already have models for all of them from Let's Go (and it's probably a safe bet that all Alolan forms and Gen I Mega Evolutions will be included as well for the same reason), and it's become pretty clear in recent years that GF has had a bit of a bias toward Gen I.

 

[Sydian]

Yeah, that's a pretty safe bet, since they already have models for all of them from Let's Go (and it's probably a safe bet that all Alolan forms and Gen I Mega Evolutions will be included as well for the same reason), and it's become pretty clear in recent years that GF has had a bit of a bias toward Gen I.

(and it's probably a safe bet that all Alolan forms and Gen I Mega Evolutions will be included as well for the same reason)

(and it's probably a safe bet that all Alolan forms

all Alolan forms

awwwwww yeah

 

[Rivvon]

I honestly think people need to calm down about this.

Yeah, it's a dumb decision, but I am sure a patch or something will eventually come out fixing this. And if not, so what? This is exactly what happened with Ruby and Sapphire. You couldn't transfer your favorites from RBY and GSC to those games, and they are a fan favorite still today.

It's mentioned they want this to become a trend moving forward, meaning a patch is highly unlikely. And people really did not like RSE's lack of backwards compatibility. Them being "fan favorites" literally involves ignoring that point with how badly it was received. At least back then they had a legitimate excuse with hardware limitations, though, so it was slightly easier to overlook. This announcement, on the other hand, is following a claim made just a week prior that they wanted to make Home so people could keep using their precious Pokémon in all future games because they realize how important they are to players.

 

[bobandbill]

I honestly think people need to calm down about this.

Yeah, it's a dumb decision, but I am sure a patch or something will eventually come out fixing this. And if not, so what? This is exactly what happened with Ruby and Sapphire. You couldn't transfer your favorites from RBY and GSC to those games, and they are a fan favorite still today.

Given the backlash and the silence since (including removing tweets from Nintendo of America's side, asking what Pokemon people look forward to seeing in SwSh, haha), any patch that does happen would be due to the feedback, not something pre-planned. Why on earth wouldn't they have announced it, after all? Would have saved a lot of angst. (Also see Saphron's post re: patches, something I pointed out in the article I wrote on the topic too.)

And RS had a lot of complaints about not being able to transfer pokes from earlier gens to them. It was a badly received reality. The difference here is that now they have the means to make it possible (after all, they proved it with Bank and support for RBY/GSC to gen 7 games) - they have instead actively chosen not to. RS were popular games, yes - but it was despite that and other things that went missing (e.g. day/night cycle).

 

[colours]

I can see why some people wouldn't think this is a big deal, but I don't think that means any of the concerns expressed are less valid.

I can see a lot of where the hurt and disappointment is coming from. It's okay if you (generally speaking) are not the type of person to become super attached to your Pokemon, but a lot of people are. There are people who have kept their closest friends since older generations with them in gen 7 and to have their futures pretty much up in limbo feels like you've been stabbed in the back by Game Freak. This seems like some sort of ridiculous exaggeration of sorts, but it's not.

To be clear: I don't agree with overreactions. I don't think there's any practical use in harassing Masuda over it whenever he tweets something, for what it's worth. I think if there's going to be backlash, it has to be done respectfully so companies don't end up plugging their ears and this doesn't end up turning into a hotter mess than what it is. I suppose that's why I agree with r/Pokemon's approach of sending respectful tickets to TPC in the hopes that they'll listen. Maybe they will, maybe they won't. It's still worth a shot either way, if at the very least letting companies know that fans feel defeated because they feel all of their hard work, all of their breeding, their transferring Pokemon over the generations, is all for nothing.

 

[Gym Master]

...Gamefreak never patches their games to add new content into them. They didn't add support for new megas from ORAS in XY for example. This really isn't the same as Ruby and Sapphire at all. Those Pokemon were still programmed into the game. This implies the cut Pokemon are simply not going to exist in SwSh. I find it more likely they'll sell us a barely changed third version and use having all Pokemon as a selling point.

I agree. It sounds like the assets for non-Galar mon will simply be absent from the code. Honestly, there is a sneaking suspicion that not having to code every single mon for the jump to Gen 8 is the "real" reason for doing this.

If it is, and they'd say that, I'd almost respect that more. In that case, it's just a waiting game. And I may choose to wait.

That said, this video helped me understand better what they might be going for?:



I still don't think I like it, but at least I kind of "get" it. From this perspective, it seems like they may be planning to shake things up by freeing themselves from past gimmicks (Mega Evo and Z-Moves), which I can understand. It would be perhaps more convincing if they weren't introducing yet another gimmick. But at least Dynamaxing appears to be designed in a way that equally applies to all past, present and future Pokémon. It's infinitely scalable. It also seems to be based in tech, not culture, and so could feasibly work going forward.

If what they're doing is taking the jump to home console as the opportunity to streamline and redefine the core concept of Pokémon gameplay after two decades… well, that was always going to come with growing pains, but I can't really imagine a better time to do it.

Going forward, it sounds like the approach may really be to keep both the story and meta/competitive generation focused entirely on a select group of Pokémon, including a rotating roster from past Gens. If this understanding is correct, my guess is that Home will actually be a complex, interactive, more "game-like" experience. Like an interactive Poké Pelago or GO Park or Safari Zone or Wild Area, filled with our Pokémon. If it's something like this, with Pokémon "living" there until the chance to come out and play in the latest games, I could potentially get behind that.

But if that's what it is, the announcement was clumsy, because this vision was not clear to me until watching this fan video. What I got from the Treehouse announcement was simply, "We debated a lot and decided to take this away from you. We understand you might have feelings about this, so we just wanted to let you know".

Even in this best case scenario, though, with Home as a way to interact with boxed mons and other Trainers, I still think this would all feel better if Gen 7 had a National Dex, Pokédex 3D Pro was updated with Gens 6 and 7, and it felt like a full stop tied up with a ribbon and a cherry on top. If that had been done, I think this "reset" might feel more natural.

 

[Gigadweeb]

the fact that people are trying to excuse a decade and a half-long trend being broken in the hopes that game freak will polish other areas of the game instead when they've shown in the past 5 years to do the exact opposite regardless is utterly ridiculous
come on, this is the same company that decided to include no improvements in or/as from a decade-old game at the time, and y'all can't seriously tell me us/um were worth $50aud or whatever, no way in hell are they actually going to try and improve these games significantly - i can almost guarantee it's just a way to rake in hostage fees for your pokémon that are on the home app thing and get you to buy the enhanced versions or remakes to be able to use more pokémon, and so that they don't have to bother hiring even a couple of handfuls more people to help improving upon the old models and animations (go back and watch scorbunny using double kick and then try and tell me that game freak isn't bringing back a lot of pokémon for quality concerns)

 

[hotsushi-kun]

This is like an Gen 5-esque where all of the previous Generations Pokemon we're not present in the games at all.

 

[Pig]

And RS had a lot of complaints about not being able to transfer pokes from earlier gens to them. It was a badly received reality. The difference here is that now they have the means to make it possible (after all, they proved it with Bank and support for RBY/GSC to gen 7 games) - they have instead actively chosen not to. RS were popular games, yes - but it was despite that and other things that went missing (e.g. day/night cycle).

They even kind of backpedaled on that releasing RBY/GSC on VC and allowing to transfer your mons from there to the bank, I mean, 2 decades later, so maybe there's hope for the far future ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[Pekin]

There is no excuse for this decision. It's insulting, it's lazy, and it's a huge slap in the face of any long-time fan. After 20 years of playing Pokémon, I'm honestly out, until they make something with any actual effort put into it. I genuinely have zero desire to buy Sword or Shield anymore.

 

[Taemin]

I don't really understand why people are so mad?? At launch, the last few gens have never had the entire Dex available right away, have they??

Is there anything really bad about playing and enjoying Swsh with the mons that are available and then transferring over in the following weeks?

That's mostly how these games are always handled, and Swsh still looks like an awesome release. o:

 

[Palamon]

I don't really understand why people are so mad?? At launch, the last few gens have never had the entire Dex available right away, have they??

Is there anything really bad about playing and enjoying Swsh with the mons that are available and then transferring over in the following weeks?

That's mostly how these games

are always handled, and Swsh still looks like an awesome release. o:

They outright said you can't transfer pokemon not in the galar pokedex, though. Meaning Pokemon like Chimchar, can't be sent to Sw/Sh.

We don't know yet if this will change.

 

[Pig]

They outright said you can't transfer pokemon not in the galar pokedex, though. Meaning Pokemon like Chimchar, can't be sent to Sw/Sh.

We don't know yet if this will change.

We don't have a full list of the pokedex yet, far from it. Who's to say Chimchar specifically won't be there? Just because it's a starter? I'd actually be willing to bet there are the starters (we do know Charmander is there though, at least).

 

[Palamon]

We don't have a full list of the pokedex yet, far from it. Who's to say Chimchar specifically won't be there? Just because it's a starter? I'd actually be willing to bet there are the starters (we do know Charmander is there though, at least).

Well. Charizard is a fan-favorite. Idk I just don't see Chimchar being in Galar.

 

[curiousnathan]

One word: money

 

[tokyodrift]

y'all this galar pokedex better include alolan dugtrio or else

i was waiting for this comment lmao

on topic though, this makes it better since I tend to only use new Pokemon on my first playthroughs. I can not see them adding support later on like they did with X/Y.

 

[colours]

People are pretty much squarely in two camps when it comes to this: either this doesn't affect you because you start over with new Pokemon anyway/don't transfer Pokemon often, if at all, or you're the type of player that has always played around with their favourites for generations on end.

For those confused on what the big deal is, the big deal is that those in the latter group are pretty much getting a huge L by Game Freak, or so they fear. Of course, we'll see when the dex is revealed, but it's not comforting to that group to essentially have their "favourites" picked out for them by Game Freak.