Article: Pokémon Sword and Shield - over before it's begun?

[lilaë21]

The dex controversy will affect me little as I do not make cross-gen transfers, yet I'd still be disappointed if I couldn't have my favourites at all (and they're not Gen 1, so at worst I can't count on any of them being in) just because they were too lazy to code them into the game. The more gameplay I watch, the more awful those graphics seem, there are definitely GC and Wii games that look a lot better than this, and there's no technical justification that could save GF when the 3DS could have all Pokémon and somehow they'd like us to believe that the same models and the same animations couldn't run on the Switch. Not to mention the footage of the Wingull in the overworld or the Pokémon and trainers unexpectedly popping up. And Pokémon aside, the open world looks terribly empty and of low quality.

I definitely am not going to buy these games despite how hyped I was in the beginning. Limited dex, poor graphics, empty open world, yet another gimmick just for the sake of making something new, Masuda trying to persuade us that the models have "higher fidelity with higher quality animations" despite being the same ones as the 3DS titles (meanwhile, in a 2019 Switch game I would expect a bird like Wingull to behave more like... well, like a bird, with wings actually flapping instead of looking like a rigid model floating in the air), yet more Gen 1 pandering... there are too many things I don't like for me to even consider buying this game new, I hoped gen 8 would be a return to form after the quite forgettable 3DS games but there's nothing hinting towards it being any better than those. At least most of the designs of new Pokémon and characters look cool, but they don't magically cover all the faults...

 

[Candy]

Lemme just quote myself from the other thread.

After thinking about it for a bit, makes sense that they would have to cut the number of Pokemon moving forward, and of course they would have to do it starting with Pokemon Sw/Sh since it's a jump to a new console. What's a better time to do it than now?

But I'm just going to say that if they had announce it in reverse, there wouldn't be as much backlash.

The fact that they announced that Pokemon HOME will accommodate every Pokemon before this decision is already implying that you can transfer everyone over to SwSh. Then people learned that they can't. And of course the backlash becomes really, REALLY severe as a result.

If they had announced the fact that not all Pokemon will be in the games moving forward before Pokemon HOME's reveal, as well as their reasonings for the decision, people would've been more understanding, especially when no transfer service had been announced at the time. Then they can drop Pokemon HOME and give us a full look at what the service would entail, including transferring to Sw/Sh. They should've set up the expectation of a limited Pokedex with zero transfer then bring in the Pokemon HOME reveal and actual feature showcase outside of just another nextgen Pokemon Box.

At least that would've been much less of a PR disaster than this.

Again, I'm fine with the cutting of the Pokedex because eventually having to fit in thousands of different Pokemon models into one game is going to get really hard to maintain in the future. I still feel like the majority of the backlash is thanks to us knowing the existence of Pokemon HOME.

Not saying that I'm not disappointed, though. Probably won't be getting it on release at least until I know what this game actually has to offer.

 

[LilyGardy]

Sword and Shield will likely sell very well regardless of this controversy. Younger fans won't care too much about transferring Pokemon whilst I can see many fans buying the games regardless even if no National Dex annoys them.

For me whilst no National Dex is a shame it doesn't affect me too much. My favourite Pokemon (Lilligant) will likely not be in the Galar Dex but I can still use her in previous games so it is ok. I currently do not own a Switch but plan to get one for Sword/Shield's release.

 

[Raven Valt]

Isn't this the first time a main series pokemon game is not going to have a national dex? I know FireRed/LeafGreen had a unique system for evolution in any pokemon after gen 1 that got a new evolution, you had to wait for the National Dex to evolve it. But they've always had a national dex. So why stop doing it now? It baffles the mind, I'm actually more annoyed they're no longer making games for the 3ds but I suppose given the switch is a "kind of" handheld, It was obviously coming eventually.

 

[Child Amnesiac]

Are Sword/Shield done for?

Considering the backlash with the national dex. Is gen 8 done for?
I think not, but keep an eye on things just in case.

 

[colours]

Considering the backlash with the national dex. Is gen 8 done for?
I think not, but keep an eye on things just in case.

No. As loud as this outrage is, copies will still sell.

How many remains to be seen. It'll likely sell just about as well as any other Pokemon game. Although my personal opinion is that this might affect holiday sales numbers, announcing the omission of the national dex this early means that TPC still has enough time to shove out more promotional trailers perhaps to placate some people, so... we'll see I suppose.

But no, the games itself will likely not be affected too much.

 

[Raven Valt]

Considering the backlash with the national dex. Is gen 8 done for?
I think not, but keep an eye on things just in case.

Sadly this really hilarious notion of something being "dead" or "done for" doesn't exist. They're still going to get millions of sales from the games, because people who don't care about the dex issue and a lot of the die hard fans will still buy it. The "outrage" everyone is seeing is from the vocal minority, not the majority. Yes the sales will probably be a little lower if they don't address this issue but it'll be nowhere enough to do any real damage to the franchise.

 

[Child Amnesiac]

Sadly this really hilarious notion of something being "dead" or "done for" doesn't exist. They're still going to get millions of sales from the games, because people who don't care about the dex issue and a lot of the die hard fans will still buy it. The "outrage" everyone is seeing is from the vocal minority, not the majority. Yes the sales will probably be a little lower if they don't address this issue but it'll be nowhere enough to do any real damage to the franchise.

What I mean by "done for" is: the games get cancelled

 

[Bidoof FTW]

I don't think it's that bad, if the region itself has enough content then I will still buy it and enjoy it. I've been using pokebank for years but honestly at no point have I ever bothered to move them to a new game, so personally I won't mind it.

Though I wonder if they're going to pull one of those 3 game gens and have the third with a national dex? Similar to RSE? Not sure.

 

[Miss Wendighost]

Parents are still going to buy the games for their kids regardless, but I honestly wouldn't mind patches later down the line to fix these issues or a delay until 2020.

 

[Raven Valt]

What I mean by "done for" is: the games get cancelled

They're not going to cancel a game that's so close to release because of a minority of fans not enjoying a feature. It just isn't going to happen, especially with Nintendo/Game Freak.

The more likely but still unlikely solution will be that they provide a patch later on for the game to include a national dex but given how GF didn't Patch S/M to work with US/UM and didn't patch X/Y to work with OR/AS it's highly unlikely they'll do anything with this game.

I don't think it's that bad, if the region itself has enough content then I will still buy it and enjoy it. I've been using pokebank for years but honestly at no point have I ever bothered to move them to a new game, so personally I won't mind it.

Though I wonder if they're going to pull one of those 3 game gens and have the third with a national dex? Similar to RSE? Not sure.

Ruby and Sapphire still had a National Dex, you got it via trading with FR/LG.

 

[Treecko]

While the controversy won't stop me from buying the game, I can see how sales might be affect by this decision, especially with older fans. There's gonna be that stubborn few who are the majority of the backlash who wont buy the games unless a fix is added or the problem is addressed. So sales for the first few months or so might be lower than expected. But I think even with the backlash, there's enough devoted hardcore fans that will buy it no matter what, I doubt the few sales Gamefreak loses wont drastically affect the game's profits. With the backlash though, I do think Gamefreak should at least address the issue cause I hardly doubt with how tightly planned out everything is, they will delay anything.

 

[Percy]

i still think that this galar dex issue is miscommunication. every main title game has every pokemon. hell, xy had all the pokemon. (u)s(u)m had all the pokemon. and by gen 7 we already had 800+ pokemon. it just doesn't make sense for that to happen. if the reason is the effort needed for the sprites or whatever, then an extension of the release date could be welcome? its unreasonable for us to have all this pokemon and then the newest main titles doesn't have them all. as I said, I bet that this is just miscommunication and I know GF (or whichever company answers for this mess) will have an answer for the fans soon.

i also think that fans have the right to criticize the games. i mean, they will be the consumers. at least make sure they will enjoy it, right? but then, I also believe that fans should know where to draw the line. there's a difference with pleading and straight up attacking the devs

 

[Starry Windy]

I might want to wait and see if this omission will affect sales and whatnot. Still, I suppose they should be able to patch these 'mons back to the game if possible, probs in post-launch. Even though well, I'm tad bit not fond of this news, I didn't expect this to receive many backlash though...

 

[RileyXY1]

I don't think that this game will be delayed, and I don't think that the lack of transfers will affect sales either.

 

[Alex]

We'll see if Game Freak actually budges on this. I doubt they'll want to delay release, so the community might just have to suck it up. I'm sympathetic for those who are affected by this decision, but quite frankly, it doesn't change my excitement for the game and I still can't wait to get my hands on it.

 

[RileyXY1]

Considering the backlash with the national dex. Is gen 8 done for?
I think not, but keep an eye on things just in case.

Not really. Sword & Shield will sell very well despite this. I would be surprised if the sales drop below 10 million.

 

[Smotemotem]

I'm going to play this game eventually, but I don't know if I'm buying it at launch. This was a hype-killer for me, because of the specific way I was playing the game at the time of its announcement (I was starting with Gen 1 and building "family trees" of offspring all the way up through Gen 7).

I understand that the Pokemon Company is coming up against hard limits that they may be unable to overcome anytime soon, due to time, budget, or hardware. From what they are saying, about having to limit the number of monsters that are playable in each game being inevitable, I think we're going to start seeing the national dex split roughly in half, in each new generation. Because of the announcement that we can keep these Pokemon in Bank, but can't transfer them out, I think the Diamond/Pearl remakes are all but confirmed for Switch. I think any Pokemon that is left out of Sword/Shield will be included in the remake games. Just a theory. A game theory.

 

[Adam Levine]

I'm definitely not buying these games until someone gives me enough reason to (preferrably after they've played them). Until then I'll wait for sequels or a third version or whatever, or spend my $60 on something else. Never has my hype for a new Pokémon game waned so fast.

 

[tokyodrift]

This is just a repeat of what happened with Black and White. People absolutely hated them....