Clarification: There's some debate in the comments whether or not Project Tezu (seen at timestamp 9:55) was technically part of the Gear Project. According to Junichi Masuda, Gear Project games require 3 GF devs to support a project in order to be pitched to GF's higher-ups. Project Tezu had 3 GF devs supporting it: James Turner (SwSh's art director), Go Ichinose (SwSh composer), and Hironobu Yoshida (SwSh Pokémon designer). James mentioned the Gear Project in his now-deleted Twitter thread about Project Tezu, but after this video went up, it was pointed out to us that he said elsewhere that Project Tezu was "just for fun." Whether Project Tezu was technically part of the Gear Project, or a project 3 GF devs made just for fun -- as far as time spent working on it, it's essentially the same as a Gear Project pitch that didn't go any further than the 28 second animation seen in this video (according to what's been stated publicly). In hindsight we wish we'd tweaked the wording used at 9:55. Unfortunately, we can't make those kind of tweaks in a video, like we could in a written article. Apologies.
Hey there do you think you can buy me one of the sword or shield game and nintendo switch along with it, I can't buy them myself and I really want to play the Galar game.
Ironically, all gear project games look boring and one dimensional meanwhile Project Tezu would have legitimately had me interested. I could actually see that one blossoming into a franchise if you choild customize your character, their suit and their mecha
A bummer about both Galar and Paldea (actually Alola too I think) is that the area around your house looks _so nice_ with lots of littie homey details and then nowhere else in the game has the same level of care
@@internetguy7319 I mean there's a lot to unpack there but I have a vague memory of there being more personalized details at the start than in the rest of the game
@@deviousj5868 Pokémon games are always graphically inferior to many contemporary games but that's not the topic at hand. Games don't have to look great to be good. What I'm talking about is parts of each game tend to demonstrate a level of care and detail that's not consistent with the rest of the game. And that's far more significant than how it looks compared to other games made by different people
The stuff about Dexit is fascinating from a Japanese perspective, as reportedly the Pokemon devs never really announced the pokemon cuts would be happening in that region, meaning the whole situation there was more or less just one big "surprise" kept under wraps on purpose.
@LegendStormcrow Yeah, just cements how scummy they were being. A bunch of Western fans were trying to get the information out in the Japanese social media circles, and there definitely was some momentum, but something happened that made the beginning of the anger over there get buried. And I don't know what it was.
The idea of pokecenters being more of a hub for trainers to stop and rest along the way (without being reduced to just a healing mechanic) is so much better. Shame that never made it through.
Man, it would be rad if Monolith Soft made the games themselves, while Game Freak designed the creatures, region and characters... Game Freak's team is super passionate about designing everything but the actual games, whereas Monolith Soft actually cares about level design, sidequests and overall, the JRPG experience these games seriously need!
@@michaelriverside1139 And then you get a game that feels like anything but a Pokemon games, with questionable decisions to "rise the target demography" ruining everything and the competitive being just an arterthought at best.
@@toumabyakuya I dunno about you, but Sword and Shield already felt like anything but a Pokémon game like Black & White or even Sun & Moon to me... And naw fam, that's why Game Freak should keep doing the Characters, Creatures and Region themselves, the art team fires on all cylinders every time, while Monolith Soft's is prone to being horny dumb teenagers. Besides, what did you get in Breath of the Wild & Tears of the Kingdom? garbage waifu designs like Pyra or THREE insanely well crafted sandbox environments in Hyrule, The Sky and the Underworld?
9:53 -- This is an error. Project TEZU was an animation, not a game for GEAR Project (you can even see "JAMATION" at the bottom which he uses exclusively for animation projects) and on James' personal channel, the video is still up, where he states this in the comments.
I really wish we lived in a timeline where these games were better. The region, character and pokemon designs are all so cool and the concept for a lot of stuff like the stadiums and gym challenge was awesome, it's just a shame that it couldn't live up to the potential. Evolutions and Twilight Wings sold me on this opinion. Cause the Galar portrayed in those is amazing. That's the Galar I think about.
I agree, I actually really liked this game and thought it could of easily been one of the best pokemon games if they gave it more time in the oven. Even just adding a "hard" mode would of sufficed since the main issue IMO is the difficulty is horribly easy until you get to post game, and even then it can be easy. But this can probably be said about a lot of the modern pokemon games. They just do not get the proper amount of dev time to truly shine.
@@playcube4564 I can’t really pin point what my main issue with the game was. But I would watch the new episode of twilight wings, enjoy it, then boot up shield and not really know what to do.
To me, the Pokemon Company & GameFreaks initial gripes withthe Switch seem pretty thinly veiled to be a distaste towards moving to an HD, home console-esque system. You can tell from any of the releases on Switch that the devs just weren't/aren't ready for such a big leap. Why else would they request Nintendo make a console so similar to the platform they were already familiar with instead?
In the video, it's pretty explicit that many didn't see a need or niche for the Switch due to the immense size of the smartphone market and how much smartphones were changing the models of how gaming were working (often with the help of financiers), likely a sign that there was significant resistance toward actually building up the resources for modern game development (anywhere near the PS3 or PS4 generation of hardware). But they ended up being proven massively wrong (with entire markets being opened up by the Switch for hybrid dedicated gaming PCs/systems).
I'm really glad they did go with developing the switch because I love it. I personally am not into phone gaming and I'm sure many others aren't either. Not only do I like having an actual console with controls & storage that has nothing to do with my phone's power or design but phone games can tend to be a big predatory and I don't like in app purchases. Yeah they definitely weren't ready for the jump in hardware. They'd just mastered in 3ds world building and I'm sure it was tough having to learn how to develop on the switch and do it well.
@@jazzrockr it's just strange they would simultaneously request Nintendo to develop a 3DS successor AND also assert that the Switch would fail due to smart phone gaming. The 4DS was gonna find a niche but the Switch wasn't? I was also around for the culture revolving around the Switch reveal. GF was one of the outliers from an otherwise very positive response. Fucking Bethesda and 2K contributed to the reveal.
@@Emily-lh6em totally agree. Hopefully since console specs are slowing down with each gen, GameFreak will be able to catch up soon. Despite their shortcomings, I greatly enjoyed Legends & Gen 9.
@@Fuhiro3 It's easy to say this and I thought this too, but like I said, it's easy to say knowing how they've done with the Switch and how well they did with the 3ds, so it seems *very* convenient for Game Freak, but there's no real evidence to support this. They MAY have just thought the Switch was a bad idea (especially for Pokemon) and also maybe didn't want to work on the switch due to how much harder it would be. If the games had been better, and they still thought that, would you still say this? Probably not, because there's nothing else but the quality of the games to kindaaa suggest this idea in someone's mind. Maybe they thought it'd be harder but that they could pull it off way better than they ended up doing and still thought the Switch would be bad? It's basically all speculation without a strong angle to stay within. As for why they would think the Switch would flop but not the 4ds, well for one, the 4ds would still have the gimmicks of the stylus w touch pad, dual screen, and the 4d screen (:O), to separate it from most smartphones that still don't do that, while the Switch's pro would be to be... able to stay home (with way lower specs than other companies?), which is kind of the opposite of what smartphones were showing the world to go, according to them. The Switch would be way bigger too, making it less convenient than a folded up 4ds. There are legitimate reasons to think outside of retrospective, for a company that has been developing only popular handheld games and is watching the smartphone market boom, that a console like this wouldn't do as well as an actual handheld console. But yeah, there's a good chance it was that they weren't ready for the leap too, lol.
Another Pokémon British inspiration that you guys surprisingly didn't mention: Mr. Rime; the evolution of Galarian Mr. Mime, is clearly inspired by Charles Chaplin's Little Tramp. While it is truth that the character in a Hollywood icon, Chaplin was British born, being even knighted by the Crown shortly before his death. It also explains why Galarian Mr. Mime looks much more like a traditional mime than its Kanto counterpart (which looks more like a clown, a harlequin even), because; despite the Italian/french/japanese roots of that art form, Chaplin's Tramp was basically an evolution of sorts of traditional mimes and their routines. I hope this can be useful for everyone.
@@FurryFoxFires Yeah I love that the Shinies in Gens 7 onward usually reference something instead of being seemingly randomly picked or just for aesthetics
I'm guessing they couldn't find a source to mention that. They didn't really mention any without sources, except for Obstagoon's Kiss part, though in that regard they did mention the source for the design, and specifically mention that there was no response by Nintendo to the Kiss aspect to confirm that was also an inspiration.
It's weird how Nintendo and TPC have an almost adversarial relationship with this channel. I get it that there are corporate secrets, but they seem to almost aggressively try to keep everything under wraps, even long after things are cancelled.
I think they try to keep everything concealed because they have been known to use inspiration from the entirety of their whole franchises. Revealing designs later even if they aren't used or referenced would show their hand, and Nintendo is successful because of this (even if it leaves the fans wanting, which is a good thing for their profit margins).
@@AmazinglyAwkward they don’t always hate their fans. I’m sure they like their fans. It’s either A: Japanese companies lack fair use policies. Or B. Fans themselves tend to spoil upcoming information that would’ve been announced.
@@AmazinglyAwkward Wanting to keep leaks secret =/= hating their fans. Not saying they don't have questionable actions like take downs of fan games, but this isn't one of them
@@stupidmonkey089 I wasnt talking exclusively about leaks I just meant their attitude towards their fans, as you rightly mentioned fan games or even translations of Japanese only games are good examples
I hate that they will look at sales numbers rather than quality to influence what they will do next. I know SV didn't sell as well as SWSH so I hope that makes them reflect on what they can do better for the next generation. I have been a fan of Pokemon since the trading cards first came to America, so it truly hurts me that the series has taken such a decline in quality over the last 10 or so years. I really want Pokemon to be exciting and fun again, so I hold out hope they will do something right by the fans.
With 3 year release cycle quality only get worse as consoles get more powerful. Back for game boy 3 years was plenty of time to make a game. For switch you need 5 years for it to be ready and polished bare minimum.
The funny thing about Dexit is that the "National Dex" only really works for the first four Gens; starting with Gen 5 it's more like the _International_ Dex
GEN 5 BEST GEN A-(explosions everywhere like you wouldn't believe) Ok but seriously i still remember when gen 6 came around and brought megas, then gen 7 with ULTRA F***ING NECROZMA amd z-moves... Aaand they then crunched gen 8.
There's actually an argument that the government of the world of Pokemon is a global nation. The argument is, every gens' area is called a region because nations plural no longer exist in Pokemon. The recurring motifs of historical wars and culture shaping disasters fuel the various evil counter cultural teams in each game. They are against globalization because they feel that the peace loving world order is making people and Pokemon weak, and are trying to revert the world to the constant wars of the past to toughen everyone up again. This is part of the reasons Team Aqua/Magma exist despite their plans making no sense. Mass death from sudden water level changes was in their minds a feature, not a bug. Since Team Skull, Pokemon has made an effort to add moral grey by making their complaints more legitimate systemic issues, but the central thesis that everyone is better off working together as much as possible remains solid in even their worst written games. Basically, Pokemon is Star Trek condensed into one planet.
Well they may be based off of Japan, but the Pokémon world likely isn't a mirror copy of our own. I like to think that the first 6 generations were all part of the same country, but starting in gen 7 with no National Dex anymore, we've been in different countries ever since
@@Volcanron nah there's a Safari zone NPC in like Gen 3 or 4 that makes it clear that the regions are the time are all the same country. While they've mostly phased out the references to real world country names, Lt. Surge is still presumably still from the country that includes Unova and it's likely Alola is still part of that country. We also get references that there _are_ foreign languages in the Pokémon world with rare NPCs speaking entirely in a language different from the game setting, tourists and some others speaking with a different dialect or inserting foreign words, and at least in the English version (I can't speak for the others) characters of Kalos, Alola, Galar, and Paldea intersperse local words based on France, Hawaii, England, and Spain. Heck, Looker is implied to not be totally fluent in the language of Unova despite speaking clearly in other games though I don't know if that's present in Japanese
@@philatio1744 One in particular was that he said that Sword and Shield had entirely new animations across the board, nothing was reused from previous titles.
Sheesh... Responding to that Bayleef fan's tweet and then not putting it in the game is like self-immolation. Just don't acknowledge these sorts of tweets if you aren't going to deliver, then you won't shoot yourselves in the foot. It still baffles me how disconnected and socially inept higher-ups can be.
actually theres a LOT to argue a xenomorph would be a bug type if you look at the design, the behavior, the hive mentality and swarming, dark and bug or bug and dragon would be VERY apt for a xenmorph
A lot of space/alien based Pokemon are Psychic type so a Xenomorph to me would be Psychic/Bug or Psychic/Poison but yeah, I also agree with you that Poison/Dragon doesn't strike me as THE Xenomorph typing if it were in Pokemon.
"they dont make meme pokemon" *makes a Meowth form based on a joke form Monty python* all of Monty Python has become ingrained in meme culture because of its silliness, so im counting this.
Also, I think it spoils the mystery for the fans, people speculated that the Bulbasaur line was partially based on proto-mammals due to Ivysaur and Venusaur having some mammalian traits such as ears and claws, but then it turned out they were just weird-looking frogs.
"Masuda felt really bad after people rightfully called him out for callously interacting with a fan like that. He then felt better once he saw how much money he made"
I'll have to defend Gamefreak on this one, they are a small studio with no outside help and Nintendo, Pokemon Company, etc seem intent on keeping it that way which is probably why they prioritized project gear as a means to get out somehow (also why project gear seemed to focus on games outside nintendo consoles). The pokemon project gets bigger and bigger yet the devs don't really have the experience on their side to help transition their growth. So for this one, I'll let Masuda wipe his tears with fat stacks.
@@oyeh8908 I would agree if it was an independent company. Gamefreak is tightly controlled by Nintendo and The Pokemon Company who I am more than sure are also responsible for the release schedule. This isn't something new to nintendo and games like Pikmin 4 and Tears of The Kingdom are the exception, not the rule. Wii U/3DS era Nintendo was pumping out games that felt unfinished like crazy, throwing mud at the wall and seeing what sticks. Consistently, it was Pokemon, even with how unfinished X and Y were. The Pokemon Company probably also has similar goals to maximize profit. It's not something I think Masuda himself has control over. This is a common problem with companies that work with contractors and/or third/second parties. It's not like this is something Nintendo or TPC invented, but I can definitely see them doing this.
@@heyhackurs Size doesn't matter when you're the most profitable gaming company. You can always hire more than the hundred and twenty developers you're so stubbornly insistent on keeping and greatly increase the progress made with dev work in a shorter period of time. The way I see it, Game Freak dug itself into this hole and deserves every bit of criticism because of it, since they always have an easy way out.
"When I hear the outrage of the fans, I feel sad but when I look at the sales of this game compared to the others, it makes me feel better." What a bastard.
NGL they were always lagging behind with the backlog of hundreds of Pokemon each generation, they let catch all the Pokemon but had no NatDex in Gen 7. I can't entirely hate them for making this decision
Hard to feel bad for Masuda at the end there when he's one of the people at the top calling the shots. Like yeah, I'm sure SwSh seeing well did make him happy, woo hoo 🙄
I feel bad for the developers. You can see how much passion they had, but the brutal release schedule has been ruining Pokemon games for the past decade or so
Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon was the first time I noticed a dip in quality. I saw the writing on the wall and haven't bought or played any Pokemon since. In hindsight, it looks like I was totally justified: I would have been disappointed every single core title after those.
@@ThePerfectKiosk Ultra Sun & Moon are some of the best games in the series in my opinion. I loved the story, the characters and the post game & the music.
Between tight release schedules and hate from fans, it feels as though the way they're running the game development now is the best way they can, unless things change in both the company and the fandom. :(
I imagine the Gear Project was one of the most demoralizing things to happen to Game Freak simply because they were forced to come to terms with the fact that they weren't good enough at what they do to make something outside of the Pokemon brand. The audience they cultivated don't care about them or their creativity, and they're all completely justified in thinking that after they dropped duds like Tembo, Little Town Hero, and Giga Wrecker. I don't think anyone is having a good time over there except execs.
It's a real shame since there are gamefreak devs that are tired of "making the same game over and over" and they do that because the executives make a lot of money and it sells well. But yet when they tried to do something different it just didn't work out and sadly just lead them back to where they initially were. Maybe one day they might find a balance between the two but I do have my doubts.
@@TheEmeraldWeirdo Thing is, that's the only thing keeping Gsmefreak afloat. They stop making Pokemon games, they stop existing. Period. The Gear Project showed that- different parts of the fanbase, yet they all want Pokemon. Nobody wants to play Giga Wrecket or Tembo, they want Pokemon games at a scale way higher than Gamefreak could feasibly make. Bc somehow Money=Talent=Fun (which makes zero sense, tbh) But honestly, as a Pokemon Fan, they should end the franchise at Gen 10.
@@amadeus.7436 Yea, but the funding and extensive interviews (can't let a "Sound type is actually good" employee live) would take too much time, and their contributions would be minimal at best. I'd rather it just stops. Yeah, there's whole other regions that could be made, but they're working like Y2K is a year away, the fanbase is basically fighting itself on every angle known to man (people can't even agree to like pokemon in the first place) and hardware is moving faster.
@@CocoRoxas @danwalsh4125 I'll just copy it from Wikipedia since it explains it better than I could: "In November 2000, it was reported that Uri Geller, an Israeli "psychic"-magician who claims to bend spoons with his mind, sued Nintendo over the Pokémon Kadabra, due to its Japanese name (Yungera) which he claimed was an unauthorized appropriation of his identity. Geller learned of the similarity after fans of both himself and Pokémon noted a resemblance to the character's Japanese name, behavior and face and presented him with cards of the character to autograph after he had finished taping a television special in Japan. He further claimed that the star on Kadabra's forehead and the lightning patterns on its abdomen were symbols popular with the Waffen-SS and that, through the character, Nintendo had "turned him into an evil, occult Pokémon character". Nintendo countered by stating there was no connection between the two and that they had not named any of the Pokémon after actual people to the knowledge of their staff. In 2008, Pokémon anime director and storyboard artist Masamitsu Hidaka confirmed in an interview that Kadabra would not be used on a Pokémon Trading Card until an agreement was reached on the case. In November 2020, after Geller told TheGamer that he received an amount of emails from Pokémon fans convincing him to drop the case and allow Nintendo to bring back Kadabra, Geller announced he had given Nintendo permission to resume printing Pokémon cards depicting Kadabra."
@@CocoRoxasKadabra was based on a real guy, who ended up suing, so for a decade+ Kadabra was not present in the tgc I don't recall exact details, but there's more than a few videos floating around
A reference can be both clear and "less obvious," which is exactly the case here. If you ask the average person what Runerigus is based on, I doubt a majority of people would know. Show that same person a side-by-side comparison of Runerigus and the runestone shown at 5:02 immediately afterwards, and they'll probably say it's a very close match. Hence the design origin being both less obvious and clear.
honestly I think a rework in the future might give sword / shield justice, the music and battle system was fantastic it just needs more work on the map and to speed up some animations like grassy field healing being so slow
being made before Ultra SuMo is released explains a lot about the textures but they should've split some team members to quickly upscale them. also EternaFish looks funny as hell
Shame they didn't include more elements from other areas of the UK, feels like Northern Ireland got ignored entirely Giant's Causeway would've been a great area to explore for a Galar route or even just pokemon designs
Good point, though perhaps Galar is just Britain and not the whole UK, and they'll have an Irish region at a later time, with Northern Ireland in the DLC? It'd undoubtedly be controversial amongst certain groups of Brits if they did that second part, but I think it'd work well personally!
i just realized i forgot to comment on something. James mentioned "ideas are running short we keep running into similar concepts and colors" something like that? Bruh has he seen fanart? Maybe not all of it is good but ideas NEVER stopped being abundant. i always bring this up when a topic like this is discussed amongst friends, SO SO many of fanartists would happily give away their ideas for free. No idea why Pokemon is so insistent on not taking in outside ideas. Getting James on the creative team was a freakin miracle. if they're struggling many of us would give our kidneys to them if they asked lol just to see a creation realized in an actual game. (hyperbole but you get the point, ideas are out there and there would be no issue if they just asked people)
⚠️ Falinks is based on the Roman soldiers not British ones. That's because Romans reigned over south England for a while. That's also why this Pokémon appears on a ruined route.
1:10 "because i thought, in the age of smartphone, no one would carry a console around" not to sound harsh, but i feel like this shows a pretty big dissonance between his mindset and videogame players
I really loved the pokemon and cities from Sword and Shield, it seems like for Scarlet and Violet all of the effort went in making the open world work instead and we got a completely barebones region.
@@supervivo7069 yeah I honestly couldn't recognized any notable Spain landmarks in Paldea aside from Mezegoza obviously being based on Madrid and the skyscrapers in Levincia being based on the Cuatro Torres Business Area, which is ironically in Madrid.
@@dantemustdie00 well it is just a landmass in the distortion world it’s unlikely gratina cared all that much about that when making a mini-domain to rule over.
It shows in the Pokemon designs too. Like we're getting more Asian mythology than Spanish mythology. Most other regions, even if creatively bankrupt, at least had some folklore reflective of the irl mythology. This go around can't even manage that much
Yeah I don't feel pity for them. They change the development part way through because they saw the Let's Go games go somewhat well? They thought mere phones would do better than a new console? Running out of design ideas? And only feeling momentarily feeling bad after the deceptive stunts they pulled and splitting the team in two? This only highlights how poor their planning, business decisions, and priorities are.
remember how the whole not having the entire dex was being kept under wraps because GF knew how much of a backlash they would get, especially given the damage control they gave saying that it was for time constraints and to better the graphics and animations 🙈
In this video: GameFreak failing at technical competency; being dead wrong about the target hardware; refusing to credit, thank, or even acknowledge their inspirations; being aggressively ant-transparency; and explicitly prioritizing pet projects noone ended up caring about over the most valuable IP on Earth despite their continued disappointing products. God, they are truly a stone around the neck of Pokemon.
I get them wanting to make another hit series especially since Pokemon is gonna sell well even if it's scarlet and violet. But they're trying to make lightning strike twice and for the wrong reasons. Pokemon was successful because it was something they were passionate about, it was new, and it had tons of adorable and cool creatures. If they are making something because they want a megahit they're gonna fail. If they're making something they're passionate about then I'm sure it will be good and sell well. Not Pokemon numbers of course but well nonetheless.
if oyu happen to know G Gundam then check out how the Ultimate Gundam in the final episode looks like in terms of it's exoskelett when it was ultimately stopped because it really looks like Eternatus and being lore bound to be a big energy source from outer space does fit what it tried and set out to be. Even the pose they strike are VERY reminiscing.
True, though also if there was a whole video on it, it would probably just be them reading off the page on the Cutting Room Floor. Unless they do some new insight, there wouldn’t be much new info to come from if.
In case anyone wonders why Runerigious was in a British-inspired region instead of a Scandinavian one, the age of Vikings coincided with England’s early formation, and Vikings were absolutely involved in the early post-Roman history of Britain and even Ireland. There was even a single failed Viking raid in Al-Andalus(Muslim-controlled Iberian Peninsula, parts of modern-day Spain/Portugal)
Meganium did later become box art for New "Pokemon Snap" I believe this is directed to the Bayleaf incident where the fan of the pokemon never got to see it in Sword and Shield.
All GEN 1, 2, 3 and 4 pokemon are in diamond pearl remakes but people hated them games. It’s only one on switch with national dex and isn’t piss easy. It’s old school grind to be strong
I'm still mad that SWSH didn't base more of the reigon on Scottish lore & culture past a few tiny tidbits. Rillaboom would have been a really good tenor drummer like in a scottish marching band.
I swear to god if they bring up again the argument that people don’t play on the go with consoles anymore or don’t like challenges because “SmARtphOnEZzz” imma fucking implode and haunt them. I will never understand how can they be so out of touch with the real world and the fanbase.
You know, as much as I'm not a big fan of SwSh, hearing alot of the development ideas and presentation, I think I now appreciate alot of stuff that was put into it, yet we hear all these development issues makes me feel bad about it more. I think i would've like it much more if they managed to do a better polish on it or didn't make the gameplay feel like a slog
I'm honestly surprised to hear how much heart was put into the development of this game, given the controversies surrounding it. It's a shame it didn't turn out better. Good grief though, that message from Masuda was a jerk move.
The fact they sell this good is more about the Switch than about Pokemon. It also means that because more eyes are on them, the scrutiny gets that much worse for Game Freak.
From what I recall, Project Tezu was never in development as a game and was always just a short little animation and solely that. I think it is a little misleading to pass it off as game footage
I really wish we could ask James about Eternatus :( Eternatus is one of my favorite Pokémon and I would love to know about what inspired it and how it was developed! Especially with odd beta sprite that was found 👀 Was it just used for place holding or was the design gonna look much MUCH different!
@@NitwitsWorld I know- but he probably signed stuff saying he couldn't share certain things even if he left. Certain contracts don´t go away after you leave.
I feel like it's a good thing you posted this years later. I'm not sure how long this research took, from when the video was posted to the game and now is 4 years. That's a good idea as Pokemon Gen 8 had a lot of controversy, though calling it controversial isn't right but I don't the right word maybe a different wrod, and posting it years later where it's died down is certainly a good idea. Great video.
I’d say it was more than a vocal minority complaining about the Dex issue, Game Freak lied and they deserved to be criticized and called out for everything. The worlds biggest grossing franchise that makes more money than any other IP in the planet can handle honest criticism. Just because it sells well doesn’t invalidate any of the facts of the situation. GF and TPC need to reevaluate the production of the games, the release of SV shows how messy it is. There is no excuse to release a AAA game in such a state from a company as massive as they are. Its pure laziness and needs to be addressed. I feel bad that James had to delete so many tweets going on about behind the scenes stuff and origins of Pokémon designs. Fans typically appreciate learning more about the games but GF and TPC clearly don’t respect the fans lol.
@@xlbthedemigod5662 Exactly, Game Freak still making games on 3DS hardware and it shows with how cheap SwSh looked at times. And with how glitchy Scarlet was it shows how incompetent and cheap the company can be despite controlling the biggest franchise on the planet. They could easily hire more devs and take more time developing games instead of crapping out the same rushed stuff
It's bad that I'm so used to watching TrueGreen7 anyway that I did a doubletake when he said his name at the end of the video and only then realized I wasn't on his channel. Lol
@5:20 Odd logic here. You say it can’t be long cat because GF doesn’t really do meme Pokémon, then proceed to say it’s likely a Monty Python reference (which is a meme at this point, as what are memes if not popular references? Like General Ackbar is a meme, but also a pop culture reference.)
3:49 Weird, it's almost like quality would be better than quantity, and instead of adding new ones with every game, they should just spend a few years continuously improving the models, animations, etc for all the existing Pokemon and actually a release a game where you can "catch 'em all." I've been so done with Pokemon after being a fan for so long, at this point it just feels like Game Freak is incompetent.
I hate how secretive and private Pokémon company keeps their shit. Like i understand not talking about unreleased projects or anything in case it happens in the future, but a art book with unused pokemon designs would be amazing but no we have to do illegal shit to find out about all this great history they just don’t want to discuss. Thats a big Nintendo problem in general I guess though.
Well, only thing I'm disappointed to learn in this video is that Sword & Shield outsold Scarlet & Violet... I know the former have been out longer but Scarlet & Violet's stories and characters are far superior to S&S... Graphical problems aside and all...
pokemon fans have been crying wolf on every tiny issue since dexit and almost NONE of them have been as significant as dexit was. S/V has serious performance issues, but the discourse around it is incredibly eye rolling because the exact same complaints were levied at Sw/Sh
The first factoid alone explains pretty much everything about game freak and the pokemon company and why they are incapable of releasing a game in the modern day that doesnt have massive game breaking issues
Sword and Shield actually fell short in sales. The others all had sales around the same percentage based off Hardware Sales. SW and SV are beat out by RSE when looking at that comparison
@@philatio1744 I will. Put simply, Swish/Swoosh got ratio'd. The Switch is one of the most successful gaming consoles of the 21st century--the port of Mario Kart 8 has over 90 million sales alone. 13 million sales of Sword AND Shield, bearing in mind that they are essentially counting the same exact game twice AND selling it in bundles, means that despite having an absolutely MASSIVE install base, not many Switch owners bothered to actually buy it. By comparison, Ruby and Sapphire, the Post-Mania generation, succeeded in selling over 16 million copies on an install base of around 80 million (40 million from the United States alone). So why is it that the "POKEMON IS BACK" generation in our modern brand zealotry market had an outing about *on par* with the "POKEMON IS DEAD" generation? The answer, of course, lies in Scarlet and Violet's sales being even lower nearly a year into its lifespan: People can smell the ingredients in that turd sandwich a mile away. There are people who saw how lousy Sw/Sh looked and decided not to buy, there are people who took a bite of the sandwich and decided they wouldn't try another, and then there are people who would have been interested in the sandwich if it were made with better ingredients and decided to save their money for something more appetizing.
@philatio1744 Sure, earlier this month I saw how people were talking about how Scarlet and Violet was nearing to Surpass Gold and Silver in sales. I found it concerning given the bad quality of the game. So I decided to negate the 'Switch affect' by comparing the Top 10 selling Pokémon Games to there respective Console life sales. To see the attach rate and see if it sold more thanks to more people owning the System. The attach rate results were... 10) Pokémon Black/White at 10.15% 9) Pokémon Diamond Pearl at 11.47% 8) Let's Go at 11.63% 7) Pokémon Scarlet Violet at 15.91% 6) Pokemon Gold Silver at 19.46% 5) Pokémon Sword Shield at 19.82% 4) Pokémon Ruby Sapphire at 19.90% 3) Pokémon Sun Moon at 21.45% 2) Pokémon XY at 21.93% 1) Pokémon Red Blue at 26.44% Pokémon use to be a system seller, a main reason people would by a system. As one can see from High Attach Rates from GB, GBA, and 3DS. While how successful the DS was, Pokémon fell a little short likely do to competition. However seeing the stark difference in attach rate from SV and SwSh vs that of Gen 4 and Gen 5 as well as Gen 6 and 7 (The only other different Gens on the same system. It becomes clear, Pokémon is no longer a system seller as quality keeps slipping so only fans already have the system buys the games now
"WHY ARE YOU CHILDREN HAVING FUN WITH A VIDEOGAME?" It's not enough for some people to hate a game. They need everyone else to hate it with them. Insecurity is funny.
« Fans said that game freak should have 100% focus on Pokemon » This my friends, is why we can’t have nice things. The moment you wanna do something else than what you’re used to, others will just dunk on you for daring to try new things.
With the Games that they have released since the change to 3D on the 3DS, they have shown, they are simply incompetent and its no wonder that the games release in the state that they do. They also dont have enough people working there. Proof of them being incompetent is that they created a model for every time Lily appears in Sun and Moon. Instead of creating one model and referencing it
Definitely my least favorite Pokémon games, but this stuff is still super interesting. I may not have liked the gameplay or the characters, but I do love so many of SwSh’s designs and it’s atmosphere, so hearing all this stuff from Turner was super neat.
It’s super neat and also sad because swsh weren’t good and I hate how there’s never going to be a game with a good version of galar. Galar deserved better because there are so many cool things about it.
@@kisamuel2666 Most of them. I still dislike Milo, and the fairy leader is fairylike enough to creep me out, right down to kidnapping children to become fairy trainers. My favorite "gym" leader would still have to be have to be the cop from Sun and Moon. At least Milo is less annoying than characters like Claire and Whitney.
some of the ideas, designs, music, art direction is the best pokemon has ever had in swsh it's the biggest shame of all time that these games were so unpolished
Just got back from a trip to Scotland and real hot take....Galar should HAVE NOT been a mash up of the UK as a whole. I get that in the long run or at a distance Scotland, England, and Wales would come off as the same. They are not. Now that isn't to say each should be it's own region. But rather they shoul have done the same thing they did in gen 6 and made each country a sub-region.
The series continuing to sell this well despite the games shortcomings tells me the quality of these games is only gonna continue to dip exponentially. They have no incentive to make quality games if doing the bare minimum gets them maximum results 🤷🏽♂️. For those who’re unhappy with where the series is going, you have 2 options. You can complain all you want but this is their new philosophy and they’re sticking to their convictions. Or you can say goodbye to the series and wish them farewell and move on to franchises that are actually cared for.
Crazy how they were already working on gen 8 before gen 7 was finished, mainly because they scrapped gyms in gen 7 then bought them back in gen 8 before they knew if the idea would be a success or not
Yeah it's not really a good thing they keep doing that, makes sense why the games feel disconnected and like they're not improving a huge amount every gen
“So many designs have already been done before.” Digimon: So we just made some new Agumon clones… It’s funny to me how Pokémon has way more scrapped monsters than Digimon, but only one of them made such a big deal after they broke 1K. I say scrapped, but the more accurate term in unreleased. Digimon that are official, but lack reference book entries, official art or have made an appearance since being introduced even if said introduction was something like being the main villain of one of the games. Just saying that Pokémon could learn to be a bit from how Digimon handles their monsters. If we can no longer expect to see every single one available in any game again, then at least there shouldn’t be any harm in letting more designs see the light of day amongst the returning ones.
To be fair a lot of his comments about the Switch were during the Wii U era, the industry at large had little confidence in the Wii U. The problem was that once the Switch was proven to be successful he didn't really adjust his views until it was too late, as his attitude likely affect the early stages of development.
As a UK resident and someone whos played every gen, Galar just let me down in terms of potential. The Wild Area was of course the best bit but thinking about the starter towns for example, in Kanto, Johto, Sinnoh (Lake Verity being close to Twinleaf), Unova was there was always a reason to revisit them or some little secrets tucked away. Not exclusive to Gen 8 I know but Postwicke has nothing.
@@lalehiandeity1649 - yet you never get tired of making money. They were clearly hoping that Little Town Heroes would be given a bunch of slack because of the fact that it came from the house of gamefreak, the same people who made pokemon. Because in the end, it sure wasn't talent that was going to carry it that far.
Clarification: There's some debate in the comments whether or not Project Tezu (seen at timestamp 9:55) was technically part of the Gear Project. According to Junichi Masuda, Gear Project games require 3 GF devs to support a project in order to be pitched to GF's higher-ups. Project Tezu had 3 GF devs supporting it: James Turner (SwSh's art director), Go Ichinose (SwSh composer), and Hironobu Yoshida (SwSh Pokémon designer). James mentioned the Gear Project in his now-deleted Twitter thread about Project Tezu, but after this video went up, it was pointed out to us that he said elsewhere that Project Tezu was "just for fun." Whether Project Tezu was technically part of the Gear Project, or a project 3 GF devs made just for fun -- as far as time spent working on it, it's essentially the same as a Gear Project pitch that didn't go any further than the 28 second animation seen in this video (according to what's been stated publicly). In hindsight we wish we'd tweaked the wording used at 9:55. Unfortunately, we can't make those kind of tweaks in a video, like we could in a written article. Apologies.
Thanks for clarifying, it's so rare to see proper journalism on YT - especially for video games. Amazing work as always
There's still time.
The video hasn't broke 200-300k yet
Hey there do you think you can buy me one of the sword or shield game and nintendo switch along with it, I can't buy them myself and I really want to play the Galar game.
@dantelee2485 get a job
Ironically, all gear project games look boring and one dimensional meanwhile Project Tezu would have legitimately had me interested. I could actually see that one blossoming into a franchise if you choild customize your character, their suit and their mecha
A bummer about both Galar and Paldea (actually Alola too I think) is that the area around your house looks _so nice_ with lots of littie homey details and then nowhere else in the game has the same level of care
Sun and Moon is super polished wtf do you mean.
@@internetguy7319 I mean there's a lot to unpack there but I have a vague memory of there being more personalized details at the start than in the rest of the game
There are games made 10 years before those games came out and had better care and graphics.
@@deviousj5868 Pokémon games are always graphically inferior to many contemporary games but that's not the topic at hand. Games don't have to look great to be good. What I'm talking about is parts of each game tend to demonstrate a level of care and detail that's not consistent with the rest of the game. And that's far more significant than how it looks compared to other games made by different people
thats how i feel about the legendaries/starts having the fancy signature move animations and then everything else
The stuff about Dexit is fascinating from a Japanese perspective, as reportedly the Pokemon devs never really announced the pokemon cuts would be happening in that region, meaning the whole situation there was more or less just one big "surprise" kept under wraps on purpose.
Enraging
I remember them scrambling when WE found out. Japan usually gets news first, so they never had reason to look at what we knew.
@@LegendStormcrowplot twist
@LegendStormcrow Yeah, just cements how scummy they were being. A bunch of Western fans were trying to get the information out in the Japanese social media circles, and there definitely was some momentum, but something happened that made the beginning of the anger over there get buried. And I don't know what it was.
Why would they ever announce that?
Fan: "I can't wait to see Bayleef in Sword and Shield!"
Devs: "...should we tell her?"
Masuda: "No, lemme do a bit of trolling..."
Skipper: Naaah. Just smile and wave boys, smile and wave
The idea of pokecenters being more of a hub for trainers to stop and rest along the way (without being reduced to just a healing mechanic) is so much better. Shame that never made it through.
Well now it’s like a gas station. Heal and buy goods and that’s it. All look exactly alike with 2 same people
It's kind of the case in Alola? They have a café at least
@@retrogamer64007 haven’t checked on pkmn in a while so went to see. that shit is no exaggeration a gas station it’s almost funny how sad it looks
Damn every time we hear more about the development cycle of pokemon games it gets more and more depressing.
It's like they decided that since gens 1 and 2 dev cycles were a mess that it works the best.
Man, it would be rad if Monolith Soft made the games themselves, while Game Freak designed the creatures, region and characters...
Game Freak's team is super passionate about designing everything but the actual games, whereas Monolith Soft actually cares about level design, sidequests and overall, the JRPG experience these games seriously need!
@@michaelriverside1139 And then you get a game that feels like anything but a Pokemon games, with questionable decisions to "rise the target demography" ruining everything and the competitive being just an arterthought at best.
@@michaelriverside1139you think Monolith Soft would be ok working under Game Freak’s development schedule?
@@toumabyakuya I dunno about you, but Sword and Shield already felt like anything but a Pokémon game like Black & White or even Sun & Moon to me...
And naw fam, that's why Game Freak should keep doing the Characters, Creatures and Region themselves, the art team fires on all cylinders every time, while Monolith Soft's is prone to being horny dumb teenagers.
Besides, what did you get in Breath of the Wild & Tears of the Kingdom? garbage waifu designs like Pyra or THREE insanely well crafted sandbox environments in Hyrule, The Sky and the Underworld?
Pokémon centres should have stuck to the original idea of being Pubs, that would have been hilarious
9:53 -- This is an error. Project TEZU was an animation, not a game for GEAR Project (you can even see "JAMATION" at the bottom which he uses exclusively for animation projects) and on James' personal channel, the video is still up, where he states this in the comments.
How did that happen lol?
I really wish we lived in a timeline where these games were better. The region, character and pokemon designs are all so cool and the concept for a lot of stuff like the stadiums and gym challenge was awesome, it's just a shame that it couldn't live up to the potential. Evolutions and Twilight Wings sold me on this opinion. Cause the Galar portrayed in those is amazing. That's the Galar I think about.
I agree, I actually really liked this game and thought it could of easily been one of the best pokemon games if they gave it more time in the oven. Even just adding a "hard" mode would of sufficed since the main issue IMO is the difficulty is horribly easy until you get to post game, and even then it can be easy.
But this can probably be said about a lot of the modern pokemon games. They just do not get the proper amount of dev time to truly shine.
@@playcube4564 I can’t really pin point what my main issue with the game was. But I would watch the new episode of twilight wings, enjoy it, then boot up shield and not really know what to do.
Hopefully in the Galar remake
@@PrinceAkaiVtuber If pokemon survives into the next decade. I'd be surprised if remakes continue as well after BDSP.
@@playcube4564ehh, hard mode doesn’t really change anything
To me, the Pokemon Company & GameFreaks initial gripes withthe Switch seem pretty thinly veiled to be a distaste towards moving to an HD, home console-esque system. You can tell from any of the releases on Switch that the devs just weren't/aren't ready for such a big leap. Why else would they request Nintendo make a console so similar to the platform they were already familiar with instead?
In the video, it's pretty explicit that many didn't see a need or niche for the Switch due to the immense size of the smartphone market and how much smartphones were changing the models of how gaming were working (often with the help of financiers), likely a sign that there was significant resistance toward actually building up the resources for modern game development (anywhere near the PS3 or PS4 generation of hardware).
But they ended up being proven massively wrong (with entire markets being opened up by the Switch for hybrid dedicated gaming PCs/systems).
I'm really glad they did go with developing the switch because I love it. I personally am not into phone gaming and I'm sure many others aren't either. Not only do I like having an actual console with controls & storage that has nothing to do with my phone's power or design but phone games can tend to be a big predatory and I don't like in app purchases.
Yeah they definitely weren't ready for the jump in hardware. They'd just mastered in 3ds world building and I'm sure it was tough having to learn how to develop on the switch and do it well.
@@jazzrockr it's just strange they would simultaneously request Nintendo to develop a 3DS successor AND also assert that the Switch would fail due to smart phone gaming. The 4DS was gonna find a niche but the Switch wasn't? I was also around for the culture revolving around the Switch reveal. GF was one of the outliers from an otherwise very positive response. Fucking Bethesda and 2K contributed to the reveal.
@@Emily-lh6em totally agree. Hopefully since console specs are slowing down with each gen, GameFreak will be able to catch up soon. Despite their shortcomings, I greatly enjoyed Legends & Gen 9.
@@Fuhiro3 It's easy to say this and I thought this too, but like I said, it's easy to say knowing how they've done with the Switch and how well they did with the 3ds, so it seems *very* convenient for Game Freak, but there's no real evidence to support this. They MAY have just thought the Switch was a bad idea (especially for Pokemon) and also maybe didn't want to work on the switch due to how much harder it would be. If the games had been better, and they still thought that, would you still say this? Probably not, because there's nothing else but the quality of the games to kindaaa suggest this idea in someone's mind. Maybe they thought it'd be harder but that they could pull it off way better than they ended up doing and still thought the Switch would be bad? It's basically all speculation without a strong angle to stay within. As for why they would think the Switch would flop but not the 4ds, well for one, the 4ds would still have the gimmicks of the stylus w touch pad, dual screen, and the 4d screen (:O), to separate it from most smartphones that still don't do that, while the Switch's pro would be to be... able to stay home (with way lower specs than other companies?), which is kind of the opposite of what smartphones were showing the world to go, according to them. The Switch would be way bigger too, making it less convenient than a folded up 4ds. There are legitimate reasons to think outside of retrospective, for a company that has been developing only popular handheld games and is watching the smartphone market boom, that a console like this wouldn't do as well as an actual handheld console.
But yeah, there's a good chance it was that they weren't ready for the leap too, lol.
Another Pokémon British inspiration that you guys surprisingly didn't mention: Mr. Rime; the evolution of Galarian Mr. Mime, is clearly inspired by Charles Chaplin's Little Tramp. While it is truth that the character in a Hollywood icon, Chaplin was British born, being even knighted by the Crown shortly before his death. It also explains why Galarian Mr. Mime looks much more like a traditional mime than its Kanto counterpart (which looks more like a clown, a harlequin even), because; despite the Italian/french/japanese roots of that art form, Chaplin's Tramp was basically an evolution of sorts of traditional mimes and their routines.
I hope this can be useful for everyone.
Thanks for the info, that's really interesting! ^^
Its Shiny is also black and white like an old movie
@@ChangedMyNameFinally69 Dude, that's actually a really cool detail!
@@FurryFoxFires Yeah I love that the Shinies in Gens 7 onward usually reference something instead of being seemingly randomly picked or just for aesthetics
I'm guessing they couldn't find a source to mention that. They didn't really mention any without sources, except for Obstagoon's Kiss part, though in that regard they did mention the source for the design, and specifically mention that there was no response by Nintendo to the Kiss aspect to confirm that was also an inspiration.
It's weird how Nintendo and TPC have an almost adversarial relationship with this channel. I get it that there are corporate secrets, but they seem to almost aggressively try to keep everything under wraps, even long after things are cancelled.
I think they try to keep everything concealed because they have been known to use inspiration from the entirety of their whole franchises. Revealing designs later even if they aren't used or referenced would show their hand, and Nintendo is successful because of this (even if it leaves the fans wanting, which is a good thing for their profit margins).
I love Nintendos games but damn do Nintendo hate their fans. Been this way for a long time.
@@AmazinglyAwkward they don’t always hate their fans. I’m sure they like their fans. It’s either A: Japanese companies lack fair use policies. Or B. Fans themselves tend to spoil upcoming information that would’ve been announced.
@@AmazinglyAwkward Wanting to keep leaks secret =/= hating their fans. Not saying they don't have questionable actions like take downs of fan games, but this isn't one of them
@@stupidmonkey089 I wasnt talking exclusively about leaks I just meant their attitude towards their fans, as you rightly mentioned fan games or even translations of Japanese only games are good examples
I hate that they will look at sales numbers rather than quality to influence what they will do next. I know SV didn't sell as well as SWSH so I hope that makes them reflect on what they can do better for the next generation. I have been a fan of Pokemon since the trading cards first came to America, so it truly hurts me that the series has taken such a decline in quality over the last 10 or so years. I really want Pokemon to be exciting and fun again, so I hold out hope they will do something right by the fans.
Actually Scarlet/Violet sold very well. It gonna surpass sword/shield numbers after the DLC.
Sun and Moon were pretty good. It's only really been a problem these last four or so years.
With 3 year release cycle quality only get worse as consoles get more powerful. Back for game boy 3 years was plenty of time to make a game. For switch you need 5 years for it to be ready and polished bare minimum.
@@retrogamer64007 They can do 3 years, they just need to stop working on multiple games and even generations at once.
The funny thing about Dexit is that the "National Dex" only really works for the first four Gens; starting with Gen 5 it's more like the _International_ Dex
To clarify, the first four regions are in fact the same nation, reflecting various real world regions of Japan
GEN 5 BEST GEN
A-(explosions everywhere like you wouldn't believe)
Ok but seriously i still remember when gen 6 came around and brought megas, then gen 7 with ULTRA F***ING NECROZMA amd z-moves...
Aaand they then crunched gen 8.
There's actually an argument that the government of the world of Pokemon is a global nation. The argument is, every gens' area is called a region because nations plural no longer exist in Pokemon. The recurring motifs of historical wars and culture shaping disasters fuel the various evil counter cultural teams in each game. They are against globalization because they feel that the peace loving world order is making people and Pokemon weak, and are trying to revert the world to the constant wars of the past to toughen everyone up again. This is part of the reasons Team Aqua/Magma exist despite their plans making no sense. Mass death from sudden water level changes was in their minds a feature, not a bug. Since Team Skull, Pokemon has made an effort to add moral grey by making their complaints more legitimate systemic issues, but the central thesis that everyone is better off working together as much as possible remains solid in even their worst written games.
Basically, Pokemon is Star Trek condensed into one planet.
Well they may be based off of Japan, but the Pokémon world likely isn't a mirror copy of our own. I like to think that the first 6 generations were all part of the same country, but starting in gen 7 with no National Dex anymore, we've been in different countries ever since
@@Volcanron nah there's a Safari zone NPC in like Gen 3 or 4 that makes it clear that the regions are the time are all the same country.
While they've mostly phased out the references to real world country names, Lt. Surge is still presumably still from the country that includes Unova and it's likely Alola is still part of that country.
We also get references that there _are_ foreign languages in the Pokémon world with rare NPCs speaking entirely in a language different from the game setting, tourists and some others speaking with a different dialect or inserting foreign words, and at least in the English version (I can't speak for the others) characters of Kalos, Alola, Galar, and Paldea intersperse local words based on France, Hawaii, England, and Spain. Heck, Looker is implied to not be totally fluent in the language of Unova despite speaking clearly in other games though I don't know if that's present in Japanese
Masuda also blatantly lied about a lot of stuff that's conveniently since been deleted, except for the older videos.
what did he lie about?
@@philatio1744 One in particular was that he said that Sword and Shield had entirely new animations across the board, nothing was reused from previous titles.
@@philatio1744lmao
Sheesh... Responding to that Bayleef fan's tweet and then not putting it in the game is like self-immolation. Just don't acknowledge these sorts of tweets if you aren't going to deliver, then you won't shoot yourselves in the foot. It still baffles me how disconnected and socially inept higher-ups can be.
actually theres a LOT to argue a xenomorph would be a bug type if you look at the design, the behavior, the hive mentality and swarming, dark and bug or bug and dragon would be VERY apt for a xenmorph
Still waiting for that eventual bug/dragon Pokemon.
Xenomorphs are known to be weak to fire as well just like bug types
@@mauriciozavala3697 If it was still part dragon type it’d be neutral to fire.
It also would erase its partner at the daycare and the egg is always the Xeno's species
A lot of space/alien based Pokemon are Psychic type so a Xenomorph to me would be Psychic/Bug or Psychic/Poison but yeah, I also agree with you that Poison/Dragon doesn't strike me as THE Xenomorph typing if it were in Pokemon.
"they dont make meme pokemon" *makes a Meowth form based on a joke form Monty python*
all of Monty Python has become ingrained in meme culture because of its silliness, so im counting this.
I didn't even know about that situation with Masuda and this Bayleef girl. Wow, that's just scummy getting her hopes up like that.
I’m not defending him but maybe it was planned in there then scrapped. Gaming design is always like that.
Most likely Pokémon being based on existing IPs or people's likeness is something Nintendo does not want to acknowledged heavily
Yeah absolutely
Ironically enough Disney wouldn’t mind that 😂
Specially after what happened with Kadabra
Also, I think it spoils the mystery for the fans, people speculated that the Bulbasaur line was partially based on proto-mammals due to Ivysaur and Venusaur having some mammalian traits such as ears and claws, but then it turned out they were just weird-looking frogs.
"Masuda felt really bad after people rightfully called him out for callously interacting with a fan like that. He then felt better once he saw how much money he made"
I'll have to defend Gamefreak on this one, they are a small studio with no outside help and Nintendo, Pokemon Company, etc seem intent on keeping it that way which is probably why they prioritized project gear as a means to get out somehow (also why project gear seemed to focus on games outside nintendo consoles). The pokemon project gets bigger and bigger yet the devs don't really have the experience on their side to help transition their growth. So for this one, I'll let Masuda wipe his tears with fat stacks.
@@heyhackurs Game Freak has control over the release schedule and who they hire. It's not like they're some helpless passenger.
@@oyeh8908 I would agree if it was an independent company. Gamefreak is tightly controlled by Nintendo and The Pokemon Company who I am more than sure are also responsible for the release schedule. This isn't something new to nintendo and games like Pikmin 4 and Tears of The Kingdom are the exception, not the rule. Wii U/3DS era Nintendo was pumping out games that felt unfinished like crazy, throwing mud at the wall and seeing what sticks. Consistently, it was Pokemon, even with how unfinished X and Y were. The Pokemon Company probably also has similar goals to maximize profit. It's not something I think Masuda himself has control over. This is a common problem with companies that work with contractors and/or third/second parties. It's not like this is something Nintendo or TPC invented, but I can definitely see them doing this.
@@heyhackurs Size doesn't matter when you're the most profitable gaming company. You can always hire more than the hundred and twenty developers you're so stubbornly insistent on keeping and greatly increase the progress made with dev work in a shorter period of time. The way I see it, Game Freak dug itself into this hole and deserves every bit of criticism because of it, since they always have an easy way out.
@@oyeh8908Well they kinda are with the merch machine that is TPC
"When I hear the outrage of the fans, I feel sad but when I look at the sales of this game compared to the others, it makes me feel better."
What a bastard.
Why is a RUclips shareholder running the company?
Why am I not shocked that the people who thought getting rid of the national dex was a good idea also thought that the Nintendo switch would fail?
NGL they were always lagging behind with the backlog of hundreds of Pokemon each generation, they let catch all the Pokemon but had no NatDex in Gen 7. I can't entirely hate them for making this decision
It never was a good idea
@@xlbthedemigod5662 How many of y'all actually completed the PokeDex?
1:58 I'm sorry, it's just so funny and sad that they genuinely hoped that these would be the strongest entries in the series 💀
Well this gen DID bring us Legends Arceus which is still one of the best games they've made in years
Hard to feel bad for Masuda at the end there when he's one of the people at the top calling the shots. Like yeah, I'm sure SwSh seeing well did make him happy, woo hoo 🙄
I feel bad for the developers. You can see how much passion they had, but the brutal release schedule has been ruining Pokemon games for the past decade or so
Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon was the first time I noticed a dip in quality. I saw the writing on the wall and haven't bought or played any Pokemon since. In hindsight, it looks like I was totally justified: I would have been disappointed every single core title after those.
@@ThePerfectKiosk Ultra Sun & Moon are some of the best games in the series in my opinion. I loved the story, the characters and the post game & the music.
Between tight release schedules and hate from fans, it feels as though the way they're running the game development now is the best way they can, unless things change in both the company and the fandom. :(
@@stoneslab Exactly, I feel bad for Gamefreak because of the Tight schedule and the stupid fans themselves.
@@PeterGriffin11They ruined the story from the original games.
I imagine the Gear Project was one of the most demoralizing things to happen to Game Freak simply because they were forced to come to terms with the fact that they weren't good enough at what they do to make something outside of the Pokemon brand. The audience they cultivated don't care about them or their creativity, and they're all completely justified in thinking that after they dropped duds like Tembo, Little Town Hero, and Giga Wrecker. I don't think anyone is having a good time over there except execs.
It's a real shame since there are gamefreak devs that are tired of "making the same game over and over" and they do that because the executives make a lot of money and it sells well. But yet when they tried to do something different it just didn't work out and sadly just lead them back to where they initially were.
Maybe one day they might find a balance between the two but I do have my doubts.
@@PC-tan I feel like the balance should be "Stop trying to get a new Pokemon game out every single year and take your damn time."
@@TheEmeraldWeirdo Thing is, that's the only thing keeping Gsmefreak afloat. They stop making Pokemon games, they stop existing. Period. The Gear Project showed that- different parts of the fanbase, yet they all want Pokemon. Nobody wants to play Giga Wrecket or Tembo, they want Pokemon games at a scale way higher than Gamefreak could feasibly make. Bc somehow Money=Talent=Fun (which makes zero sense, tbh)
But honestly, as a Pokemon Fan, they should end the franchise at Gen 10.
@@amadeus.7436 Yea, but the funding and extensive interviews (can't let a "Sound type is actually good" employee live) would take too much time, and their contributions would be minimal at best. I'd rather it just stops. Yeah, there's whole other regions that could be made, but they're working like Y2K is a year away, the fanbase is basically fighting itself on every angle known to man (people can't even agree to like pokemon in the first place) and hardware is moving faster.
idk harmoknight was pretty good and those games all have lots of promise too
Weird that they seem so against people knowing the inspirations for the designs
If I had to guess, they want to avoid another Kadabra situation
@@grunkleg.29691 Whats the Kadabra situation?
@@grunkleg.29691 What happened there?
@@CocoRoxas @danwalsh4125 I'll just copy it from Wikipedia since it explains it better than I could:
"In November 2000, it was reported that Uri Geller, an Israeli "psychic"-magician who claims to bend spoons with his mind, sued Nintendo over the Pokémon Kadabra, due to its Japanese name (Yungera) which he claimed was an unauthorized appropriation of his identity. Geller learned of the similarity after fans of both himself and Pokémon noted a resemblance to the character's Japanese name, behavior and face and presented him with cards of the character to autograph after he had finished taping a television special in Japan. He further claimed that the star on Kadabra's forehead and the lightning patterns on its abdomen were symbols popular with the Waffen-SS and that, through the character, Nintendo had "turned him into an evil, occult Pokémon character". Nintendo countered by stating there was no connection between the two and that they had not named any of the Pokémon after actual people to the knowledge of their staff. In 2008, Pokémon anime director and storyboard artist Masamitsu Hidaka confirmed in an interview that Kadabra would not be used on a Pokémon Trading Card until an agreement was reached on the case. In November 2020, after Geller told TheGamer that he received an amount of emails from Pokémon fans convincing him to drop the case and allow Nintendo to bring back Kadabra, Geller announced he had given Nintendo permission to resume printing Pokémon cards depicting Kadabra."
@@CocoRoxasKadabra was based on a real guy, who ended up suing, so for a decade+ Kadabra was not present in the tgc
I don't recall exact details, but there's more than a few videos floating around
Thank you for saving all the developer tweets, that's a shame that this kind of stuff is going missing before of corporations...
4:55 "A *less obvious* one is Runerigus, who's *clearly* based on..."
That mistake was clearly less obvious to the writer. 😅
A reference can be both clear and "less obvious," which is exactly the case here.
If you ask the average person what Runerigus is based on, I doubt a majority of people would know. Show that same person a side-by-side comparison of Runerigus and the runestone shown at 5:02 immediately afterwards, and they'll probably say it's a very close match. Hence the design origin being both less obvious and clear.
The idea of cramming in overworld Pokemon at the last minute really goes into how Galar could've been the best games if they just had more time.
honestly I think a rework in the future might give sword / shield justice, the music and battle system was fantastic it just needs more work on the map and to speed up some animations like grassy field healing being so slow
Really wish Nintendo could just stop putting Game Freak on crunch, and give the games the time they need.
@@playcube4564 That almost gives the feeling the the Gen 8 remake might actually be better than the original.
@@pgj1997 Nintendo isn't forcing Game Freak to do anything
11:00 “He later said those interactions got him pretty bummed”
So did he acknowledge the hypocrisy of his initial reply to the girl at all, or not?
being made before Ultra SuMo is released explains a lot about the textures
but they should've split some team members to quickly upscale them.
also EternaFish looks funny as hell
They were split enough already and never should have done little town Zero.
@@suroguner this too
It looked promising but the gameplay is ass
So dope to see TrueGreen7 narrate one of your videos!
I'm still convinced Eternatus had some connection to ultrabeasts at some point
Shame they didn't include more elements from other areas of the UK, feels like Northern Ireland got ignored entirely
Giant's Causeway would've been a great area to explore for a Galar route or even just pokemon designs
The Max Raid Dens kind of look like the Giant's Causeway.
Good point, though perhaps Galar is just Britain and not the whole UK, and they'll have an Irish region at a later time, with Northern Ireland in the DLC? It'd undoubtedly be controversial amongst certain groups of Brits if they did that second part, but I think it'd work well personally!
I wonder why they didn't include Northern Ireland, it's not like there's issues relating to that area...
There’s a part called giants bed
i just realized i forgot to comment on something. James mentioned "ideas are running short we keep running into similar concepts and colors" something like that? Bruh has he seen fanart? Maybe not all of it is good but ideas NEVER stopped being abundant. i always bring this up when a topic like this is discussed amongst friends, SO SO many of fanartists would happily give away their ideas for free. No idea why Pokemon is so insistent on not taking in outside ideas. Getting James on the creative team was a freakin miracle. if they're struggling many of us would give our kidneys to them if they asked lol just to see a creation realized in an actual game. (hyperbole but you get the point, ideas are out there and there would be no issue if they just asked people)
⚠️ Falinks is based on the Roman soldiers not British ones. That's because Romans reigned over south England for a while.
That's also why this Pokémon appears on a ruined route.
Sad that pokemon is the number 2 right now....just imagine if the whole team worked to make a pokemon game....
Masuda felt saddened by the tweets by angry fans. He Probably thought he should do something about it, but then saw the sales chart...…
He's also the reason why gamefreak won't hire more people because they would have to spend more money in chefs
1:10 "because i thought, in the age of smartphone, no one would carry a console around"
not to sound harsh, but i feel like this shows a pretty big dissonance between his mindset and videogame players
I guess he thinks nobody has a house to live in and we all just walk around like nomads….
I really loved the pokemon and cities from Sword and Shield, it seems like for Scarlet and Violet all of the effort went in making the open world work instead and we got a completely barebones region.
It sucks because Spain is beautiful and has amazing cities.
I don’t hold much hope, but from the dlc trailers, it looks like the main town in kitakami has a more flushed out design and more unique buildings
@@supervivo7069 yeah I honestly couldn't recognized any notable Spain landmarks in Paldea aside from Mezegoza obviously being based on Madrid and the skyscrapers in Levincia being based on the Cuatro Torres Business Area, which is ironically in Madrid.
@@dantemustdie00 well it is just a landmass in the distortion world it’s unlikely gratina cared all that much about that when making a mini-domain to rule over.
It shows in the Pokemon designs too. Like we're getting more Asian mythology than Spanish mythology. Most other regions, even if creatively bankrupt, at least had some folklore reflective of the irl mythology. This go around can't even manage that much
Yeah I don't feel pity for them. They change the development part way through because they saw the Let's Go games go somewhat well? They thought mere phones would do better than a new console? Running out of design ideas? And only feeling momentarily feeling bad after the deceptive stunts they pulled and splitting the team in two? This only highlights how poor their planning, business decisions, and priorities are.
remember how the whole not having the entire dex was being kept under wraps because GF knew how much of a backlash they would get, especially given the damage control they gave saying that it was for time constraints and to better the graphics and animations 🙈
"Sword and shield will be pokemons strongest entries" this aged like milk in the summer heat in the middle of a volcano
In this video: GameFreak failing at technical competency; being dead wrong about the target hardware; refusing to credit, thank, or even acknowledge their inspirations; being aggressively ant-transparency; and explicitly prioritizing pet projects noone ended up caring about over the most valuable IP on Earth despite their continued disappointing products.
God, they are truly a stone around the neck of Pokemon.
I get them wanting to make another hit series especially since Pokemon is gonna sell well even if it's scarlet and violet. But they're trying to make lightning strike twice and for the wrong reasons.
Pokemon was successful because it was something they were passionate about, it was new, and it had tons of adorable and cool creatures.
If they are making something because they want a megahit they're gonna fail. If they're making something they're passionate about then I'm sure it will be good and sell well. Not Pokemon numbers of course but well nonetheless.
Some great stuff in here! I'd believe Eternatus was a Xenomorph, for sure.
if oyu happen to know G Gundam then check out how the Ultimate Gundam in the final episode looks like in terms of it's exoskelett when it was ultimately stopped because it really looks like Eternatus and being lore bound to be a big energy source from outer space does fit what it tried and set out to be. Even the pose they strike are VERY reminiscing.
The success of Pokemon is lightning in a bottle. Right time, right place. Team 1 is a pipe dream.
I think wanting to diversify outside of Pokemon is a smart idea, but expecting anything they make that isn't Pokemon to sell as well is ludicrous.
4:27 Now I'm imagining Gigantamax Pikachu saying "Pee fi fo fum, I smell the blood of a Galarian man." lol
Here in the UK, "Postwick" wouldn't be pronounced "Post-wick" it would be "Pozzick"
It would be cool if you guys made a video on the SWSH beta, although I understand why they haven’t
True, though also if there was a whole video on it, it would probably just be them reading off the page on the Cutting Room Floor. Unless they do some new insight, there wouldn’t be much new info to come from if.
In case anyone wonders why Runerigious was in a British-inspired region instead of a Scandinavian one, the age of Vikings coincided with England’s early formation, and Vikings were absolutely involved in the early post-Roman history of Britain and even Ireland.
There was even a single failed Viking raid in Al-Andalus(Muslim-controlled Iberian Peninsula, parts of modern-day Spain/Portugal)
Now I wanna see Scarlet and Violet next. I wanna see how much stuff they had to cut out in order to rush out the games before the holiday's.
Meganium did later become box art for New "Pokemon Snap" I believe this is directed to the Bayleaf incident where the fan of the pokemon never got to see it in Sword and Shield.
All GEN 1, 2, 3 and 4 pokemon are in diamond pearl remakes but people hated them games. It’s only one on switch with national dex and isn’t piss easy. It’s old school grind to be strong
@@retrogamer64007except they had to patch the intro lol
"GameFreak as a company is prioritizing Gear Project, more than Pokémon in general" yeah, we can tell
I'm still mad that SWSH didn't base more of the reigon on Scottish lore & culture past a few tiny tidbits. Rillaboom would have been a really good tenor drummer like in a scottish marching band.
I do love how British Galar is. May be bias due to me living here, but a lot of it felt like home.
I swear to god if they bring up again the argument that people don’t play on the go with consoles anymore or don’t like challenges because “SmARtphOnEZzz” imma fucking implode and haunt them. I will never understand how can they be so out of touch with the real world and the fanbase.
Porject Tezu 9:55 looks like something you would see a kid playing in a movie from the early 2000s LOL
11:22 people probably didn’t want to buy as much after sword and shield
It’s very difficult to find objective videos about Pokémon nowadays.
Let alone sources that have been throughly fact checked.
"the wild area suppose just to be a big empty route"... So nothing changed in the final games?!
You know, as much as I'm not a big fan of SwSh, hearing alot of the development ideas and presentation, I think I now appreciate alot of stuff that was put into it, yet we hear all these development issues makes me feel bad about it more. I think i would've like it much more if they managed to do a better polish on it or didn't make the gameplay feel like a slog
I'm honestly surprised to hear how much heart was put into the development of this game, given the controversies surrounding it. It's a shame it didn't turn out better. Good grief though, that message from Masuda was a jerk move.
The games selling so well doesn't mean shit when it's Pokemon on the Switch we're talking about. They were always going to sell well.
The fact they sell this good is more about the Switch than about Pokemon. It also means that because more eyes are on them, the scrutiny gets that much worse for Game Freak.
Not to mention no Pokemon games have still outsold RBY, which came out 25+ years ago.
If anything, it more tells how the masses are willing to eat up any garbage thrown their way as long as it has the proper branding and marketing.
From what I recall, Project Tezu was never in development as a game and was always just a short little animation and solely that.
I think it is a little misleading to pass it off as game footage
I really wish we could ask James about Eternatus :(
Eternatus is one of my favorite Pokémon and I would love to know about what inspired it and how it was developed! Especially with odd beta sprite that was found 👀
Was it just used for place holding or was the design gonna look much MUCH different!
He doesn’t even work for GameFreak anymore 😅
@@NitwitsWorldaw shit, really??????
@@thestripedmenace it’s true he has his own gaming company now
@@NitwitsWorld I know- but he probably signed stuff saying he couldn't share certain things even if he left. Certain contracts don´t go away after you leave.
@@MoonMoon-cl4co or sue. :/
I feel like it's a good thing you posted this years later. I'm not sure how long this research took, from when the video was posted to the game and now is 4 years. That's a good idea as Pokemon Gen 8 had a lot of controversy, though calling it controversial isn't right but I don't the right word maybe a different wrod, and posting it years later where it's died down is certainly a good idea. Great video.
I guess Dr. Lava is now so ubiquitous in Pokémon videos that he doesn't warrant getting a shout-out at the end?
I’d say it was more than a vocal minority complaining about the Dex issue, Game Freak lied and they deserved to be criticized and called out for everything. The worlds biggest grossing franchise that makes more money than any other IP in the planet can handle honest criticism.
Just because it sells well doesn’t invalidate any of the facts of the situation. GF and TPC need to reevaluate the production of the games, the release of SV shows how messy it is. There is no excuse to release a AAA game in such a state from a company as massive as they are. Its pure laziness and needs to be addressed.
I feel bad that James had to delete so many tweets going on about behind the scenes stuff and origins of Pokémon designs. Fans typically appreciate learning more about the games but GF and TPC clearly don’t respect the fans lol.
To this day they still have no excuse to not include all mons in the new games.
@@xlbthedemigod5662 Exactly, Game Freak still making games on 3DS hardware and it shows with how cheap SwSh looked at times. And with how glitchy Scarlet was it shows how incompetent and cheap the company can be despite controlling the biggest franchise on the planet. They could easily hire more devs and take more time developing games instead of crapping out the same rushed stuff
It's bad that I'm so used to watching TrueGreen7 anyway that I did a doubletake when he said his name at the end of the video and only then realized I wasn't on his channel. Lol
Mixing Phone games with console games.... It's an huge mistake. Two very different markets and buyer personas. Casuals vs games
GameFreak: has the key to printing money with Pokémon.
Also GameFreak: would rather make _anything_ else
@5:20 Odd logic here. You say it can’t be long cat because GF doesn’t really do meme Pokémon, then proceed to say it’s likely a Monty Python reference (which is a meme at this point, as what are memes if not popular references? Like General Ackbar is a meme, but also a pop culture reference.)
they have no room to talk after smolive and lechonk
3:49 Weird, it's almost like quality would be better than quantity, and instead of adding new ones with every game, they should just spend a few years continuously improving the models, animations, etc for all the existing Pokemon and actually a release a game where you can "catch 'em all." I've been so done with Pokemon after being a fan for so long, at this point it just feels like Game Freak is incompetent.
Such a great video, learned a lot more about Pokémon. So much I didn’t even know before now, thank you!
I hate how secretive and private Pokémon company keeps their shit. Like i understand not talking about unreleased projects or anything in case it happens in the future, but a art book with unused pokemon designs would be amazing but no we have to do illegal shit to find out about all this great history they just don’t want to discuss. Thats a big Nintendo problem in general I guess though.
Well, only thing I'm disappointed to learn in this video is that Sword & Shield outsold Scarlet & Violet... I know the former have been out longer but Scarlet & Violet's stories and characters are far superior to S&S... Graphical problems aside and all...
finally a comment that makes sense.
pokemon fans have been crying wolf on every tiny issue since dexit and almost NONE of them have been as significant as dexit was. S/V has serious performance issues, but the discourse around it is incredibly eye rolling because the exact same complaints were levied at Sw/Sh
The first factoid alone explains pretty much everything about game freak and the pokemon company and why they are incapable of releasing a game in the modern day that doesnt have massive game breaking issues
SWSH weren't broken, just lacking
Sword and Shield actually fell short in sales. The others all had sales around the same percentage based off Hardware Sales. SW and SV are beat out by RSE when looking at that comparison
Can you elaborate a bit on this?
@@philatio1744he means the games sold well before the pandemic 😅
@@philatio1744 I will. Put simply, Swish/Swoosh got ratio'd. The Switch is one of the most successful gaming consoles of the 21st century--the port of Mario Kart 8 has over 90 million sales alone. 13 million sales of Sword AND Shield, bearing in mind that they are essentially counting the same exact game twice AND selling it in bundles, means that despite having an absolutely MASSIVE install base, not many Switch owners bothered to actually buy it.
By comparison, Ruby and Sapphire, the Post-Mania generation, succeeded in selling over 16 million copies on an install base of around 80 million (40 million from the United States alone). So why is it that the "POKEMON IS BACK" generation in our modern brand zealotry market had an outing about *on par* with the "POKEMON IS DEAD" generation?
The answer, of course, lies in Scarlet and Violet's sales being even lower nearly a year into its lifespan: People can smell the ingredients in that turd sandwich a mile away. There are people who saw how lousy Sw/Sh looked and decided not to buy, there are people who took a bite of the sandwich and decided they wouldn't try another, and then there are people who would have been interested in the sandwich if it were made with better ingredients and decided to save their money for something more appetizing.
@philatio1744 Sure, earlier this month I saw how people were talking about how Scarlet and Violet was nearing to Surpass Gold and Silver in sales. I found it concerning given the bad quality of the game. So I decided to negate the 'Switch affect' by comparing the Top 10 selling Pokémon Games to there respective Console life sales. To see the attach rate and see if it sold more thanks to more people owning the System.
The attach rate results were...
10) Pokémon Black/White at 10.15%
9) Pokémon Diamond Pearl at 11.47%
8) Let's Go at 11.63%
7) Pokémon Scarlet Violet at 15.91%
6) Pokemon Gold Silver at 19.46%
5) Pokémon Sword Shield at 19.82%
4) Pokémon Ruby Sapphire at 19.90%
3) Pokémon Sun Moon at 21.45%
2) Pokémon XY at 21.93%
1) Pokémon Red Blue at 26.44%
Pokémon use to be a system seller, a main reason people would by a system. As one can see from High Attach Rates from GB, GBA, and 3DS. While how successful the DS was, Pokémon fell a little short likely do to competition.
However seeing the stark difference in attach rate from SV and SwSh vs that of Gen 4 and Gen 5 as well as Gen 6 and 7 (The only other different Gens on the same system. It becomes clear, Pokémon is no longer a system seller as quality keeps slipping so only fans already have the system buys the games now
These games had a lot of of cool concepts, they just needed time to polish them
"Make Gen 8 the best one yet."
Lmao, rofl, even.
PLA is probably the only good thing in gen 8. SwSh is like one of the worst Pokemon games I've played
Please give us an episode for Charles Martinet himself!
2:45 sounds like the belief of catching "sugar stealers" can grant wishes, similarly wishing on a dandelion and blowing the seeds will too.
"WHY ARE YOU CHILDREN HAVING FUN WITH A VIDEOGAME?"
It's not enough for some people to hate a game. They need everyone else to hate it with them. Insecurity is funny.
As someone who was born in a town in the lake District in 1994, I used to always say we were from a Pokémon starting town 🥲
« Fans said that game freak should have 100% focus on Pokemon »
This my friends, is why we can’t have nice things. The moment you wanna do something else than what you’re used to, others will just dunk on you for daring to try new things.
With the Games that they have released since the change to 3D on the 3DS, they have shown, they are simply incompetent and its no wonder that the games release in the state that they do. They also dont have enough people working there. Proof of them being incompetent is that they created a model for every time Lily appears in Sun and Moon. Instead of creating one model and referencing it
Definitely my least favorite Pokémon games, but this stuff is still super interesting. I may not have liked the gameplay or the characters, but I do love so many of SwSh’s designs and it’s atmosphere, so hearing all this stuff from Turner was super neat.
At least it's more realized than SV. That game feels like an Alpha build.
It’s super neat and also sad because swsh weren’t good and I hate how there’s never going to be a game with a good version of galar. Galar deserved better because there are so many cool things about it.
I feel that the leaders were the most endearing characters with the most personality, as well as recognizable designs.
@@LegendStormcrowTechnically speaking, SV did fare worse.
@@kisamuel2666 Most of them. I still dislike Milo, and the fairy leader is fairylike enough to creep me out, right down to kidnapping children to become fairy trainers.
My favorite "gym" leader would still have to be have to be the cop from Sun and Moon.
At least Milo is less annoying than characters like Claire and Whitney.
some of the ideas, designs, music, art direction is the best pokemon has ever had in swsh
it's the biggest shame of all time that these games were so unpolished
Just got back from a trip to Scotland and real hot take....Galar should HAVE NOT been a mash up of the UK as a whole. I get that in the long run or at a distance Scotland, England, and Wales would come off as the same. They are not. Now that isn't to say each should be it's own region. But rather they shoul have done the same thing they did in gen 6 and made each country a sub-region.
They could've made these games way better. They needed way more development time.
The series continuing to sell this well despite the games shortcomings tells me the quality of these games is only gonna continue to dip exponentially.
They have no incentive to make quality games if doing the bare minimum gets them maximum results 🤷🏽♂️.
For those who’re unhappy with where the series is going, you have 2 options. You can complain all you want but this is their new philosophy and they’re sticking to their convictions. Or you can say goodbye to the series and wish them farewell and move on to franchises that are actually cared for.
The signs of decline were there in Gen 7 with the horribly underwhelming Alola games. I said bye after that.
@@EdmacZ It was there even before with how lacking in content the gen 6 games were.
Crazy how they were already working on gen 8 before gen 7 was finished, mainly because they scrapped gyms in gen 7 then bought them back in gen 8 before they knew if the idea would be a success or not
Yeah it's not really a good thing they keep doing that, makes sense why the games feel disconnected and like they're not improving a huge amount every gen
“So many designs have already been done before.”
Digimon: So we just made some new Agumon clones…
It’s funny to me how Pokémon has way more scrapped monsters than Digimon, but only one of them made such a big deal after they broke 1K. I say scrapped, but the more accurate term in unreleased. Digimon that are official, but lack reference book entries, official art or have made an appearance since being introduced even if said introduction was something like being the main villain of one of the games.
Just saying that Pokémon could learn to be a bit from how Digimon handles their monsters. If we can no longer expect to see every single one available in any game again, then at least there shouldn’t be any harm in letting more designs see the light of day amongst the returning ones.
Damn Ishihara was really out of touch with his take on the switch. It makes so much sense why we are where we are
To be fair a lot of his comments about the Switch were during the Wii U era, the industry at large had little confidence in the Wii U. The problem was that once the Switch was proven to be successful he didn't really adjust his views until it was too late, as his attitude likely affect the early stages of development.
As a UK resident and someone whos played every gen, Galar just let me down in terms of potential. The Wild Area was of course the best bit but thinking about the starter towns for example, in Kanto, Johto, Sinnoh (Lake Verity being close to Twinleaf), Unova was there was always a reason to revisit them or some little secrets tucked away. Not exclusive to Gen 8 I know but Postwicke has nothing.
Wow I didn't think they'd have the B Team working pokemon, but it sure does explain a lot.
You’d get tired working on the same series for 20+ years.
@@lalehiandeity1649 - yet you never get tired of making money. They were clearly hoping that Little Town Heroes would be given a bunch of slack because of the fact that it came from the house of gamefreak, the same people who made pokemon. Because in the end, it sure wasn't talent that was going to carry it that far.
@@lalehiandeity1649So you make an even worse game in Little Town hero instead. What could possiblike go wrong?
I always thought that Eternatus was based on a throne chair and a bacteriophage? Makes the typing make more sense too.
7:22 That's interesting as the 3rd form of Freiza is also inspired by this monster.