Dcubed

Surprised to see that it’s exempt from the Switch Online subscription. Would’ve thought that Nintendo would use it to push their paid service... Also... No more single save files!! Well it’s about time!

The screenshots look decent, but man, dumping the overarching SEGA characters in favour of an all Sonic cast really strips it of much of the appeal of the previous games. Also there’s no sign of any other vehicles, implying that they’re going back to the Kart only racing of the first game instead of the superior sequel... ... everything about this game seems like a huge step back from SAASRT... hopefully it’ll still be good though.

Hmm... Never considered that its development might have pre-dated Sun/Moon... This being a 20th anniversary game for 3DS would make sense. After all, we all know that Pokemon Z got cancelled for 3DS (and its mechanics shoved into Sun/Moon). Maybe they were originally meant to release alongside one another and Sun/Moon was supposed to release in 2017? Would explain why US/UM released so quickly and why the original Sun/Moon felt so unfinished... And then the remake concept was revived as a PoGo tie-in mainline game for mobile... only to itself be shelved in favour of a Switch version. This timeline at least makes some sense. Though Game Freak’s resources would’ve been tapped up until releasing US/UM (they have only been able to work on 2 big 3DS games at a time, ignoring small garage projects like Tembo and Giga Crusher), so 2019 would still be cutting development time very short for a new Gen 8... I have very little faith in it turning out decent in any case; not just because of the influence of PoGo/mobile, but because of the ridiculously short dev time. I expect them to reuse the Let’s Go engine for Gen 8. Only way I can see them pulling off a sub 2 year dev time for it. Edit: Or! Maybe they’re re-using the Gen 7 engine? Perhaps that’s where the Pokemon Stars rumours about it being on Switch came from? (From the porting tests, using existing Gen 7 assets to test how the engine porting process could work). Perhaps wires got crossed between Gen 8 and US/UM that way? If so, then that explains the discrepancy in that rumour which was otherwise spot on! Might also explain why Gen 7 went in so deep with the genwunner pandering (to make up for the loss of Let’s Go in 2016); Though I think it’s more likely that regional variants were always planned anyway, perhaps the decision to make them Kanto Pokemon only stemmed from Let’s Go’s original cancellation? What do you reckon @Julius Caesar? @Glen-i?

That's exactly what I'll be doing. Game Freak have basically thrown me a middle finger with this game and said that they're more interested in chasing the genwunner PoGo audience. How much of that was motivated by TPC pivoting towards mobile as their only potential option for the future and how much of that will change now that Switch represents a viable future, will probably determine how much Gen 8 resembles a proper Pokemon game I reckon. If Gen 8 resembles a good, traditional Pokemon game experience, then all is well and everyone's needs are served. But I get the feeling that won't be happening quite how we wanted it to...This was originally going to be our only future after all. And how much will it affect the development of a proper Pokemon game for Switch? Probably a lot. Just speaking practically, Game Freak would've had to have been working on three games simultaneously (US/UM, Let's Go, Gen 8) if Gen 8 is indeed coming out next year. Something has to give here; and I reckon it'll be Gen 8 that gives. While I at least have a sliver of hope left for the series, it's only a sliver, and TPC/Game Freak have not earned the benefit of the doubt with me. TPC have already shown me their (at least past) intentions for the series' future, and it's not pretty.

It's not necessarily because of the game itself, it's because it speaks of TPC's intentions for the series as a whole. If Switch hadn't taken off, this would've been our only future, there wouldn't be a Gen 8 at all! And there's still a good chance that Gen 8 will continue down this road, with all of the mechanics that make Pokemon games actually fun and interesting stripped out of them in favour of this lowest-common-denominator garbage. I have little faith in Gen 8 being worth my time at all now if this represent's TPC's vision for the series' future.

At least this isn't the darkest timeline... That announcement that they're working on the "real" next Pokemon game for Switch is at least a sliver of hope. And also a big red flag indicating that these two newly annouced games were going to be on mobile and also going to be our only future for Pokemon originally, before Switch wrestled them from the cold dead hands of mobile. This announcement smacks of "COURSE CORRECTION!!!" so hard that it makes the Titanic iceberg blush! It's a glimpse into the future that we were going to have... and it isn't pretty... At least now there's at least some hope for a proper Pokemon game and an actual future for the series that's worth getting excited about! (though there's still a good chance that PoGo will continue to infect the mainline series...). Let's just hope that doesn't end up reflecting what could've been as well...

Yup, looks fucking awful and just as pandery and mobile esc as I feared. At least the battle system doesn't look like it has been completely butchered though.

What's this? More proof that my theory about Pokemon Let's Go originally being the next mainline games for mobile was right? Yup, looks like it!

Considering that Street Fighter Anniversary Collection is $40 in the US and £45 in the UK? I wouldn’t go assuming that...

Not really keen on the incessant voices, and Mega Man's jump animation looks proper dodge, but the rest all looks pretty good! Love the look of VFX Slow the Double Gear! New Amiibo doesn't look as good as the Smash one, that one was pretty much perfect, this one looks a bit too Happy Meal for my liking...

WOW! ... ... ... ... that is fugly as sin! Worst Zelda LE console ever?

Still waiting on my backer code for COTM (No, not the GBA game ) ... Don't really feel like playing the Steam version I got for free temporarily, I'm just gonna wait for my Switch code.

Looks like the game uses the Joy-con gyro as a pointer to replace the touchscreen when playing on the TV. Exactly as I was hoping and expecting Such a fantastic game! Really looking forward to diving into it again! (Also hope we get SM3DW on Switch at some point!)

Oh man, I love how both me and @Glen-i are hanging our heads in shame there! Anyway, I did terribad, all is right in the world!

Runbow Pocket for 140 Gold Points is actually pretty great! Shame that the Switch version that's about to release will make it completely redundant, but hey! A deal's a deal!

Absolute rubbish. Capcom simply can't be bothered to port it properly. If Xbone can run it in 1080p/60FPS then there's no reason why Switch couldn't run it natively, even if it has to be downgraded to 30FPS. Capcom's utter incompetence with everything Switch is just utterly infuriating!

Funny, me, @Glen-i and @Ugh first aid played a few rounds of the 3DS version a few days ago too. Battered Raijan in his stupid face and killed a tiny Mephesto. Good times! Can't wait for the Switch version!

https://nintendoeverything.com/sega-ages-devs-on-how-the-project-came-to-be-choosing-the-name-going-with-switch-new-game-features/ Much more at the link!

Well that was swell! I did bloody horrible and fun was had by all! @Glen-i is currently putting the highlights together because I'm too lazy to make them. Cheers for the proper bants as well @BowserBasher!

Yeah, very few companies can keep secrets anymore really. Can't really think of any major publisher outside of Nintendo (internally speaking) who still manages it.

Game Freak are not good at keeping secrets. They've been leaking like a sieve ever since Gen 5. I'd be shocked if we got a game from them that didn't leak in some fashion beforehand.

Hence the distant branding. It allows them to play it safe in the same way that DS was a "third pillar", until it wasn't... Not yet, but where there's a smoking gun, there's likely to be a bullet. You don't heavily dumb down half of the game's main mechanics and leave the other half completely unscathed... Why do you think they have gone back to the flat worlds of older games? (Assuming that screenshot is real). Because it originally used touch controls/virtual buttons and had to have simplistic level design as a result; it also wouldn't alienate people who are more used to PoGo or the older games as much if the world design was very simplistic... The target audience for this game are clearly PoGo players and genwunners. It's not hard to see why they would want to dumb down the mechanics; they don't want to scare them off. Can I also remind you that Kanto has made an appearance in every single generation of Pokemon except for Gen 5? (RBY, GSC, FRLG, HGSS and then partially remade in XY with places like Santalune Forest being an almost identical 1-1 remake of Viridian Forest (and lets not even get into parts of the anime now being made canon, like Ash Greninja). SM also then went and made Kanto a key part of its characters' origin stories and even brought back Red, Blue and Prof Oak (not to mention all the alolan forms being exclusively based on gen 1 Pokemon). We have enough bloody genwunner pandering as it is! It's so transparent it's painful!

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.

If that’s true, the series is dead to me. It’s literally everything I do not want in Pokemon. All it needs now is a heavy dose of loot boxes and micro transactions.

So fucking hype for this game!!! I need it NOW!! This will be the anti-Breath of the Wild for me! It's pretty much everything I've always wanted in Mario Tennis!