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Julius

Pokémon Legends: Arceus (28th January 2022)

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Just now, Sméagol said:

I don't think anyone here said anything about the original 150. I just think a smalller number would be better, I'll leave the selection up to the devs.

Oh no, I know what you meant. It's just 99% of the time, that argument is followed up by "it needs to be the original lot" and I can't take the point seriously after that.

It's mostly used to veil the actual thing they want, which is to cut the Pokémon they don't care about.

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This idea gets thrown around a lot. And it's always someone saying they need to go back to the original 150.
Which is a terrible idea. The original 150 are balanced horribly. No Dark Pokémon at all there, which means Psychic Pokémon go unchecked.
You want to reboot Pokémon with a small amount of Pokémon? The Gen 5 lot are the answer. Much better balance.
But Black/White sold the least of all the mainline games, partly because it was the closest to a reboot the series had.
That defo discouraged that idea in the future. It also led to the great Gen 1 pandering of the next 2 generations.
No matter how Gen 1 biased people our age are, every generation is someone's first. So no matter what Pokémon get the chop, someone's favourite is there.
I also think it'd be a bit of a shame to drop so many Pokémon when there's some really great designs throughout all of the games. It'd suck if I couldn't catch the likes of Krookodile, Scrafty or Toxtricity.
If you're rebooting it, you can change/rebalance the Pokémon, I guess.

But yeah, it doesn't really matter which Pokémon get in, they just need to change something moving forward, or they'll keep adding Pokémon each gen and soon they will start groaning under the weight of having so many. It's unsustainable. How many are there going to be in 10 years time? 1500? 2000? If they can't animate the ones they have now, how terrible are the games going to look in 2031?

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I always struggle to understand the whole 'you can't drop any Pokemon, someone's favourite will be among them'. Just because they get dropped in one game doesn't mean they vanish from that person's memories or from all those previous games. It's ok to move forward and try new things.

 

Edited by Ronnie

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Just now, Ronnie said:

I always struggle to understand the whole 'you can't drop any Pokemon, someone's favourite will be among them'. Just because they get dropped in one game doesn't mean they vanish from that person's memories or from all those previous games. It's ok to move forward and try new things.

I didn't cry when Nintendo ditched Midna or the deku leaf from Zelda or when Breath of the Wild tried a new approach, because the other 19 games were still intact and available to play.

The difference is that the franchise has banked on having these wide variety of Pokémon available for the player to choose from. You'd be hard pressed to find two players who ended up using the same team setup in their playthrough. It also helps with repeat playthroughs because you can try a different lot.

You see, my question is, "Why cut it so drastically?" 150 feels like a bit of a waste, considering that there's a lot of Pokémon already designed. The large amount of well designed monsters are what elevate Pokémon games above any competition it might get.

I played Nexomon Extinction a while back. It's a solid Pokémon clone, but no amount of hilarious, yet strangely cool, Krookodile knock-offs are going to stand up to the long history Pokémon has. And once again, Pokémon continues to bring out great concepts for monsters. The quality of the Pokémon themselves really haven't decreased over time, which is why it continues to attract new players to this day. For every person who decries that Pokémon aren't as good as the Charizard they used on their copy of Red/Blue, there's likely 5 people who have Sword/Shield as their first game and think "Wow, it's a secret agent chameleon that shoots water from it's finger, that's so cool!"

Anyway, how I see it, is that Game Freak are already starting to experiment with a smaller roster of Pokémon each game after what happened with Sword/Shield. I'd be amazed if the upcoming Diamond/Pearl remakes have any Pokémon that weren't in the original games. (Except Sylveon, because it evolves from Eevee) And I would be astonished if Legends: Arceus breaks 300, what with the open-world requiring more time that they don't have.

Sword/Shield may have had a reduced availability of Pokémon out of necessity, but I think it will become more of the standard in future generations. A new generation will have around 300-400 Pokémon, and more will become available via DLC updates. I think that could work, as long as the old Pokémon are rotated around frequently enough so that you don't go too long without being able to transfer your bloody shiny Greninja that you spent months trying to get and is still stuck on a 3DS game!

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The update video for the game, if you want to see Kleavor in action:

Thank goodness it is a Scyther evolution, though, because it would have been silly if it wasn't related to Scizor and Scyther; went through the entire update video obviously not being told that (for some strange reason)! I hate a new Gen I evolution being called a "Noble Pokémon", though, that does rub me the wrong way a bit...

Anyways, still looks pretty rough, but at this point it is what it is. Why they decided to have sections focused on characters speaking when there's no voice-acting is truly bizarre. The phoned in character designs continue, what with Team Galactic Mars lookalike, fully expect doppelgangers for Saturn and Jupiter, seeing as we already had a Cyrus one. 

Also could that flute be the Azure Flute? When it's played in the same trailer it's the same sound from the title screens of DPPt and from the Hall of Origin event. That could be cool. 

Edited by Julius
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Scyther is one of my favourites, nice to see it get (another) decent evolution. I'm still not really sold on this game though, I think I'll wait for reviews to come out before ordering it.

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9 minutes ago, Julius said:

Also could that flute be the Azure Flute?

Nintendo Players UK posted similar news and called it a Celestica Flute. Not sure where they got the additional info from though.

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26 minutes ago, Mandalore said:

Nintendo Players UK posted similar news and called it a Celestica Flute. Not sure where they got the additional info from though.

Huh, weird that wasn't mentioned in the trailer either. Imagine it's part of a press release or on the official site somewhere. 

If it is called that, feel like this is a big hint that Celestic Town is making a return in this entry, as there's a town at the foot of Mt Coronet which could be it, but has no real distinguishing features based on the map. 

EDIT: just seen that there will also be a pre-order bonus of a Hisuian Growlithe Kimono set. Try saying that three times fast. 

bonus-preview-1.jpg

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The Hisuian Growlithe Kimono Set will be gifted to those who preorder Pokémon Legends: Arceus. You can receive it by choosing Get via Internet from the Mystery Gifts feature in your game, up until May 9, 2022. Then you can dress yourself up in this fashionable getup as you enjoy your adventures in the Hisui region!

It takes approximately two hours of play time before the Mystery Gifts feature is unlocked. You will need an internet connection to claim this preorder bonus, but you will not need a paid Nintendo Switch Online membership.

 

Edited by Julius

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59 minutes ago, Julius said:

Why they decided to have sections focused on characters speaking when there's no voice-acting is truly bizarre.

Even putting aside the weird focus on text boxes, the whole trailer was really badly put together. Editing, sound effects etc

As someone who isn't really a big fan of Pokemon I was confused why they ended it suddenly after a bag was being thrown.

Edited by Ronnie

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The recent DP remake video (not today's but the previous one) was also weirdly edited with strange pan and zooms. 

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Why Scyther of all Pokémon? Pinsir is right there with nothing and Scyther gets a second one!?

Scizor is still super viable, even today, so this is just weird and unnecessary.

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So, Kotaku have an update to offer on the open world not being open world, but actually Monster Hunter-esque...

Quote

Update, 10/8/2021, 6:00 p.m. ET: The Pokémon Company has sent Kotaku a statement confirming the Monster Hunter-esque structure of Pokémon Legends: Arceus.

In Pokémon Legends: Arceus, Jubilife Village will serve as the base for surveying missions. After receiving an assignment or a request and preparing for their next excursion, players will set out from the village to study one of the various open areas of the Hisui region. After they finish the survey work, players will need to return once more to prepare for their next task. We look forward to sharing more information about exploring the Hisui region soon.

...and yeah, considering what we've learned about the game since August, I'll be honest, I'm surprised I didn't pick up on it sooner. The rolling and capture mechanics, etc., it makes a whole lot more sense now I feel. 

It sounds like it's going the Monster Hunter route of having zonal open areas you go to for a mission and return to base from before heading out on another mission, rather than being open world in the same vein as Breath of the Wild (everyone's go to, I was still just hoping for a Xenoblade situation to be honest). In which case, boy oh boy have Nintendo and TPCi kind of bottled the messaging on this. While the mechanics and gameplay loop were clearly Monster Hunter styled, if it is a case of zones to complete rather than an open world, then I really think they've misrepresented the open world nature of the game to this point. I mean, look at the box art for crying out loud! 

pokemon_legends_arceus_box_art.jpg?w=253

The entire thing does start making a while lot more sense with this context, though. I mean, golly, what game came out three to four years ago that might have inspired this move? 

635419_front.jpg

Monster Hunter World released in January 2018, and if I'm remembering right, is Capcom's best-selling game. Consider too how well the MH games tend to do in Japan, and I think it makes even more sense. 

Don't get me wrong, the mechanics were clearly there to suggest this, but that it sounds like you go to zones to complete missions rather than traverse through a "real" open world suddenly makes it all click. Hey, maybe I'm reading too far into it and you do need to travel to these zones first - which actually suddenly makes the inclusion of mounts make way more sense, it's essentially a fast(er) travel system to get out there, rather than to just explore - and it is open world in that sense, but positioning it as a MH Pokémon game rather than a true and proper open world Pokémon game really made it click in my head for some reason. 

charlie-day.gif

No doubt everyone else already figured this out, but man, I wish they marketed it in a way that this was absolutely crystal clear, because it seems like they were banking on people thinking this was something it clearly isn't. The lack of multiplayer is a bit odd for such a game if that is the case, but I think it makes way more sense to me now. Now, if it does have zones rather than an open world and looks this rough, though, there's a much more compelling argument regarding the game's appearance, though maybe less so if it is open world and you travel through it to get to whichever zone your mission is in. 

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Huh, well, this is an interesting development.

Consider me changed from "Absolute nope" to "ehhh, maybe"

Still looks too empty and boring to me. But if it's Monster Hunter style structure, maybe I won't have to spend hours running through loads of nothing to actually do something for a minute.

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13 hours ago, Julius said:

So, Kotaku have an update to offer on the open world not being open world, but actually Monster Hunter-esque...

There goes my interest in the game. 

Lame, though to be expected tbh.

It also somehow manages to make the shocking visuals, even worse.

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Sounds like it's more like Xenoblade than Xenoblade X... which is a good thing as far as I'm concerned :) 

8 hours ago, Ronnie said:

There goes my interest in the game. 

Lame, though to be expected tbh.

It also somehow manages to make the shocking visuals, even worse.

The areas are still stonkingly huge.  It's just that it has 5 seperated "open worlds" that you choose between when you set out on your quest from the main hub.

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16 minutes ago, MindFreak said:

New teaser

Well... 

Pokémon: "Welcome to Hisui, the ancient predecessor to the Sinnoh Region"

Also Pokémon: "And here's some found-footage 90's horror set in the ancient Hisui region" 

In all seriousness though, fair play to them, probably the best tease we've had of a Pokémon in a long time, and a great way to separate the marketing of this from the Sinnoh remakes. I kind of want a Pokémon horror game now...

Pretty sure everyone who has played the Mystery Dungeon: Explorers games was worried for this guy when Snorunt turned up and the possibility of a Froslass being around came to mind. 

The last time that I can really remember being teased like this was Zorua/Zoroark, and honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if this was for a Hisuian Zorua or Zoroark styled after a Kitsune Mask. 

tumblr_inline_ny36ddiKS61tai1u2_500.png

720X720-mask-fox-001.jpg

The hint of it being small, like a Vulpix or Growlithe, feels like the biggest hint of it being something like this. 

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Wow, they managed to make Zoroark's hair even more of a gigantic mess! I approve!

Zoroark was always cooler than Lucario, I have spoken, thus it is so.

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13 minutes ago, Vileplume2000 said:

Mystery solved, good guess @Julius!

 

Oh wow, they look way better than I thought they might! Was a little worried about the yellow and red eyes getting into Litten territory, but they look great! 

I actually forgot to mention this in my original post, but another main reason I feel like Zoroark might have been suited for a reveal like this is because of it using illusions, imagine that'd give you a spook. Since I originally posted I also saw some pretty awesome posts elsewhere pointing out other things which made it seem even more likely, like the guy saying "It's 7:06...no, 7:07 PM" being a reference to Zorua and Zoroark's Unova Dex numbers being #76 and #77, respectively. When the Pokémon fandom wants to figure something out, boy do they! 

Also someone's got to mention just how terrifying those Snorunt looked :D

10 minutes ago, Glen-i said:

Wow, they managed to make Zoroark's hair even more of a gigantic mess! I approve!

Looks like these Zoroark got some pointers from Piers :laughing:

pokemon-sword-and-shield-piers.gif

10 minutes ago, Glen-i said:

Zoroark was always cooler than Lucario, I have spoken, thus it is so.

Correction:

Zorua > Riolu

but it's Lucario > Zoroark 

:p

Edited by Julius

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19 minutes ago, Julius said:

Correction:

Zorua > Riolu

but it's Lucario > Zoroark 

:p

So incorrect. The Illusion ability makes it an infinitely more interesting Pokémon.

What's Lucario got? Inner Focus? How boring!

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We've been over this; all that matters is how a Pokémon looks. 

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