The Terrifying Pace of Modern Pokemon
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 15 окт 2024
- Pokemon Scarlet & Violet were announced just a month ago, but so far Generation 9 has shown off plenty of warning signs that may prevent it from being a follow-up to Pokemon Legends Arceus, or even Sword & Shield. What about the new starter Pokemon designs, and how do Sprigatito, Fuecoco and Quaxly stack up to those that came before?
MUSIC LIST --- (Audio may be personally custom/edited mixes to better suit the pace of the video!) pastebin.com/p...
Keep updated on Twitter! - / lewchube
Support me on Patreon! - / lewtwo
Join our Community on Discord! - / discord
I have a website with EVERY project I've ever done. Check it out! - lewtwo.myportf...
#lewtwo #pokemon #gen9
What a boring video
lol
Banger comment
child prodigy
what can i say this guy gets it
Ratio
Not gonna lie, I was seriously hoping there would be no new gen this year exactly for this very reason. It's disheartening to see the series' potential still being squandered because they're THAT afraid of missing deadlines.
You're not fully grasping the financial consequence for missing deadlines for the Pokemon Company. Due to The Pokemon Company basically interconnecting the entire brand, there is just too many variables that would negatively affect the brand financially if delayed. If Pokemon was just videos games, there should be no issue to delay the games. But this is simply not the case.
The Pokemon brand's largest sector is merch. You simply can't delay Manufacturing merch on the scale the Pokemon brand requires without major financial losses.
@@jenniferhamels1176 Then that speaks even worse for all involved, because it leaves the impression they're no longer interested in delivering a product with all the quality and polish it deserves.
If deadlines can no longer be moved, then it's only logical to invest on far more staff to work on the games. And while evidence points out GF has been slowly doing that, their recent endeavors show they're still falling short.
Also, like Lewtwo mentions at one point in the video, it would be best for everyone that gen 9's director is someone who works well under pressure, meaning Ohmori is sadly not the man the devs need.
@@moltz4866 Unfortunately the brand model has been like that since the creation of TPC. No one expected it to balloon this massive. Nintendo basically dropped the ball. They could have easily been the sole owner or at least majority owner of Pokemon if they just went all in during gen 1, instead of going to their "cousin" Creatures to help out. Because of adding a 3rd company to the mix the whole ownership of Pokemon became convoluted.
Actually GF hasn't been slowly doing that. They have been very adamant in keeping the studio small. Game Freak's unwillingness to expand is a huge fault of theirs.
@@jenniferhamels1176 They have though, their recruitment page if I remember correctly back in 2016 was hiring and specifically for younger talent and with a focus on 3D background. Also Lew mentions specifically within the first minute and a half the "constant" recruitment of younger staff.
to me, seeing the reveal of scarlet and violet only 1 or 2 months (i can't remember) after legends' release felt like a kick in the balls.
Thank you for actually thinking critically about Gamefreak. So many times have I heard them be called “lazy” or “running out of ideas” when it’s extremely obviously that they just lack the time they need to fully realize the games. People talk about how they wish a different developer worked on the main series games, but in reality, if any other developer had the same budget and time to work on the games, they would come out roughly the same.
To ignore the very legitimate and obvious talent present at GF simply out of spite is nothing short of frustrating. Much of the gaming community at large still takes effective development for granted.
Keys pokemon
@@annedrieck7316 Ok? Kalos still had some of the best designed Pokémon in the series
@@annedrieck7316 Your point? You could also say the same for the sludge pokemon, magnet pokemon, bird pokemon with 3 heads, and so on.
@@bubblegumking3870 but we're not talking about about kalos having the best design and what not. There's so much quadruple and bipedal pokemon they could crammed in one generation before they get stale. I'm questioning the motive behind such pokemon to exist. What a manmade sentient keys doing in the wild? Stop being a lamefreak sheep and ask yourselves this question.
I feel like a crucial element countering the argument of "Well, Pokemon has ALWAYS had a 3/4 year gap between flagship releases" without how developing for a Gameboy to Gameboy Color to Gameboy Advance is far, FAR easier than going from even XY to SM and esp USUM to SWSH
3D games, especially largescale 3D open world games, take a far FAR longer to make and polish than what was possible on sprite and tile base systems they used back in the 90s to late DS period. It's probably in part why the games "Haven't been good since the jump to 3D", the higher ups still hold onto this model of 90s game design/development that just isn't sustainable in the realm of high poly 3d
I would agreed, I had a double take when he said that they only give 1 year for pre production, and two years of development. that just sound absurd given the amount of work and scope.
Even then they still had serious issues like including kanto into gsc, on top of the sea of bugs that plagued the early games, and that's just the technical problems.
This
The low-poly overworlds of B2W2 don't even compare to the ludicrously high-poly models in X&Y. (not to mention the animations)
Pokemon has been a fustercluck of rushed development ever since the series went 3d.
This is a thing with games in general.
Here's a thing: Models take more time and money to develop but are largely a one-and-done deal, while with sprites you need to make more if you need a new animation.
That last part where you say "I look at the starters and the world and I smile because that's what I've grown to love, but there's that asterisk that comes from it being time crunched that makes me nervous" are my thoughts exactly. I *deseperatly* want to be excited for this game but all of the knowledge of how Game Freak works keeps me from feeling a genuine sence of hype. My one and only hope is that after SV comes out the poor fucking employees get some time off, or at the very least they work on games that aren't a part of the Pokemon bullet train (and therefore don't have the same amount of ridiculous pressure to succeed on their shoulders)
On the bright side, I think there are definitely some Gear Project games in the works to help them take time off of Pokemon, and Little Town Hero art director Haruka Tochigi has been tweeting a lot about his own indie game as of late
bullet train, perfect metaphor
I'm worried that if GF faces time crunch after time crunch, one day, Pokemon will create another Sonic 2006
Same hat, I'm going to buy and play the game because I do love Pokemon and their games but I can't say I'm hyped or even _That_ excited, more like "Oh neat I can't wait for it to come out" **Goes and does something else**
@@jonathanchen4987 They already did; it was sword and shield. I'm not saying this to exaggerate. I actually think sword and shield is on a very similar level, only difference being that, because it uses a turn based battle system and isn't a platformer, you're not gonna get crazy physics or bad collision. That said, it could be worst. Just look at how sonic colors ultimate butchered a game even before the bad physics were discovered.
You absolutely hit the nail on the head with this one!!! It's so clear how good Game Freak can make things when given enough time, but we've reached a point where so many things are being built at the same time in such a short period of time that the new ideas are constantly clashing, and it frequently feels like some features exist solely to be tested for a future game rather than just left to breathe for a fun original idea. I also really really hope that the other character designs in Scarlet/Violet feel more inspired than the MCs.
@@10tailedbijuu sword and shield didnt change that much since trailers, and legends arceus just choose wrong shots for them.
I’m not gonna bash the MC designs. I think it’s just way too soon for that. It’s clear GF wanted to homogenize the designs somewhat instead of making vastly differing Male and Female designs so I just hope the customization options, especially for males which has typically been underwhelming, is good.
Your eye for analyzing this series is second to none. Despite there being so many Poketubers out there, very few critique the series beyond “I like playing them” or “old ones good, new ones bad”. I can’t wait for the BDSP video!
What's your opinion on Linky? He's seems all right to me even though his analysis of the series are different from LewTwo's.
Why not just say first instead of second to none...
But...but old ones good though...
A lot of Pokétubers want to make a clean image of themselves. I personally dont see as bad thing.
Since if they would be more harsh with franchise maybe they lost their audience.
A lot of channels have more casual view.
They just throw around words like "lazy" or "is running out of ideas" without ever dwelling deeper into why that's the case.
I 100% agree with this, I sadly however, don't believe this will change anytime soon though unless they are backed into a wall, but that's got to be one hell of a wall for Pokémon to be backed into if they were to ever change their approach on crunch and deadlines, so all we can do is sit and watch as they continue to struggle more and more
if the games start selling less, they have to work even harder to keep up with the loss in profit. if they start selling more, they still have to work harder to keep up with the rise in profit. that's capitalism baby, running yourself into the ground
that's their problem. oif they don't really aim to solve it we can just grab our popcorn and watch them all collapse
@@YWNBAW69 Seeing the sales, that would take some time or not. It's already been 20 years. It hasn't fractured like what other -mons clones have been clamoring for years. Remember Arceus? People were predicting that would flop but yet here we are.
I'm worried that if GF faces time crunch after time crunch, one day, Pokemon will create another Sonic 2006.
@@jonathanchen4987 Honestly I think Pokemon is already in the 06 territory, just Pokemon has a larger casual audience now than Sonic did back in 06. Casual audiences are less critical of a game's quality, and with both the popularization of geek culture and gaming becoming more accessible there is a generally larger casual audience for everything. The only difference I can reason now is just some notable glitches in a new Pokemon game and it'll be 06 all over again. It's already at the botched animations, the whatever environments, people questioning the art direction.
This was a wonderful video! One aspect that got me thinking was when you mentioned how the SV starters feel like they're going back to the old style of starter design. While I get what you mean I would argue the only reason gen 8's starters came in with personalities was due to them being the only trio to be revealed with a CGI video instead of just official art and game footage. As a result their personalities had a bigger spotlight. I'm also worried the fact the site gives them personality traits means they will have personalities coded into them.
They absolutely will. By all means I prefer the old starter designs but historically, the quadrupedal “monster” starters like Venu, Meganium, Swampert, and Torterra have all been hands down the least popular final evolutions of their generation.
Gamefreak struck absolute gold with Greninja. Despite Delphox and Chesnaught pretty much being universally hated, Greninja did the one thing no other starter did. Surpass Charizard in popularity (at least in Japan) and Greninja is rife with personality, a very clear design direction and a “prop” (that being his water shurikens.)
I think because of how successful Greninja was, they’re unlikely to go back to the old “monstrous” starter designs but we can kind of see that design philosophy of bipedal Pokemon with “props” come into play ever since Gen 3 which is coincidentally the second most popular batch of starters after Gen 1.
@@Jordan13299 All the quadruped designs you listed are perfect in my opinion, sadly you are right in that they won't ever be as loved as the bipedal designs though.
@@zoruasnivy I agree! They really are great designs and I think they help make a starter lineup look more diverse. Gen 8 starters all have similar silhouettes which is kinda bland imo.
@@Jordan13299 funny how the quadruped final evolutions are among my favorites. Greninja however was designed to be popular and given everything while the other two were left in the cold rain to be run over by a bus. It really isn't fair and goes against one of the core principles of pokemon regarding starters.
Yeah, pretty much. GameFreak just seems to speedrun through games. While I personally don't mind Violet and Scarlet getting announced it's the fact that they are coming out this year that is concerning. Rushing to get the game out is never good, nobody wants a cyberpunk finish. It would have been better if Scarlet and Violet were coming out either in late 2023 or early 2024 at the very least. Like we all clearly saw some major flaws in Gen. 8 SWSH such as the visible mouse cursor in the ending credits.
Even then, if they were afraid that PLA wasn't gonna do well, they should have scoped things out more. It would have helped them make better decisions in the long run regarding PLA. While giving them more time and getting more money through PLA DLC or something.
It probably would also help GameFreak to hire a lot more people into their company specifically so instead of 2 teams, they have like 4-5+ if they wish to keep this timed schedule. For example, 2 teams planning the next game, 1 team to maintain the current game, 1 team for remakes/other pokemon related games, and another team to organize work from dev teams in other companies. Maybe even add a 6th team for purely quality control. Pokemon has gotten too famous and now it suffers from it. T^T
@@10tailedbijuu every company depends on their other parts to make the bulk of their money.
I honestly wouldn't have mind SV to be delayed to next year.
Gen 8 was the blackpill for me, I have zero expectations that this will change anytime soon. The shareholders need to see profits and it's more profitable to produce mediocre games rapidly than it is to take longer to give Pokemon the polish it needs to be any more than that. And as much as everyone complains, everyone will still buy the games anyway. I just accept it for what it is and move on.
Honestly same. It's sad when I've been having more fun playing fan games than the mainline series. I couldn't even finish sun and moon. And I skipped gen 8 entirely even tho I liked most of the new pokemon.
Same here as well.
Ever since 8 I’ve been EXTREMELY skeptical and critical of pokemon games. I had massive doubts about PLA, but it was an awesome surprise. I might be biased since I actually plan to go into field work with species population surveys, though. BDSP and 8 sucked pretty badly imo.
Video games aren't movies, they take longer to make than movies, and bad video games actually do more harm compared to a bad movie. Producers pump out movies once every few months, but even the simplest of video games that you want to sell well takes years, it's a lot more worthwhile to make a good game than make a good movie because you're putting so much more effort into it. (all of my statements apply to non-mobile triple-A games)
The Pokémon company isn’t public and creatures/game freak are privately held. What do you mean by shareholders here?
I'm still defintely exicted for Scarlet and Violet since they've likely started developement for those games after Sword and Shield came out in 2019, but I do hope that for Generation 10 of Pokemon that they do take a break and potentially release it in 2026 for Pokemon's 30th Anniversary as that extra year can go a long way
Its sad how almost all of the pokemon fans really dont see gamefreak as people they see them as lazy bitches. Even though there trying there really best to pump up a game every 3 years because ohhh ohhohho pokemon fans really want there games and remakes. Like seriously after the release of oras a ton of fans really wanted a gen 4 remake like seriously cant those people wait why cant pokemon fans wait. And of course pokemon is a company and its owned by Nintendo. Like if the devs delay a game the whole company will be bankrupt. And cant they see the release dates of the games x and y came out in 2013 and oras came out a year later like the sheer effort and sacrifices they make is really sad. We dont even know how many people gone crazy or worse died.
They can't take a break. TWELVE main sets of each series is ENOUGH. More than that is TOO MUCH. And yes, people use examles of them making ORAS sets, whatever, or HGSS ones, I dunno, but I feel like that was for those time periods and isn't going to hapen again and also for the ORAS thing there was no Z so yeah they had to fill it in with that.
@@Glimglum0 I hard disagree.
Fans will always be asking for the next game, regardless of how soon the last one came out.
GF is the one abusing their employees, and it's not fans fault for doing it.
Lampshading the fault onto the customers is just a way to excuse shitty practices, and game companies constantly use it as an excuse to torture their devs.
@@nyahnyahson523 I mean pokemon is a freaking company nintendo is the one abusing it .But still why cant they have a break like seriously theres a ton of companies that are multi billion too , and they can take a break without it affecting the company. But i do kinda get it pokemon is the number one franchise in the world and if they take a break for a month there gonna go bankrupt. But the games themselves arent even the thing that feeds the company its the merchandise the anime and many more. Why cant they extend the development time of their games, the games only make a fraction of money.
@@Glimglum0 ITS NOT NINTENDO DANGIT, its TPC. Cuz Nintendo just delayed the Advance Wars remake and Botw2, so why wouldnt they do the same for Pokemon? Cuz its TPC who does that and TPC doesn't GIVE A STINKIN CRAP about the devs or the series. I 100000% agreed for the other points, GF really has it terrible (probably the worst out of ANY developer) but N screwing over them is stupid as its TPC managing that stuff and constantly forcing GF to hurry up and release a game
P.S. Sorry for yelling, it just angers me when ppl dont get that Ns not the problem, its legit TPC
I'm glad you touched upon the weird Cereal Mascot design philosophy past starters have followed for some reason.
But I actually prefer that design philosophy over old design philosophy
That's fine if you prefer it, it looks like shit though.
@@arcticarduino In previous generations, designs like the gen 8 starters did exist, but they weren't the symbolic starters that act as 'the front page of their generation.' And were instead secondary Pokémon typically based on myths, legends, and other folk-lore.
Some that come to mind:
--Florges
--Gardevoir
--Gallade
--->Basically 90% of the Pokémon Markiplier would smash
@@toasteroven6761 Those still don't highly scream "soccor player" or "super spy". It's also probably why people tend to dislike Sawk and Throh, who are obviously martial artists.
@@toasteroven6761 literally every starter gen 6 onwards are the same design philosophy. LITERALLY all of them
It makes me wonder if they rushed Gen 9 because they didn't have faith in Legends Arceus. Like they didn't see it selling as well as a mainline Pokémon title, so they wanted to get Scarlet and Violet out to make sure they had a top-selling game in 2022.
I think it's this but also the fact that PLA just couldn't handle a year and half all by itself
remember, this is a game with:
- no multiplayer activities
- no battle facilities
While DLC would have given the game more length, it also meant making GF work on something-else-than-SV, which made not a lot of sense to begin with
No it's all about the damn merchandise. Pokemon is a 100 billion-dollar plus multi-media franchise. The games themselves make a tiny fraction of that money with the overwhelming amount of money coming from the merchandise-TCG, plushies, figures, mugs, clothes, etc. But all the merchandise are based off content from the games-the pokemon.
Look at lets go, a game thats very clearly not succesful, i can understand if they made the choice like this
@@10tailedbijuu👍 Yep. Pokemon got too big for its own good unfortunately.
LegendsArceus purpose was to come out while the 25th anniversary wsa STILL GOING. It is basically a celebration of Pokemon's hsitory game. It has NOTHING TO DO with the machine of Pokemon production that is absolutely necessary. Plus, people acting like rushing is a negative thing, allow me to direct your attention to Toy Story 2, a movie that was literally rushed, so by what people are saying here should make it rubbish, but it is considered a top-notch Pixar film.
I agree, I was shocked to hear they were going to release another generation already instead of letting Legends breath and develop more.
It's been the same story for years at this point, every year I just want them to take more time to create something GOOD and yet nope, new entry, new gimmick, new this, new that.
This time I was about to start playing Arceus and the trailer for Gen 9 appeared in my raccomanded, I literally spit out my hot chocolate like bro, why...
Also about that, I like the startes but I despise the protagonists with all my heart, especially the male. YIKES.
@@10tailedbijuu Simple, I hate that they're going so fast and not giving themselves time to do something decent and in that situation of mine I was about to start playing a game that "just" came out and in that moment I the news a new one would be here this same year. It was like they were mocking me lol
@@maverickbonato8164 This. Not to mention that some people don't finish an entire game in less than a day. I sure don't @_@;;
gen9 protags are pedobait smh
@@maverickbonato8164 I have a better idea stop whining and appreciate there is more pokemon
@@10tailedbijuu its not that late tho. The game just came out a month before pokemon present
It's kinda hard to be excited for a new Pokémon game when Legends literally just released. Could they not have waited with SV until next year and just released some paid DLC for Legends this year? GF's business decisions boggles my mind more often than not at this point.
@@10tailedbijuu yeah imagine playing a game two months after release, what a wild idea.
@@KrispyKrabby i'm still working on sword and brilliant diamond myself. I'm definitely not ready for another one lol.
@@KrispyKrabby Its not stinkin GF calling the shots, its TPC doing that.
GF has NO CHOICE but to release a trailer for gen 9
@@10tailedbijuu L
After beating that game, it gets boring fast. I can't even finish grinding for shiny charm cuz it's soooo boring.
I always said pokemon could produce GOTY games if they received the same amount of development time
Honestly, the pacing of the releases just makes me wonder how things are going at GameFreak. I doubt it's awful and the devs are being completely overworked, but idk man, there HAS to be something the team feels while doing a lot of work in a short time???
this is super common in a lot of Japanese industry too. you can look into anime/Manga production as an example. a huge part of the average salary man's high 'self-ded' rate
Masuda before he was transferred over was pretty open about how he wishes it was a 4/5 year cycles now to allow for more polish and what not.
Heck if ILCA or some other company worked it out technically Gamefreak could say have that time if they were willing to give up creative control of the brand
Japanese work culture expects workers to work, work and work some more. So even if they were burned out, their options are A) shut up and work or B) quit and find something else. And switching companies is uncommon due to expectations of loyalty to your company.
@@weridplusho
I almost wonder what would happen if a large chunk of the developers walked out on the spot. GameFreak's hand would be forced, or they'd completely miss the release.
That being said, that type of behavior is not looked upon kindly in Japanese society- so perhaps only an outside imposition will force their working culture to change (I mean, American occupation is what gave them that culture to begin with).
@@LancesArmorStriking It'd take them losing a lot of money before they'd change anything, imho. Pokemon did ascend to popularity in part thanks to the West so I can also see it help in the downfall.
Too bad it'll never happen until the economy crashes and/or the US dollar simply loses any value. Most fans will never speak with their wallet re: Pokemon, so it'll have to be forced. (There's a chance China'll pick up the slack but I dunno how popular Pokemon is there.) Fans continuously buying garbage is the reason we have garbage, after all.
nice video! yeah, everyone loves saying "there's two teams working on the games, so it's not rushed!" but...for us players, it's still such a short amount of time to let things simmer. legends arceus was the most innovative mainline game we've had so far, there's a lot to talk about and it's still so new...but nope, gotta move on to The Next Thing i guess.
(and even then, it can be true that there are multiple teams working on the games _and_ that they're still not given enough time. those two things aren't mutually exclusive)
Frankly any excuse about the pace of release can just be answered by pointing at the games they've released so far.
No matter how long they've been taking to make these games, it is *clearly* not enough
@@MA-go7ee from my point of view - when the gap between games was longer, I would absolutely explore every single nook and cranny of the game, catch all the pokes, do breeding, lots of training etc.
Maybe it's because I'm now an adult with a job and more responsibilities but by the time I even complete the story of every game since Sun, the next one comes out and I don't get the same time to look around and check out everything
Finally. Someone that doesn't just call Game Freak and ILCA lazy and acknowledges the ever increasing logistical crisis that the series has become for the developers. As a fan of the series, I worry more for the staff with every release.
Damn right, they deserve a break if not at least some more time
really annoying to see Pokemon fans on Twitter jump at people voicing valid criticisms.
it's like they didn't know people can just DISLIKE something. it's a really weird overcorrection from the old SwSh days where people got too aggro.
Not just on twitter tbh poketubers are on that boat as well handwaving valid criticism and downplaying them to being more trivial than they actually are.
For every value of X, there is a group that will say "how dare you criticise X, I like X". This includes human feces, war crimes, and Pokémon X.
@@FishfaceTheDestroyer I would like you to know that you just made my day good sir/madam/theydem
It’s not even ‘dislike’ always either. Pokémon isn’t particularly my cup of tea, but what I’m really concerned about is how much crunch the devs must be going through, like there’s no way that this isn’t harming the people involved in some aspect.
@@rutheforbandet6157 You can really see it in the creature design if you compare the generations. Load up the pictures of one of the classics like Charizard. Starts out looking like a wicked dragon, the likes of which a stoner friend would draw/paint while blazed out of their mind. Witch each generation the detail put into him dropped until we got what we have now, a vaguely dragon shaped blob with wings. Shapes so simple it screams rush job. We know from their past work that these aren't artist that wanted to produce that kind of work, we've seen their more focused stuff and it looked pretty cool.
I really want Pokemon Scarlett and Violet to end the 3 year cycle! And I really want Pokemon to do well heck I love Pokemon Legends Arceus!
So you want sixteen main boosters of Scarlet and Violet TCG and whatever special sets come out during that time too. That's a LOT.
@Eprocto-Files I don't play the TCG or collect the cards I play the Pokemon videogames.
I feel like there's a very real limit on just how much content we as human beings should be consuming on a regular basis. With so many options, avenues and possibilities these days, it can be exhausting trying to keep up with all these new games, shows and movies. It's like eating and drinking; there's only so much nourishment you're body's meant to take in at a given time. It has to be true for our brains on at least some level as well.
agreed; i'd say 4-5 years between mainline games is a pretty decent amount of time to;
finish the old game, get bored with it, take a breather, look forward to the new game
3 years in today's day and age when there's so much everywhere, all the time, that you "need" to keep up with, you're already overwhelmed by other games and media you consume
And then you have companies like SE where every new major game release takes 4-7 years or more to churn out but the conglomerate’s big enough with many different teams that you can get a vast multitude of smaller side projects done in-between with enough quality to be sleeper hits of their own. Ultimately GF leads should really put a brake on the series, but instead they choose to continue forcing their team into this endless 3 year development cycle across two teams to effectively churn out yearly and/or bi-yearly releases. (3 year of course=yr 1 while new game is finishing development, yr 2 main development of title to create preliminary showcase content, yr 3 remainder of development and beginning of development of next project.) And what makes it even more damning is that aspects of the brandholders, particularly TPC/TPCi have literally come out and said the decision for new title development was all on GF’s end, and obviously with how Nintendo usually operates, they clearly have no say either on this (and would likely shoot for a longer window in most cases).
This just leaves Creatures as the last major party involved and honestly, I doubt they would have anything to say on this unless their cut of every release is barely enough to manage the servers where the main models are stored and if that’s the case I could see why they’d have some clout over influencing GF’s development decisions because they can just say if new game X isn’t made so that GF can pay them for the servers in time, the servers will be cut due to financial reasons and any further assistance with character development from Creatures would be void, leaving GF up the creek without a paddle due to the loss of basically everything that’s used as their main tool to sell the series. The only thing though is that this sort of thought process is also inherently flawed since more new games=more new Pokemon/forms which in turn means more server space needed and thus even more cost to maintain.
yep.
It's sad seeing a lot of the community, critics and remaining fans alike, unable to see how issues like these are a serious problem often times because their just used to it. Not only the crunch, which is at least the one that gets some legitimate recognition, but also other factors like the national dex eating away at their ability, and the absolute corner they've put themselves in my making everything depend on each other as if pokemon is a whole economy. Almost no other company has done anything remotely like they've they've done and the few who tried fell short for one reason or another. It's almost commendable that the franchise hasn't completely collapsed yet. But no, gamefreak is lazy, they need more people, they need to not make an rpg just cause. It's so much easier to confirm bias with useless arguments like those than to ask for a change that might actually change something.
Game Freak’s situation to me is if Microsoft forced an more indie-like company like ZA/UM or Double Fine to finish on a tighter deadline. You can see some effort, but you can ultimately tell that they have to cut corners, and that it will be harder for them to adapt to a business model that accommodates more people. Some video game developers work better with fewer people, and Game Freak’s stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Good to see someone who analizes the problems without repeating the "Game Freak is lazy" everyone else loves to scream and don't even use their brain to better understand the situation
I think it's been about time to stop yearly launches, not only that's holding the series quality, but is also overwhelming for players
Another great video from you Lew!~
I think you really hit the nail on the head. I found Arceus Legends to be a nice breathe of fresh air as even despite it's flaws, it was probably one of the first Pokemon games I've played in awhile that really recaptured that "magic" for me. I think the game clearly showed that GF isn't lacking passion or commitment but are rather in the unfortunate circumstance of being another cog in the machine that is the Pokemon franchise. I think GF obviously wants to have more time to focus on these new elements being built into the modern games, but it's clear that they have to work with such strict deadlines that it's hard for the games to breathe for that fun, original idea.
Arceus Legends felt like the first time in AWHILE that GF was allowed to just work on a passion project for the Pokemon franchise. It's not perfect, but there's a lot of love that goes into that game and you can feel it brimming with the world they created for Hisui. SV currently has me feeling a bit more iffy not because I think it's bad or is going to be bad, but because they're taking such a drastic change in the direction for the series not only for the overall look of the games, but the character design as well. It'll definitely take me awhile to get used to because I'm a Sugimori-style die-hard fan. lol It's practically what inspired my artwork.
Overall, looking forward to the other videos you make!
I can't imagine how pushed to their absolute limits these employees must be. If they wanted to become the next elder scrolls and not release a game for another 90 years, as annoyed as I can get by that, I'd prefer it so much more over people being pressured like this.
If every single game company stopped orking forever tomorrow, there would still be new games coming out regularly (although much more spaced) as people would be taking to themselves to mod entire games into completely different things. In fact the industry has gotten so ridiculous that there are tons of entire games that are bad on release and become very good only because modders desire to fix them. Looking at all these pokemon games I can safely say that without modders and their work most of them aren't worth playing. Pokemon games have just become a way to acquire mons for official tournaments and little else.
i will pay you $100 in cash if you prove to me that these games began development in 2016 that isn't part of a rumor
nevermind, $1,000
We can't :3
Based by what we’ve seen so far on the trailer, yeah… the development didn’t start in 2016, they probably rushed it right after the release of swsh (2019)
@@LewtwoYT by the way, there is no size difference in walking pokemon, only different thing is that, when walking before catching it, they'll have a red/blue aura and give more exp.
@@Pizaro008 Possibly 2020 because Game Freak both had the DLC for swsh and were working on Legends Arceus at the time. Plus with Covid, it definitely slowed development down.
People keep asking me questions about this and I have to keep telling them the whole low down on crunch and development time for these games. Thankfully I now have a video to just send to people instead of taking 30 minutes to write a novel about it.
This is a great video, thanks to it feeling dense for a 14 minute run time. Like I felt you covered about a half hour worth of material in under 15 minutes spectacularly. Even the brief discussion surrounding the new starters, and starter design was done so well.
Of course I feel discussing about starter designs can be a video by themselves, since there is a lot of material to work there. The topic points I would chose for an essay is the gradual anthromorphism that particularly the final evolutions has gotten; mainly in gen 6, although gen 3 has some anthromorphic elements as well. (I would also answer why I feel the designers are shifting in this direction). The shift from first stages being more characterized animals to more cartoony depictions of animals. (Fuecoco and Totodile are perfect candidates for this topic as a comparison piece. The gen 8 starters in general fit this idea as well). Then I would dissect why the designers are heavily emphasizing a theme for a single starter. Basically why is Incineroar a wrestler, Chesnaught a knight/juggernaught, Inteleon is a spy, and so forth.
While that discussion isn't the main topic of the video, it is the subject that lingered post watch.
I agree I wasn't too thrilled myself when I saw we were getting a new generation at the three year mark. Granted I suspect that decision was made before anybody knew how well received Arcues would be even so this makes me worried that yet again they are crunching to get it out the door and as you stated crowbarring in the well received parts of Arcues which would make it feel out of place. I can take or leave the MC designs (which to be honest is always how I've been since G/S). I get what you're saying about the Gen 8 designs and such though I am horrifically bias because I like sporty like designs and secret agents.
I'm never going to be good about some of the more technical misgivings as my general reaction to when people point them out is "eh" because unless they are latterly smashing to pixeled pixels in my face I really don't care as it doesn't impact my playthroughs. I am concerned about how well the open world will be done, mostly because of my aversion to open world/sandbox games as it would have to have an extreme hook that allows me to ignore that allergy to enjoy the game. Arcues did a good job of that by looping what I like to do in a game (mainly the Pokedex and the multiple ways to fill it out) so I wasn't feeling chained to doing one thing and going around in the world was in of itself fun because of stuff popping up like the distortion world spaces or the outbreaks of random Pokemon or if I'm feeling truly masochistic hunting down the phany packs of fallen trainers because they always end up in such "safe" areas (Arcues help me)
Pokemon games as of late seem like we are watching them develop in real time. Rather than having that gap between games where when we see the improvements they shine brighter than the games imperfections. How things are the sticking points of games don't have any chance to fade into memory so when people (my opinion) see that they are not either properly addressed or worse still there it causes people to tunnel vision harder and harder and the legitimate good points get overshadowed and it becomes nearly impossible to have any kind of nuanced discussion about the games without tying a brick to a bat and smashing it into someone's teeth.
As always time will tell how this game comes out. There is stuff I like from the first trailer, stuff I'm not so keen on and other things I'm just going to have to go "Just going to wait and see,"
"Pikachu is this amorphous blob of cheese." is the best quote of 2022 so far! 😂👏
Somehow I never put it together that all of those missing features from the older Pokémon titles (like the Battle Frontier, missing shops, etc.) that didn't make it into their remakes, so they put up signs weren't just there as references, but GameFreak literally didn't have any time to put them in and just scrapped the idea altogether. Wow. I wish the company were given more time and breathing room for their releases because this model is super unsustainable at their pace. It's gonna collapse soon.
I can imagine a wild group of torterra or infernape out in the wild, I can't imagine more than 1 Cinderace or Inteleon existing simultaneously.
Really like the editing of this video! Very fun, fit in with the theme of the “Terrifying Pace.” Loved all the colors too and the use of Arceus footage to describe what was going on in the world of Pokémon as well (ie the Basculegion part lol)
I think you effectively covered a lot of what the community is feeling and critiquing it as well for making excuses/covering up.
I did really like the previous art styles for the humans. Trying to be open minded they’re doing something new, but it does miss one of the signatures of the series. I was also on the end of not wanting a new gen to come out in 2022..just hope the tight time crunch will be addressed soon.
I also liked how you covered the starter designs effectively in a short amount of time as that was also in the current conversation. The personality over Animal decision has been upsetting one of my best friends. Even though I like Scorbunny and Sobble, their evolutions are not my favorite haha.
Sorry for the long wall of text, but always look forward to your videos and opinions and artistic sense. Looking forward to your BDSP and Arceus videos and anything else you have planned!
Just saw this now, but thank you so much for all the kind words!! 🙇♂️🙇♂️🙇♂️
Scarlet and Violet should not exist. I wish more time was spent with PLA, like a year or two before we got any kind of Gen 9. SV is going to suffer due to inconsistencies that are popping up pretty early.
Are you seriously suggesting SCVI should've come out in 2024? So you not only wish there were sixteen TCG sets of SWSH, but twenty? Are you kidding me? Either that or you want a two year break of it and for the playerbase to abandon that card game entirely.
@@poisonedyoyo i didn't say any of that but go off
@@poisonedyoyo We actually need twenty one Sword and Shield card sets! Cuz screw Game Freak, let them all be worked to the bone cuz we NEED another card pack that is not a SwSh one... girl, what's your damage?
@@poisonedyoyo this is one of the stupidest Pokémon related comments I have ever seen
Exactly, gamefreak needs a break for Pokemon. It must be overwhelming having to make another Pokemon once they just completed the previous one. Their obviously tired of Pokemon and want to work on other things. They should either let other gaming companies take over or take a good hiatus. Overworking isn't good, and neither would you be completion of the work.
Without wanting to override your criticism of them, there's something I see catastrophically few people talk about regarding the main character designs in SV.
Whether you like them or not, I don't see anyone actually talk about *why* they are like this, something really important to understand the core art direction for the games as a whole. While they're definitely a departure from what we're used to, and I myself feel mixed about them, their designs are based on 60s - 90s anime, primarily from studio Zuiyo Eizo (today Nippon Animation), that were specifically produced for european markets, and found major success all across the continent, but even moreso in the mediterranean. I think this definitely reframes Game Freak's character art style choices as something done for a more genuine, coherent, and slightly nostalgic artistic expression of a mediterranean Pokémon region, rather than a frankly mind boggling departure from their previous character design ethos.
that's actually pretty interesting and would make sense for a design change like that to be for a real reason rather than just "hey lets make this look different from everything else we've ever made"
So it's all down to awful execution because it doesn't explain the unappealing choice of art style and palette and just the soullessness of it all. 😔
Is there a source on this or is it something you're assuming? Because my immediate assumption is more that they're trying to focus on the child market more. They probably want the games to be flashier, easier, and more kid-friendly because some old CEO is afraid that being a normal RPG isn't what people 10 and under are into anymore.
Again, just my assumption, but I feel like it makes a lot of sense with their other decisions recently.
@@dracocrusher look at how cultish the fanbase is, if they get them young they'll grow up to bolster the cult's manpower in defending each poor choice from valid, or not, criticism with uncritical zeal. That's the sauce, market aggressively to children, get them in the cult asap, and your legion of stalwart white knights grows every generation.
@@raccoonchild Basically it; granted, that's assuming _that_ is the reason.
This video sums up my feelings on pokemon after sword and shield quite well. That game had a lot of extra content including multiplayer stuff, dlcs, and dungeons that I never got a chance to explore enough. I was rushing to beat the game because while I was 70% through it, arceus was released and everyone was saying "THIS is what we should be playing, don't play any other pokemon game, just play this'"before i got time to really play sword and shield and it's dlc. Pokemon is a game that needs more time to simmer, more time to develop, and more time for different players to sink into it for it to have multiple games within a short amount of time. I'll get the argument of "well this game came out 2 or 3 years ago" when a game, a dlc, a remake, and a revamp are released within that amount of time.
dang I finished sword and shield in like a week
Honestly doesn't really matter if you don't upload more than one video a year, *it's always fun to come back to them after launch and see how much of it totally stands* _(unlike 90% of Pokémon-themed channels on RUclips)_
I absolutely agree with everything said here, but also, I really hope they'll find a good balance between cartoony style and realism, because the last thing I'd like is a dull, realistic environment. XY/ORAS looked good but too low res, SM/USUM and Legends were weirdly pale and washed out, SwSh were inconsistent. In comparison, the cartoony remakes looked so much nicer. I wish they'd take inspiration from Genshin Impact - they're able to squish amazing colorful open environment into a mobile game and Gamefreak struggles to make a switch game that doesn't have 144px looking textures.
Pokemon Let's Go had the perfect art style, tbh.
You made me realize one of the reasons i preferred the 2D games and it's that they looked consistent, even now they seem to me like some of the best pixel art games I've seen. Similar with Breath of the Wild: the Switch may not have the graphics of a PS5 but the developers mostly made it look like a stylistic choice, meanwhile almost every the recent Pokemon game seems to lack it completely
As a Genshin player, I would love the idea of them taking notes from Genshin. But then Genshin is a resource heavy game, which is why Switch doesn't have it yet.
@@ChikyuuKun Genshin is resource heavy for the amount of moddels and efects loaded, not the moddels themselves
Thank you for another amazing video! I feel like originally nuanced talking points and arguments tend to get spread out and recirculated by the fandom until they lose all meaning, but I feel like you've always kept the original meaning intact and truly work to understand the implications of those points rather than jumping to a conclusion.
I'm a bit concerned about Pokemon falling back into its old patterns with how SV have been revealed so far, but I do hope that future titles will take the reception of Legends and SV into consideration.
My first points aside, I've never quite understood the argument of Pokemon being too humanoid or having too much personality. I appreciate that you actually took the time to dissect the argument rather than just saying that Sprigatito shouldn't stand up with no regard for the design philosophy of Pokemon and the fact that bipedal doesn't always equal humanoid, but at the same time I'm still trying to understand the argument more? Pokemon with distinct personalities have always existed and while I wouldn't want every Pokemon to be like that (and agree that 8th gen starter evos needed more design variety), I find those designs fun and creative, and even find thinking about how they would exist in the wild to be an interesting thought exercise. For example Machoke has been there since gen 1, is characterized as a wrestler, and even has some pretty funny interactions in Legends. Is the issue that people specifically don't want the starters to have that sort of personality, like you mentioned at one point? In which case, Empoleon, a Pokemon characterized as a proud creature and based off a real person exists and is fairly well liked.
Perhaps I'm looking into this too deeply but I've been thinking about it for a while and I'm just curious about where this opinion comes from. Anyone feel free to chime in with their thoughts.
Anyway, tangent aside thank you once again for such a brilliant video. I'm looking forward to your thoughts on BDSP.
Glad you enjoyed! To clarify my point a bit, I think that Pokemon are totally fine to be personality driven, it’s just that when it overtakes the basic concept of a starter Pokemon, I end up having an issue with it. A starter Pokemon has always been intended as a beloved cornerstone of your team, so to see character traits forced onto your very first from the beginning not only feels really forced, but strictly intended for marketing, which feels pretty soulless in an ostensibly child-oriented series
@@LewtwoYT That makes more sense, thank you!
I kind of felt there was an element besides “Game freak being lazy” to this whole thing. Them being lazy as the fans say implies they don’t work hard enough. I see the passion that went into USUM and think “why do you think this is lazy?”.
how about how scorbunny doesn't kick properly? or the slow moving battle sprites? or maybe the disappearing trees?
also the removal of the national dex.
@@aporue5893 I can’t tell if your advocating the argument that they are lazy or vise versa.
Pokémon’s massive popularity is its undoing, if it wasn’t as popular, we wouldn’t have games needing to be rushed out every year. That’s the problem with popular AAA titles, they have to be finished by a tight deadline. I’m still gonna buy Scarlet, because the series is fun to play, but I do feel sad for the people at Game Freak.
@@aporue5893 “Scorbunny not kicking properly” my fucking ass! That is such a lame argument! Why would they go out of their way to make an animation for that other than for added detail? Why now is that the line? I get the “higher quality animations” thing was a lie, get the fuck over it! They lied to save face, so what? They weren’t actively trying to scam people, you didn’t see them promote it in advertising! It was purely a response to a question.
Really hope the PLA and SV teams shared their ideas during preproduction, since I just can't imagine PLA being this big step for Pokemon only for SV to step back from it's ideas, like having an open world only for player mechanics Pokemon interaction to play out like SwSh
The terrifying pace of modern lewtwo videos
I’m really sorry for the developers in game freak. For real, it must be a nightmare to work there.
For real, I repeat No cap.
You brought up so many great points in this video, especially about the starters. Even though I love the Gen 8 starter evolutions, They really need to stop making these starters characters first and creatures second. I've never really had a problem with any starter evolutions except for like 2 (Emboar and Delphox) And even then I don't hate them, i'm just tired of this design philosophy since it's been going on since Gen 6, arguably Gen 5.
That or maybe make games based entirely around the Pokémon and place all the humans 6 feet under. If they want to characterize the Pokémon so much, why not do it in a setting that will actually matter like the mystery dungeon series? Expand a bit more on the story of the species the series is named after rather than just how evil trainers abuse Pokémon and what other trainers do to stop it by pointing their drooling MMO goons in the right direction. But eh, maybe Pokémon are better left as personality devoid golems so we can make our own personalities for 'em.
Also to hell with the customization for my anthromorphic plank of wood that's supposed to be a human, where's the customization options for the Pokémon themselves to help them fit their nature rather than the predetermined character their designer made them to be.
Seems like a smart choice to stick with characterization of starters. Every time I see a person choose a starter, they go for the one with the most character and often bipedal in some form. Charizard, Typhlosion, Infernape, Sceptile, Blaziken, Greninja, Decidueye are all extremely popular and generally the most personality infused and often anthropomorphic of the options.
@@dylanswift5185 ^ Facts right here, I never understood this complaint whatsoever because time and time again the contrary has been the case.
You have trash taste Emboar looks Awesome piss off.
here we are And nobody listened...
I would do anything for a Pokémon game to have a long development cycle because I know TPC can pull something amazing out of the bag.
*Game Freak
TPC is THE WHOLE REASON WHY GF DIDNT GET ANY TIME
It's different now compared to when gold and silver were in development. The Pokemon company wasn't formed until April of 1998 and didn't really have much in the way of power until later probably Gen 3 or more likely during Gen 4. Which means we didn't really start feeling the crunch as much until the series when to 3d. I should point out that Snes RPGs of greater Scope of similar scale or greater scale as the GBA Pokemon games took around a year develop given an experienced and well managed team. The other thing I should note is that the Legends battle system was designed for PVE solely; It would be really poor for PVP given it has a focus on Action Economy.
@@10tailedbijuu Honestly they could solve several issues by having a game primarily focused on PVP but I don't think that would make enough money for the Pokemon Company.
@@costby1105 They could solve many issues by just not fixing the timer at 20mins and instead letting the player chose
I am excited for Scarlet and Violet to an extent, but I absolutely have had this thought many times throughout the past few months, I'd MUCH rather have a good pokemon game every 2 years, than a shite one every year or every 9 months or what have you. If legends arceus has a bit more polish in a few areas and the landscape was expanded and decoratd it would be A PERFECT game, I still absolutely love it, but it does have flaws, and it's the outliar, as TONS of other games in the franchise are rushed out the door to meet deadlines and just like having every pokemon in every game its unsustainable.
Phenomenal. Phenomenal in every single way. Not only is my brother back, but better than he ever was! This genuinely was a great watch, with very entertaining edits and transitions into the various topics. All well presented into a truly cohesive video that stands on its own. You nailed all my main concerns regarding this game right on the head. I'm not expecting SV to be a genre defining game (could have been if they had more time) and I hope Ohmori is able to pull things off despite the conditions. I'd be far more optimistic if they had more time. But unfortunately it just wasn't meant to be. 😔
Outstanding video fam!
Great video man. I’d say that if they absolutely insist on sticking to their current cadence then they need to scale back their immediate release plans and outline a clear roadmap for free updates with each game.
This would allow them to ensure the quality of what they do put out on release day is consistent and GameFreak get a bit of time to breath. Then outsource the updates to another studio like ILCA so that we can get the full Pokémon roster, new postgame areas etc. while GameFreak move on to the next project.
I think the problem isn't that the starters are character-like or humanoid.
The problem is that they don't look enough like _monsters._
They look like teletubbies
It's the new direction of pokemon that people can't except for the past 10 years
Right lopunny is sure a monster
@@jdogmcfly1712not even new direction. James Turner had heavy impact on the character design of gen 8. Also james turner made some gen 5 pokemon so that dosenr really make sense lol
5:22 YES I’m glad someone as learned on the topic of these games as you mentions this, I haven’t loved a starter in what feels like ages because they’re not creatures-these somewhat believable monster-animals hybrids-they’re characters or mascots first
There’s still plenty of reason to fear any or all of these new starters could evolve once again into silly, uncanny mascot characters who you could scarcely imagine roaming a grassy field or natural habitat; but at least they’re off to a solid start
I will add to this though:
Despite being clearly designed after a typical RPG rogue or archer, I think the Rowlet line-start to finish-is the undisputed best overall starter line since Gen. V, the leap to 3D, and the larger emphasis on character over creature
It’s fairly believable and/or conceivable as some species of owl from start to finish, never going too far over the line into wacky territory, because it’s not like Gen. VIII where you can’t imagine how these creatures would be sporty, spy-like, or play drums without the existence of people
Decidueye isn’t excessively humanoid, and doesn’t need humankind or the story of Robin Hood to exist just to justify its own existence (even though it’s ofc not as blatantly wild as something like a Venusaur or Torterra)
But it’s pretty telling when I think the only starter final evo who’s close to that line between too human/character rather than being well across it is the best, that they’ve come much too far from the classic series design philosophy that gave us Gen. I-V’s starters
to me they look terrible
I hate sprigatito. And I don't care that someone will probably ''simp'' for it below my comment,for some stupid reason,people love this ugly thing.
@@aporue5893 weed cat looks passable, the others look pretty fundamentally bad imo. like i don't think there is any art style that would make them look alright, while weed cat looks like it could do very well in a different art style.
As always, this is an extremely well made video. Great work!!
I've always thought it's fine for a franchise to depart somewhat from it's original art style if it's done right, which in the case of Pokémon designs I think it has, but you're definitely right that many of the human characters are a different story
And I definitely agree: give Game Freak more time. It's getting to the point where I'm enjoying fangames more than the official titles simply because the _fangames_ are the ones that feel more filled-out and polished
Great vid as always. I definitely have some mixed feelings on gen 9 (I was hoping just for legends DLC this year and gen 9 next year), but I'm still excited to play it. Looking forward to the BDSP vid!
Gold and silver was 20 years ago, when the series was going through its first generational shift. I don't think pointing to that era is in your best favor for proving how the series can afford delays. (though i dont disagree that the franchise definitely needs to slow down lest it collapse on itself)
it was one of two hyper-specific examples that I used
9:32 Pretty much exactly that. Designers spend a lot of time working on these things, and to act as if how good their efforts are doesn't matter is frankly kind of insulting to their talent as a designer.
Great video! Why do you think their textures have gotten worse over time would you say besides time? Maybe a change in approach?
I honestly couldn't tell you, I reckon it's just a timing thing. SWSH had a lot of poor mapping in areas, (rt. 8) which didn't help
I was soooooo disappointed when Violet and Scarlet were revealed. Not even necessarily for their content, just because it shattered my hope that the next mainline game would be an advancement and improvement upon legends arceus.
It just sucks, these games deserve the time they need. Way back when the dex cut in SwSh was announced, I wasn't bothered in the slightest. I'd figured the day would eventually come that including every Pokémon would just be too much from a development perspective, and it actually made me hopeful about the game we would get.
Course, I was disappointed in that respect. There's no reason the Pokémon devs should be on such tight time lines. This is the biggest media franchise in the world, the cost of an extended development period doesn't even dent the merch sales alone! At this level of success, they should be setting up their dev team to make the best possible project. Instead they're working to the bone for reduced quality.
It's genuinely sad to see, not just because I enjoy the games at their best, but also because it's becoming more and more apparent how disposable the industry thinks its talent is.
That's why this stuff is important to discuss and criticize. Because this isn't the result of people that don't know how to make a game, or people that lack talent and skill. This is a symptom of the vice grip put on the labor behind these games, it's a sign that something is wrong behind the scenes. It's about having standards, for both media and people.
Always love the insights from videos like these, and also the editing is super unique. Your videos are really becoming a brand in the Pokémon community, love to see it.
I No idea that the overworld models were a last minute add. Now it makes sense why they slide around instead of turn properly.
It's quite interesting. They rushed Gen 2 because they thought the hype would be gone then, and now they rush everything to permahype everyone to melk the franchise
@correctly paved Um, that's exactly why gen 2 was rushed
100% agreed. I was shocked by the announcement of Scarlet & Violet because it's SO fast. I really really want more than anything for the studio to take much longer developing the next gen games, implementing the best & most beloved features from past gens and recognising the criticisms and fixing those; really having all the time and freedom to make the game they envision. No cut corners, no cop outs, no surprise additions retconned into the game in the last half of development. Let them put the time in and put out something completely polished, beautiful, exciting, and satisfying to play. They have the tools and money to make a truly AMAZING game but they just need the time and love put into it to do so, it's why I miss the old games so much. Well, I can dream, lol.
As a Gen 1 veteran, this is a great video to watch. Yes, the new games does have its flaws in development, but let's hope the brand new Gen 9 get good since we got Arceus Legends.
I think we can agree that Pokémon is Nintendo’s Call of Duty
The Pokémon Company completely gave up on making worthwhile games after Pokémon GO made them a quintillion dollars. Nothing on the Switch has been worth your time, and there's zero chance of that changing when people buy the games regardless of the decline in quality.
i would literally wait a decade if i could have a fully realized pokemon game
I REALLY love Cinderace and Inteleon, but I've never thought about the way you explained their way of being a starter, being influenced by humans. Gotta love that 👍
Personally I think SV's development started the same year sword and shield came out, and legends was released as a game to test out what gamefreak wants the franchise direction to go in, see how well it does for the players and work on what could change in the SV games before release
Aged like fine wine
I've just seen this video and then clicked on your channel and saw last upload 6 months ago. Really hope you are still making content because this is easily some of the most well constructed, edited, and thought through Pokémon content I've seen in a while
thanks! new video is very big so its taking a while, im always active on twitter and discord doing other projects too
Honestly we are in a very good era to love monster taming games. Tem tem just released, monster sanctuary is amazing and coromon harken back to Pokémon old school days.
You made me install this, thank you I’d forgotten
WHAT AM I DOING WATCHUNG THIS VIDEO
Honestly, I like the humanoid Pokemon a lot, especially when it's the starters. When I was younger I loved shows like Medabots and Megaman NT Warrior. The idea of someone having their own humanoid warrior that they send into battle was so cool to me. So when Pokemon started doing that with the starters it became that much more cool to me. Plus, people need to realize that the franchise is called Pocket *Monsters* and not Pocket Animals. Being monsters gives them the freedom to be whatever they want.
Here's a like for you, because all you've said/commented makes sense.
“Monsters” that play soccer and look like James Bond so cool 😎
As a Digimon fan, I agree. But also, that's kind-of what I have Digimon for...? Like, it makes sense for Impmon to be designed to feel arrogant and mischievous because he's an actual character, but for Pokemon, something does feel a bit off about walking into the tall grass and seeing a Pokemon designed to have more of a personality. And I think that's because the characters have been made to be so blank and open to interpretation for so many years.
Think about it, right? Pikachu doesn't necessarily feel happy or angry or sad, his default expression is always pretty neutral and it's the poses and spritework that gives him character. That makes the design malleable, but it also doesn't really give a lot of immediate impact, I think. I feel like that's why it hits so weird when some Pokemon try to be more humanoid or have clearer emotional intent in the design.
Logically, this doesn't have to be the case, but it does push some character designs into feeling like they're just not Pokemon if they have too much personality or have too many features or details. I mean, look at how odd Eternitus feels as a Pokemon, right? Even though it's by design, it doesn't really gel with the expectations of the franchise.
Since when was a monster not an animal?
I just saw the new trailer and it looks very very promising. Especially the animation. Still they NEED to fix the edge flickering and pixelations. The switch can do so much better and sword/shield and Arceus don't have as much flickering and pixelations. Also textures looking like they were stretched.
But the clothing! The person who made the details needs a raise. And the main characters and buildings look good.
Honestly, what bothers me more than the pacing is how TINY the staff is for games of this pedigree and pace. Literally just a couple hundred. There are more pokemon in cut dex than the development cast for the largest videogame/multimedia franchise in HUMAN HISTORY.
If we got a new title every one or two years by the companies themselves, sure. I would love it if they would be hands on some Monolith Soft team devs or just new hires period.
I think more people need to understand that a bigger team doesn't equate to a better game, and there are plenty of case studies as to why this isn't the case (FFXIV is a good example)
@@LewtwoYT This is absolutely true. A combination of time and careful management is also a godsend.
FFXIV has a team of 264 and that's a whole MMO with JRPG level story in it. 200 isn't small but they can only do so much when given 3 years to build an entire game from scratch each time
Pokemon games should take 5 years to make. One year to plans 3 to started development and 1 to polish
When I heard scarlet and violet were coming out I was like "uh seems a bit early " like dawg you Just Had Legends Arceus
NO MORE DEX CUT IN ALL THE FUTURE POKEMON GAMES!
thanks for like my great comments.
Come on really? There is plenty of other reasons to be pist at game freak. Dex cuts are necessary, there is soon to be over 1000 pokemon and only like half of them are cool. We don't need a full dex.
@@Soren27no! it's not cool! half of them are not cool!
@@Soren27don't ask me! just ask lewtwo! he the one who like my comments!
this is an awesome video, I was hooked and this guy explains and talks about everything so well
When it comes to humanoid pokemon, that doesn't put me off so much considering how many are based on shape-shifting youkai, like Froslass (Yuki-onna), Mawile (Futakuchi-onna), or Shiftry (Tengu) for example.
So many problems with 3d Pokemon could have been fixed if they extended the 3 year cycle between gens to a 4 year one, but I guess TPC can't allow that dip in their profits even with the highest grossing media franchise in history.
Gotta admit, I was turned off by the legendaries being an excuse for extra mobility and the new gimmick. Mega pokemon were a gold mine and I loved the concept, but they've just abandoned them for worse things.
Seeing people excited for mediocre content just because it's new is frustrating as someone who grew up with Fire Red and Leaf Green and everything up to Sun and Moon. Sword and Shield were the first games I hated, but those same people ate it up just because it was new. I just don't get how people embrace bad quality just because "Ooh, new pokemon! That one's cute! Oh wow, a goth character? Let's go wild over her!"
It's honestly what I expect from Nintendo and Game Freak at this point, and I hate that it's become the norm for them. They have a massive IP and they're just squandering that potential to make mediocre shit.
Bingo.
Each game gas something in particular that you can see where the time went.
XY: 3D Modeling and overworlds
ORAS : new gameplay in delta episode and the new features highlighted like megas and dexnav
Sun Moon : idk I dont like this one lmao
Probably the island trials though
Swsh: Grapically quite good minus the wild area and the wild area in general
LGPE : Gameplay needs work graphics are quite amazing espically for the first time they worked on a hd console
Legends: Gameplay is AWESOME, overworld is sick, and graphics…. Oh that
I actually really loved the cinderace and intelleon designs, some of my favorites in the series.
Although, your points about them are fair enough... (even though I disagree)
I love Cinderace too. One point I'd like to bring up about them having parts of them ingrained in human things, if Vanilluxe is a Pokémon that can get away with looking like ice cream, because in the lore of the Pokémon world, it says ice cream was actually based on the Vanilluxe line's appearance, then it could also be the case that soccer/football was a sport inspired by Cinderace, and secret agents became a thing because they were inspired by Inteleon.
@@AuraStrikeAce Yeah. Glad I am not alone on this thought! ^-^
Absolutely agree. I love human like designs in the same amount as more monster like designs. Having both creates diversity in design and gives us ways of making a Pokémon look really cool.
If you want my two cents - and I'm only about 2 minutes into the video, so you might bring this up - I feel like Scarlet and Violet have been in development for some time, but Game Freak was nervous about the new style. So, they released Arceus as a kind of "Proof of Concept" using the engine from Scarlet and Violet as a baseline to reduce production time/costs. I feel that might be why they went the route of no hub areas aside from one town; they constructed that one location and just made a broad map for everything else. Then, they watched the popularity of Arceus and, more importantly, people's opinions about the new style of play.
Upon seeing Arceus gain popular acclaim for it's innovation, they pushed the "Full Steam Ahead" button on Scarlet and Violet, which had already gotten much of the coding work done, and now just needed it's skin and polish. Now, I know next to nothing about game development; I'm an author by trade, so I could tell you about the writing. But coding? Hooo boy, I struggle with basic macros in Final Fantasy, so I'm no expert. But from a marketing standpoint, it makes some degree of sense, and would go quite some distance to explain why the two seem so similar. Arceus was a dangerous gambit, completely altering the layout of the mainstream Pokémon games. If they'd made Scarlet and Violet without first testing the waters with Arceus and the game tanked, then they would be millions in the hole. But by testing the waters with a carbon copy that had less time put into it - not saying Arceus had no polish, but just that it feels like Scarlet and Violet are just a bigger, broader version of Arceus' design; or rather that Arceus is a carefully chosen slice of the concepts presented - Game Freak managed to see if those games were worth their continued investment, or if they should heel-turn the games back into a more classic-styled version.
This.... actually makes sense, sorta:
-Release PoC/prototype-Gauge public reaction.
It's a little bit... uhhh... "big-brain" for your stereotypical depiction of GF. But at this point a shot in the dark like this is far from unlikely, desperate situations and all that.
@@JuanLeon-oe6xe
To be fair, through GameFreak, Pokemon is one of the biggest sellers for modern games. Consider, because of their general simplicity in design, Pokemon games can be churned out fairly quickly. Because of this, it has a very broad fanbase now, spanning multiple generations. Now, this isn't to say other franchises don't; Mario and Zelda are two others that immediately come to mind. But for every Mario and Pokemon, there is a Metroid.
Now, I'm not saying Metroid isn't a beloved series, but how long has it been since we received a mainstream Metroid game geared towards the younger demographic? It's players have grown up, and Nintendo uses Metroid to follow that generation. Pokemon, however, is in a very unique boat. It's fans span multiple generations, it's easy to produce, even easier to make toys and such for, bolstering it's overall net value... Nintendo might be the reason for this, overall, not GameFreak.
@@inkblooded1058 Oh no, I wasn't trying to roast GameFreak, forgive me if I gave that impresion off. Maybe I should have clarified it's the view a lot of Pokémon fans and "fans" have?
Now that you mention it, it's Nintendo (albeit how much of TPC is either N or GF or neither...). Merchandise, the card game, multiple mangas, the anime, the web shorts...
What I also tried to say (and again sorry for being unwillingly obtuse) at the end is that sometimes desperation will breed ingenuity, in this case PLA. It's just, after this many years, to get this distintion of the formula, hell, even Arceus' issues may indicate GF is even worse than we though.
To be clear, I'm not excusing the problems Pokémon has accumulated (nor trying to be hyperbolic about such), it's just that I'm kinda surprised to hear a voice that isn't doom and gloom.
@@JuanLeon-oe6xe
No worries! Personally, I don't know the state of GameFreak right now. I'm more viewing this as an outside observer; my friend is a massive Pokemon fan and I learned about these things tangentially.
But given Pokemon's immense popularity, I can't imagine that it's development is even *mostly* in the hands of GameFreak. Yes, they're the company tasked with being the name of the brand, but as they're owned by Nintendo, and Nintendo is avid on keeping their most valuable projects in the green, it stands to reason that any drastic changes to the formula would need to be run by Nintendo.
With the immense popularity of Breath of the Wild's open-world concepts and the success of other games of a similar nature (Genshin Impact literally just stealing a lot of BotW's concepts) it isn't astounding that not only is Pokemon - a game about exploration, collecting, and grand adventure - would become an open world series, but that even the next 3D Mario game is being hinted at having an open-world concept. But in the case of Pokemon its a bit different.
While Pokemon played with the concept of a vast world, it never really tackled the idea of "Open World." While you could tackle the water, you couldn't swim under it. While you can fly, you could never progress off the beaten, linear path. However, games like Zelda and Mario, which relied heavily on 3D elements, were able to tackle similar topics in more depth. As such, their transitions into an open-world setting require less testing. But in Pokemon's case, changes to the mainstream formula were sometimes met with contrition. Games like Pokemon Snap and Pokemon GO were not a part of the mainstream series, the formula of which never changed all too much... Until Arceus. I find it more than coincidental that Arceus is coming out so shortly before these new releases, an feels almost like a tech-demo for the conceptual changes to the new meta... It just feels like a test to see how people would feel about Pokemon dipping their toes into an open-world concept.
Hey is there an issue with Sigma 1.1.2? In game it just shows as 1.0.0 for me, i've tried a fresh install, definitely in the right title ID folder, pearl on v.1.3.0, just never changes from 1.0.0
this is just a visual bug u can ignore it
@@LewtwoYT fantastic mate thank you!
I remember when I was younger that I didn't want to play as a kid, but the "Cool, Hip" grown up/teenager that I might one day see myself to be. Scarlet and Violet just look like everyday kids that idk if it will appeal to kids today.
This is why they have the two teams and it seems like they just want to get stuff out they don’t care about quality, luckily I think they realized their mistakes and are gonna be different for Scarlet and Violet. I think the reason for the new art style is so there can be more expression and emotion for all the characters. Black and White changed the art style and they changed the whole series and SV could possibly do the same thing! Either way I hope these games end up good and help the series instead of hurting it! We definitely see the changes in PLA like all the new updated models and moves and the ability to battle anywhere! PLA was a step in the right direction for the series.
One step forward, two back
No matter how much you redesign a character, without even the most basic VA like a grunt, thhey convey no emotion, instead looking like a 20's silent movie, with exagerated hand gestures and only an awkward backtrack
This is a great video and very well balanced in constructive criticism. I think that criticism is important to companies just as much as compliments are, however I also think that some people can let things go a bit too far in their criticism of a game. There's certainly a good balance to be kept, and I think typically if you're criticism includes slander towards developers or sweeping assumptions of intent, it's usually not very well thought out.
GameFreak certainly has a lot of promise and talent in the studio. But it would be great to have a game that felt like a "3rd version" right off the bat, with any additional DLC just adding onto that great content instead of just fixing prior mistakes or heck even adding new ones. Lets not kid ourselves, that's been tradition for Pokemon since the very beginning. Time definitely is the enemy here, and while I crave new Pokemon games just as much as anyone else, I think that one of the reasons I might crave new games so desperately is because the older games aren't holding my attention as well as they could be while I wait for the next title in the series.
With Bandai Namco, Spike Chunsoft, ILCA and others I do feel like GameFreak could do well enough to bump their teams up to a 4 or even 5 year development cycle for each game. I have enjoyed many of their recent titles despite their flaws, but certainly in an industry right now that seems to struggle getting full games out the door, releasing a game that stands out is the best way to fully get the right attention.
Perhaps the eagerness to jump to Gen 9 this year is a result of wanting to distance themselves from Gen 8 controversy further, but there's always the possibility that even with an ambitious new open world game, the controversy could be even louder. I don't tend to judge first trailers of Pokemon too harshly as many notable texture or framerate issues tend to be smoothed out by release. I'm optimistic for the most part, but there is that nagging about it possibly missing some of the best parts of the Legends formula that could be well integrated into the non-action rpg formula.
We'll just have to wait and see, if Gen 9 isn't it. Maybe 10th Gen is the charm?
The texture quality is something that bugs me too. I mean the switch has 4GB of shared memory, It doesn't make any sense to have those awful textures
even thinking about what the newer games could've been like if just one extra year was spent on them makes me sad, so many missed opportunities.
Glad I'm not the only one who saw the weird character design they went for. The look so not-Pokémon. And that worries me so much. To see the old artstyle of Gym Leaders or main protagonist really makes you cry.
I adore your editing style, the snappy bright shadows on the elements, the Jet set radio... it's all just a treat
I havn't bought a game since sun and moon, ultra sun, SS, BDSP just didn't appeal to me, and Legends was cool but just unfinished unfortunately so I didn't bother with it.
Such a necessary video, the Pokémon fanbase needs to except a product with better quality.
Twitter is insufferable because is impossible to point out any flaw without being harassed to death by the fanbase.
In regards to that last part I think it's important to acknowledge that the reverse is also true in that we have seemingly just as many people outright harassing or insulting people for liking the new games.
Criticism is always going to be important for any game and a game's flaws are something that should always be pointed out but I wish some people could learn it's okay to acknowledge the positives in these games and if some people genuinely love them then that's fine and not worth being a dick over
video is so tightly packed with info, it feels like I watched a 30 min video in just the first 10. Well done, buddy.