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Discussion Does Gamefreak have a reason to care about graphics in Pokemon?

MarcelRguez said:
They did, exactly twice:

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Black/White and the sequels looked great on the DS too.

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The battle sprites and animations were top notch as well. Truly the culmination of everything they'd done up until that point.
 
Clix said:
So what I am saying, is that criticism is always encouraged. No such thing as a perfect game and everyone has various critiques depending on their own experience or what jives with them or does not. That is okay. But after a point, it can sometimes just become a circular discussion dominated by 1 or 2 talking points and it drowns everything out.
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conversations around the game have largely moved beyond graphical griping now that people have had time to play through it; it was very easy to yell about screenshots and trailers before the game actually dropped. personally I think PLA has much larger problems than it's visuals, but this isn't the thread for that

I think the reason people are so fixated on the look of this game, though, isn't because Pokemon fans are graphical snobs, but because these games look uniquely, embarrassingly bad, even on a 5 year old system that has conditioned its user base to expect graphical tradeoffs. people are sick of it, hence thread derailments
 
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TurtleRock said:
Black/White and the sequels looked great on the DS too.

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The battle sprites and animations were top notch as well. Truly the culmination of everything they'd done up until that point.
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I forgot how damn charming these games were, wowie
 
I mean they do have a reason to care but I think their schedule doesn’t give them enough time to really tinker with it. Their art direction definitely carry in that regard.
 
A side note from a Zelda stan: BotW is still one of the very best looking games on the Switch. That Arceus isn't as technically proficient as BotW is (at least partially) due to how impressive BotW is. It ran on a Wii U even, with all kinds of CPU heavy tasks that had to compete for rendering budget because they had to use GPGPU to get the game systems running at all.

I think Arceus looks good for the short development times and large expected volume of content expected from Pokemon games. Do they have to care about graphics? Insofar as they want each game to look distinct and new: for sure.
 
Clix said:
Heck, the DF guy did just that in response to two people. One, a reviewer who loved the game, and two, to a random non industry person who posted about her enjoyment of the game. And like, come on... he should know better. Came out as childish bait, to which the obsessive DF followers started filling the guys thread with nonsense.
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WTF? that's a really bad look considering everyone at this point knows how awful DF's fanbase is.
Did he knew those two people at least?
 
I'm so damn thankful that I never cared about polygon counts and sprite scaling and resolutions and all that.

It seems like constant hell for those that do. It's never enough for them, is it?

I'm still processing Pokemon Legends with a near-blackout level of information in real time, but the one thing that is seeping through my filter is the same thing that is always seeping through my filter with pokemon - graphics, graphics graphics. That would be the least of my thoughts or concerns thus far. More to come.

But hey.....on one hand, it's so refreshing being a Nintendo fan because you get constant reinforcement that you're not alone. Sales numbers constantly tell you that you are right - these arguments are the least important element in video games for most people.

On the other hand, they are gaining volume. Take solice, friends - they're not right, they're just loud. For now, at least.

Do these same people who think graphics-first is relevant evaluate movies based on their CG and camera lighting too? I seriously mean that. Do they?

Can you never appreciate a black-and-white movie? Can you never appreciate a Billy Holiday song? Can you never appreciate....a GameBoy game?

If you can, why is this a problem? It's not relevant.

There are many things to critique in this game, but honest - this isn't it. Claim ground.

Cheers.
 
Sun and Moon are THE best looking cartoony games on the 3DS. HGSS and B2W2 were top tier looking DS games too.
Legends brought major engine improvements it just needed more polish, I have high expectations going forward.
 
Legends Arceus looks very rough for an open world game on the Switch. I do think they need to step it up as the world presentation can be a huge factor to people‘s enjoyment of open world games.
 
Yzz said:
WTF? that's a really bad look considering everyone at this point knows how awful DF's fanbase is.
Did he knew those two people at least?
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Yeah he did, but still. Like, don’t do that. He ended up deleting his post to the reviewer - it was the VGC review and the guy was gushing about the game - because the dude just got bombarded with people being dicks.
 
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Abzeronow said:
I think the graphics complainers need to understand that Pokemon is not ever going to be on a cutting edge platform, and that Game Freak could step up their game with Gen 9 especially if they get Dane to play around with. Pokemon gets the job done and we're currently in a second Golden Age of Pokemon. Detective Pikachu 2 will probably sell a nice amount too.
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TurtleRock said:
I'm getting pretty tired of this rhetoric. Yes they do care about visuals. No they don't take shortcuts or neglect to make the graphics look good because "they don't care" or because "the games will sell anyway." We cannot have a conversation about the graphics in Pokemon games without interrogating the incredibly limited amount of time that Gamefreak is given to churn these games out. Legends Arceus was in development for a little over two years. That is a pitiful amount of time to develop a modern HD video game, let alone a giant AAA game.

Zelda BotW was in development for 5 years. SMTV was in development for just as long, if not longer. DQ11 was in development for 4 years. Bravely Default 2 was in development for 3 years! Even that game got more development time than Legends.

Passion is not what is lacking at Gamefreak. In fact, given how good Legends turned out, we can infer that Gamefreak is in fact very passionate about their work. You don't make a game like Legends in a little over two years if your developers are lacking in passion.

The core problem is that The Pokemon Company has failed to adjust to the realities of HD game development. Pokemon games need more time. Throwing more money and bodies at the problem won't fix anything, because good art and robust development tools take time to develop. I do think positive changes are on the way since they have already outsourced a Pokemon game to an outside studio. Perhaps cycling between 2-3 studios is the future of Pokemon, similar to how Activision managed COD.

Either way, the Pokemon Company needs to self reflect and figure out exactly how to move forward. Their current strategy is unsustainable. They need to realize that they simply can't have a Pokemon game every year.

And the gamers who demand a Pokemon game every year also need to realize that they won't ever look good graphically and readjust their expectations of what Pokemon games can accomplish if given such little development time.
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I came to write this. When Sword & Shield came out, I was pretty mad about the graphics and the numerous other short cuts they took (including shitty animations).

But we just learned that Sw/Sh had something like 1 year storyboarding and 2 year development. The outcome is pretty great given those constraints. I also think that Arceus is a big step up vs. Sw/Sh ‘s Wild Area. And again, this is probably on a 2-year cycle, entirely under Covid.

I keep comparing every Switch game to BotW and Odyssey and that’s not fair.

My theory is that Game Freak keeps each engine for two games. That’s why we didn’t see much of a jump between the DS’ B/W and X/Y but a pretty big jump between X/Y and S/M despite both being on the 3DS.

To me, Sw/Sh were like a super 3DS game (Sun/Moon) and I’m hoping that the jump to Gen 9 is at least as big as the one from X/Y to Sun/Moon. They’ll likely have 4-years between Gen 8 and Gen 9 (but we don’t know when they started or if Legends was another drain on resources).

I also think that Game Freak deserves credit for making great games despite the graphics. I really like the traditional formula and Legends.
 
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Aren't BW DS games? Because while the sprite art looks great, I was also playing the FFIII remake on DS. According to the graphic obsessed that should be superior to the DS Pokemon games.
So I agree that Pokemon games were never really cutting-edge. Which is fine, because game dev is a trade-off. Even games on "better" hardware have repeating NPCs. When I played some XC2 again recent-ish, I noticed how all soldiers wear helmets. Monolith was clever enough to do that, because it sells the fantasy of every soldier being someone else. Yet Pokemon should look like BotW, while having 1000 different monsters roaming the world, that all are individually animated. Not happening. Money and time aren't even the issue, it's just not feasible. SMTV was hyped as a better Pokemon that had effort put into it just recently, while I'd argue PLA looks "better" or at least the environments are overall more diverse.
 
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should they cater to the small minority that say they won't buy the game on message boards, or cater to the casuals that made Sw+Sh one of the best selling Pokemon games of all time?
 
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Not really, but it does hurt their reputation as a developer. Prior to Pokemon Sword and Shield, Gamefreak was on top of visual presentation but the whole Dexit situation was the straw that broke the Camerupt's back and made a lot of people realise the questionable game design choices by the company.

If the company invests in a bigger team then this situation can be easily solved. The problem is that Gamefreak executives hate the idea of managing large teams.
 
King Kingo said:
Not really, but it does hurt their reputation as a developer. Prior to Pokemon Sword and Shield, Gamefreak was on top of visual presentation but the whole Dexit situation was the straw that broke the Camerupt's back and made a lot of people realise the questionable game design choices by the company.

If the company invests in a bigger team then this situation can be easily solved. The problem is that Gamefreak executives hate the idea of managing large teams.
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and then Scarlet and Violet became beloved games in the series
 
I'm pleased with how Violet looks. I think it looks very pretty most of the time. Especially the sky. Day, night, sunrise/set look beautiful to me. Some cliffs, water areas, and other spots need work, though. My biggest issue with the game is the cities/town. I wish there was more to them than the sandwich shops, a few clothing stores, and a bunch of restaurants. I saw two restaurants from the same chain side by side in one city. The design and layouts of several of the cities are fantastic but there's just nothing to them except food and clothes. I wish we could decorate the dorm, too. I don't understand why we can't. Seems like a no-brainer.
 
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I've said it before but Pokemon would benefit greatly from ray traced shadows. can be cheap to implement and still be a massive improvement over the shitty shadowmaps now
 
I watch a ton of S/V competitive and it's just kind of sad to see how poorly textured and empty and badly lit the one (!!!) online combat area in the game is and how much clipping there is. It's completely static and there's still clipping... How.

I really like Tera-typing as a mechanic and it makes Pokemon way more interesting, but this is probably the worst looking notable video game I've seen in 8 years. There's just so much clipping and horrible shadow work and pop-in.
 
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Besides the performance, the only real problem with the visuals in SV is the way they texture cliffs which is quite ugly, specifically. Everything else has more or less caught up with what the hardware can do
 
Aleh said:
Besides the performance, the only real problem with the visuals in SV is the way they texture cliffs which is quite ugly, specifically. Everything else has more or less caught up with what the hardware can do
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there's that weird texture warping issue with the cliff face. very strange

other than that, there's a lot of just quality stuff that could have been fixed if given another six months or whatever. the game is no Xenoblade 3, but it's about as much of an HD open world game as you can expect from Game Freak
 
In the long term it will not be good for the Pokémon Brand if they keep releasing games in a state like this at launch. But I‘m sure they are aware of that by doing that statement.
 
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MetalLord said:
People gonna swallow their words when they see the next game,mark my words
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Poorly aged posts lmao

As others have pointed out, it’s a matter of GF giving themselves enough time. The art direction in S/V is honestly fucking fantastic.
 
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Imagine a 2026 release to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the series with the 10th gen release? Kinda like how DP were released in the 10th anniversary of the games and SM were released in the 20th anniversary.
 
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Anedoctal evidence, but just saw two friends that were dunking endlessly on the game's graphics around release and talking about how Pokemon was "dead" pick up SV. Soooo yeaaaah it seems they do not have a reason to care about graphics since even the people who hate them seem to end up buying it anyway??
 
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