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Serebii

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Posts posted by Serebii

  5. Posted

    4 hours ago, Glen-i said:

    That would leave it in the 700-ish region. Which is a ridiculously large amount of Pokémon to fit in one region.

    For comparisons sake. Sun/Moon had 385 different Pokemon you could catch in Alola. And only 301 of them had an actual Pokédex entry what with a full National Dex being unavailable for the player to obtain.

    I'd be amazed if Sword and Shield has more than 649. (The amount of Pokémon you could catalogue in Black and White) Especially if @Serebii's hunch about problems transferring Pokémon models to the Switch engine is right.

    I'm expecting it to be in the 400-500 range tbh

  7. Posted

    36 minutes ago, Dcubed said:

    This sounds pretty plausible.  I do think that they had every intention of re-using the old models and animations (as they did in Let’s Go); as they were clearly designed for hardware beyond the 3DS’ capabilities.

     

    But I cant see how they ever intended on being able to develop so many different titles concurrently; and on a HD console to boot! Not to mention that they’re effectively jumping 2 generations forward at once; coming from 3DS to Switch! Other developers in their position (like Alphadream, Good Feel and Intelligent Systems) really, really struggled to make that jump (and hell! Alphadream still haven’t!); so there were always going to be teething problems...

     

    It just feels like they bit off more than they could chew, so I reckon that we might both be right here; and then if they did have problems bringing over the 3DS models & animations (throwing all of their best laid plans into disarray); it’s not hard to see why they had to make the hard decisions they have made.

    Undoubtedly they underestimated the jump.

     

    However, just remember that the people working on those side projects wouldn't be working on the main one at the same time (also don't believe that interview saying Pokémon is no longer the priority. I have heard that was due to a mistranslation due to context etc. being lost).

     

    It helps that they outsource a lot. The Pokémon models, for example, are done by Pokémon CG Studio within Creatures Inc among others who help.

     

    500 people worked on Sun & Moon. Game Freak had around 100 people working there at that time. It goes to show that the Internet doesn't get how Pokémon is developed

    • Thanks 2

  8. Posted

    4 hours ago, Glen-i said:

    On that topic, do you think Game Freak are starting to spread themselves too thin when it comes to developing Pokémon games?

    Obviously, I'm still upset about National Dex being annexed in Sword/Shield, but I'm starting to think that TPC might be more to blame than GF. Now, I'm not saying TPC explicitly said "Cut some Pokémon out of this game", but I feel like more could have been done on their part to prevent this.

    I think we don't have the full picture. However, a lot of people don't realise that a lot is outsourced and GF have been expanding and if they were just working on Pokémon games in a cycle like that, some staff would be sat twiddling their thumbs. They'd also suffer burnout. This is where the other projects (Gear Project, the extra team for non Pokémon things has existed since 2009 so people are over-reacting with it) come in to play.

     

    My belief is that they intended for every Pokémon to be in, but something must have happened. I've done a lot of research and spoken to a lot of developers about this and the only logical conclusion I can come to is that when they ported the models over to the new engine, the animation rigs broke (which is not unhead of)so they had to rerig every model and rerecord the animations and the sheer scope of that caused this situation.

    • Thanks 4

  9. Posted

    9 hours ago, Dcubed said:

    That would likely be pre-production work taking place then; not actual production.  They were neck deep in making Giga Wrecker, Pokemon Let's Go AND Pokemon Quest at that time.  No way could they have been having all 4 games in full production at that time.  The fact that they had literally nothing to show of their "Pokemon Switch" game at that point says it all.

     

    No worries mate.  Glad to have you back, I missed ya here :hug:

    Well Quest was heavily outsourced and Giga Wrecker didn't have that many people on it.

     

    It's hard to say but I am 100% certain that development of SWSH began mid-2016 at the latest.

  10. Posted

    14 minutes ago, Dcubed said:

    Game Freak have been working on 5 games concurrently (Let’s Go, Pokemon Quest, Sword/Shield, Giga Wrecker and Town).  They only started working on Sword & Shield after putting out Ultra Sun/Moon; only 2 years for a brand new generation of Pokemon on a HD console, and that’s with 4 other games being developed within the company at the sane time.

     

    Something simply had to give.  It was inevitable.

     

    Still looking forward to the game, but it is a shame that corners had to be cut.

     

    Good to see you back BTW!

    That's not entirely the case. Sword & Shield has been in development since before USUM finished.

    There's two clues to this that confirm it

    1. The games were revealed in the E3 Direct just a week or so after USUM were revealed

    2. In interviews, they stated Max Raid Battles for Sword & Shield were developed at the same time Game Freak were helping Niantic in developing Raid Battles in GO. Raid Battles in GO came out in June 2017 so were in development way before that (I mean they were technically shown in the 2015 reveal)

     

    And yeah, I've been busy and lurking a bit. Don't know if I'll be fully back here. I kind of got a bit confrontational and for that I apologise.

    • Like 1
    • Thanks 2

  14. Posted

    2 hours ago, Hero-of-Time said:

    Personally, I don't think it's unrealistic to expect online features that have been standard on every other console and handheld for around 10 years now. I mean, when something like a Vita can offer things like party chat and instant messaging, but a console released in 2017 can't, then I think there are issues and I understand why many are frustrated with Nintendo's weird stance to online gaming.

    Yeah I don't think can't is the right word here. It's they choose not to, probably so they don't get repeats of this bullshit

     

    https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/secret-paedophile-armies-prepare-pictochat-onslaught

  22. Posted

    9 hours ago, ReZourceman said:

    Yeesh, yeah. I dunno mang. There was some cool stuff there, but where were the big announcements? I will say, I love the look of Smash. But it always feels like the same. My face absolutely dropped at our yearly iterations of Fire Emblem and Mario Party. Hmmmm/ugh.

    I mean they did tell us in advance this would focus on Smash and 2018 games...

  25. Posted

    1 hour ago, Dcubed said:

    You know what? The more I think about this rumour, the more it makes sense...

     

    ... In a nutshell, it makes sense because this Switch game is a port of a cancelled mobile game that was going to be Gen 8.

     

    Why do I think this? Well... we know that the head of TPC originally believed that the Switch would fail.  That’s already a big clue that they originally planned on bringing the mainline series to mobile (where else could it go if they had no faith in Switch?) but then when you consider TPC’s heavy pivot towards mobile with the spinoffs and their reluctance to move on from 3DS, suddenly it starts to click into place.

     

    Everything about this leak (assuming it’s true) suddenly makes perfect sense.  The 3DS quality visuals and reused assets, the dumbed down combat and catching mechanics, the extreme Genwunner pandering, the heavy interoperability with Pokemon Go (including physical accessories) and, most telling of all, the quick development time...

     

    All of it screams mobile game.  I could definitely imagine a game like this being developed quickly; how else could they get a new gen finished in time for this year? Even the 3DS mainline games had 3 years worth of dev time a piece, and yet we’re expected to believe that Game Freak could make a brand new HD Pokemon Game from the ground up in less than 2 years? Bullshit!

     

    They were making this for mobile and then cancelled it, porting it to Switch after seeing how much of a success it was.

     

    It also probably explains the naming too.  They’re hedging their bets a bit here.  If it flops, they can just say that it wasn’t a mainline game and that the next proper game is still coming.  If it succeeds? Then it’s the new direction for the series and Pokemon as we know it is dead.

     

    The death of any sort of in-depth gameplay or quality, structured, level and game design in favour of a dumbed down, mobile friendly, trite, Go inspired time wasting experience.

    Difference is that Nintendo wouldn't have let them do a main game on mobile.

    I see this as a request from Nintendo to get in the GO Players ahead of Generation 8.

    There's also no evidence of dumbed down combat.

    • Like 1
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