Discussion If Pokémon keeps the 3 year dev cycle of 2 games + DLC, how do you think the games on the next console will be (assuming PS4 levels)?

[ILovethegameAC]

As we know by now is very likely Pokémon will keep with the generation of 2 games developed by Game Freak and DLC or third version in a 3 year cycle, they have been doing that for over 10 years and they have never changed it since then, and with the succes of SV despite it's short comings it's even less likely they will change this, so how do you think the next game will be on a more powerul hardware assuming it has PS4/Xbox One level of power? Some say leaving the Switch behind will solve this but let's not forget plenty of unpolished games were released on PS4 and Xbox One, in fact many of them like AC Unity or Mass Effect Andromeda were worse at launch than most stuff we saw on the PS3 and 360, so having more horsepower doesn't mean that games will inmediatly be polished by brute force.

Plus the fact that they will be making an "ambitious" game for Take 2 in the next 3 years also might affect things

 

[Mr Doggo]

Its not the console's fault that GF is... GF. They could be releasing pokemon for the ps5 and it would run worse than the new star wars game somehow lol.

I dont have faith that they will do some large leap, so far not much to believe that they will other than hiring some devs from games that look good.

About that new ip that they re doing with private division, i have no idea how they will get there as well, i wonder if the difference between concept art and actual gameplay will be like the difference between FF15 Switch edition and FF15 ps4/xone edition lol

 

[EvilChameleon]

I wish they would go back to sprite based games. Look at how good the Octopath games look!

 

[ProteusRidley]

I mean it'll probably still be a mess, they need more than 3 years or a bigger budget.

 

[ProteusRidley]

I wish they would go back to sprite based games. Look at how good the Octopath games look!

I'd take a remake done in that way, as I assume they'd want to test the waters to see how it sells in comparison.

 

[Ehoavas]

Scarlet and violet looked like very early Xbox 360 era JRPg lol

Switch 2 maybe gamefreak will hit xenoblade 1 graphics lulz

Not expecting it.

Let's go Pikachu is still their only good looking HD pokemon game and that says something

 

[Aleh]

SV’s problem was the 180 they did from SWSH in such a short time with no prior experience in that sort of game. Whatever comes next will just be more of the same, and on much more powerful hardware, I don’t think that’s gonna pose problems.

 

[Marce-chan]

It'll be glorious Game Cube-like models, terrain, shading and textures, all upscaled to 4K with DLSS.

 

[Deleted member 2]

I'd be happy with Wind Waker HD level of graphics but I'm not betting on it

 

[Johna X]

I wish they would go back to sprite based games. Look at how good the Octopath games look!

If Octopath is what you mean specifically aka HD 2D fair but the whole "Pokemon looked better with sprites go back" feels like an un-needed cope, it looked better cause it was easier. I think it would very much be possible to give the 3d models just as much personality, the dev time just won't allow it

 

[Aleh]

The hyperbole is already in full swing but just as a reminder SV’s issue is that it looks UNEVEN. The more curated areas already look great and the individual assets quality is there.

 

[EvilChameleon]

If Octopath is what you mean specifically aka HD 2D fair but the whole "Pokemon looked better with sprites go back" feels like an un-needed cope, it looked better cause it was easier. I think it would very much be possible to give the 3d models just as much personality, the dev time just won't allow it

I'm not saying the sprite-based games look better than the 3D games, hell, some of the 3D games look great, like the Let's Go games, the Galar games, and even Arceus, I'm just saying I'd love to see GameFreak take another tackle at a sprite-based game now that we have seen what other developers can do with the medium.

 

[Semi Lazy Gamer]

I mean it'll probably still be a mess, they need more than 3 years or a bigger budget.

The issue isn't budget, it's either time and sometimes ambition over reaching.

SV’s problem was the 180 they did from SWSH in such a short time with no prior experience in that sort of game. Whatever comes next will just be more of the same, and on much more powerful hardware, I don’t think that’s gonna pose problems.

Not really. They already had a good amount of practice with SwSh and PLA.

This also fits into the whole thing where a second generation on a system is always better than the first, see also gens 2, 5, and 7.

 

[ZephyrPhoenix]

I mean it'll probably still be a mess, they need more than 3 years or a bigger budget.

The issue isn't budget, it's either time and sometimes ambition over reaching.

It's the issue of time + the fact that Game Freak refuses to expand the amount of employees while also continuing to struggle with the 3D era.

 

[Aleh]

The issue isn't budget, it's either time and sometimes ambition over reaching.


Not really. They already had a good amount of practice with SwSh and PLA.

This also fits into the whole thing where a second generation on a system is always better than the first, see also gens 2, 5, and 7.

They had a bit of practice with the Wild Area in base SWSH only, which isn’t much. The DLC ones and Legends were made concurrently by a different team

 

[ILovethegameAC]

The hyperbole is already in full swing but just as a reminder SV’s issue is that it looks UNEVEN. The more curated areas already look great and the individual assets quality is there.

I think the only think that looks good there is the grass, the shade of green they chose is pretty nice

 

[Aleh]

I think the only think that looks good there is the grass, the shade of greed they chose is pretty nice

Regardless of personal opinion on the artstyle, the assets and composition at display there are objectively of good quality.

 

[goldrogerii]

It's the issue of time + the fact that Game Freak refuses to expand the amount of employees while also continuing to struggle with the 3D era.

I'll never understand why people keep saying this. It isn't true. They are always hiring.

 

[EvilChameleon]

Regardless of personal opinion on the artstyle, the assets and composition at display there are objectively of good quality.

The section you pictured absolutely looks good, the problem is because of the open world aspect of the region, everything that isn't a town or a landmark is just empty feeling.

 

[Armoured_Bear]

It'll look half as good as BOTW on Wii U if you're really, really lucky.

 

[Aleh]

The section you pictured absolutely looks good, the problem is because of the open world aspect of the region, everything that isn't a town or a landmark is just empty feeling.

Not just empty feeling, I think the main issue of the less curated areas is the terrain texturing, especially mountains. That’s definitely due to time constraints than anything else

 

[EvilChameleon]

Not just empty feeling, I think the main issue of the less curated areas is the terrain texturing, especially mountains. That’s definitely due to time constraints than anything else

I was reading something the other day (I don't think it was on here, I think it was on the Pokemon anime Discord) that some folks who dug into the code found out that one of the reasons the games are so slow at times is because the entire ocean surrounding the region is loaded at all times, not just the parts you can see.

 

[Linkstrikesback]

I wish they would go back to sprite based games. Look at how good the Octopath games look!

They can't for two major reasons.

First, practically, it would require completely redrawing a large number of sprites every single game. On the scale of the Pokémon game, sprites are orders of magnitude more work than models, so if you think the cuts they already had to make to the roster were bad, they'd be much worse with sprites. In addition, It wouldn't work with a whole bunch of their new features like having Pokémon on the overworld that people want to keep.

Second and even more importantly, it would kill the games sales potential. Sorry, but it's true, only old farts like sprite based games. The general public like 3d models vastly more.

 

[Mirev]

Game Freak started too late the development on an home console, in 3D and HD. Think about Fire Emblem, the same problem happened to IS and they did Three Houses that it's a great game but with terrible graphics, and they needed help from Koei Tecmo.

Zelda and Mario team, and many others, have been developing since ever. The problem is that GF didn't expanded the team and ofc they are not capable of doing better. They're basically learning now.

At least they tried everything in the last games: linear one, open map and open world. Now they can focus on everything else.

 

[Yamanoi]

It'll run 10fps worse than SV but be $10 more expensive.

 

[MetalLord]

Game Freak started too late the development on an home console, in 3D and HD. Think about Fire Emblem, the same problem happened to IS and they did Three Houses that it's a great game but with terrible graphics, and they needed help from Koei Tecmo.

Zelda and Mario team, and many others, have been developing since ever. The problem is that GF didn't expanded the team and ofc they are not capable of doing better. They're basically learning now.

At least they tried everything in the last games: linear one, open map and open world. Now they can focus on everything else.

Koei did all the 3D graphics of 3H and most of their games are really ugly or perform really bad,Fire Emblem Engage was made in house and is much better looking

 

[Mirev]

Koei did all the 3D graphics of 3H and most of their games are really ugly or perform really bad,Fire Emblem Engage was made in house and is much better looking

Yes I compared the first one because was their first game on an HD console. Ofc Engage looks better (but the game is... meh)

Keep in mind that GF released 3 games in 3 years, so they didn't have much time (sigh) to do better than what they did. I just can't understand why they don't ask help to Monolith...

 

[Josh5890]

I'd rather see them go to four-year cycles.

Year 1- New gen
Year 2- DLC for above game
Year 3- Remake
Year 4- Legends

And I agree with @EvilChameleon . Pokemon should see some sort of a sprite rebirth once in a while. At least give us HG/SS in HD form.

 

[MetalLord]

Yes I compared the first one because was their first game on an HD console. Ofc Engage looks better (but the game is... meh)

Keep in mind that GF released 3 games in 3 years, so they didn't have much time (sigh) to do better than what they did. I just can't understand why they don't ask help to Monolith...

Engage was their first HD Fire Emblem,Koei didnt help on 3H, they did 100% of the in-game graphics, it even runs on their warriors engine,not even 10 devs from Inteligent Systems worked on 3H, they only did the direction , music and concept art

 

[ILikeFeet]

The hyperbole is already in full swing but just as a reminder SV’s issue is that it looks UNEVEN. The more curated areas already look great and the individual assets quality is there.

the lack of a good lighting model does that. nothing is uniformly lit well. the game only has one light source, the sun, but the assets don't self shadow. I'll have to go back and look, but I don't think reflections even change according to the sun

 

[Aleh]

the lack of a good lighting model does that. nothing is uniformly lit well. the game only has one light source, the sun, but the assets don't self shadow. I'll have to go back and look, but I don't think reflections even change according to the sun

I don’t know, while playing I never felt like the lighting was the issue. 9 times out of 10 it’s some bad texturing on large surfaces, or lack of anti-aliasing in busy scenes

 

[Wockio]

I wish they would go back to sprite based games. Look at how good the Octopath games look!

This would ruin the games for me more than choppy performance ever could

 

[Deleted member 4629]

As we know by now is very likely Pokémon will keep with the generation of 2 games developed by Game Freak and DLC or third version in a 3 year cycle, they have been doing that for over 10 years and they have never changed it since then, and with the succes of SV despite it's short comings it's even less likely they will change this, so how do you think the next game will be on a more powerul hardware assuming it has PS4/Xbox One level of power? Some say leaving the Switch behind will solve this but let's not forget plenty of unpolished games were released on PS4 and Xbox One, in fact many of them like AC Unity or Mass Effect Andromeda were worse at launch than most stuff we saw on the PS3 and 360, so having more horsepower doesn't mean that games will inmediatly be polished by brute force.

Plus the fact that they will be making an "ambitious" game for Take 2 in the next 3 years also might affect things

If they release it in 2026 and have a better artstyle than in SV, i think it could look decent.

I wish they would go back to sprite based games. Look at how good the Octopath games look!

Hot take: i'm not a fan of the Octopath artstyle. I just don't think it looks very good.

 

[ILikeFeet]

I don’t know, while playing I never felt like the lighting was the issue. 9 times out of 10 it’s some bad texturing on large surfaces, or lack of anti-aliasing in busy scenes

that's the best part about Game Freak right now. everyone gets to have a problem with the visual! talk about inclusive!

 

[Brofield]

If I'm being kindly, my faith is Game Freak is...not the highest.

If there is official discussion of gen 10 before 2027 I'm convinced they have learned absolutely nothing from SV's development cycle.

 

[EtherPenguin]

I wish they would go back to sprite based games. Look at how good the Octopath games look!

It's not my preferred direction, but there's a really cool fan HD-2D remake of Red/Blue:

 

[Comic Obsessed]

Greed Freak will release it in the shortest time possible to get their money back as quickly as possible. You should know how they roll already.

Sure, development time might get longer just for the nature of the industry but some things won't ever change.

 

[Leo]

A buggy mess. I hope it's an extremely fun buggy mess like SV was.

 

[Hocot8]

I'd rather see them go to four-year cycles.

Year 1- New gen
Year 2- DLC for above game
Year 3- Remake
Year 4- Legends

And I agree with @EvilChameleon . Pokemon should see some sort of a sprite rebirth once in a while. At least give us HG/SS in HD form.

yessss....bring back the best Pokemon game. This is the way.

 

[Pokemaniac]

I don't think Game Freak can stick to the 3 year dev cycle after SV. Even the DLC is showing some signs of having been internally delayed.

 

[Deleted member 4629]

It's not my preferred direction, but there's a really cool fan HD-2D remake of Red/Blue:

Now THAT looks good!

 

[NabiscoFelt]

I have more faith in GF than the average sane person, so I think the next game will actually run fairly well. Don't think they'll risk the bad press again

There might be other compromises but I think that much is a fair bet

 

[EtherPenguin]

Now THAT looks good!

I wish they would turn down the bloom, but other than that it's pretty cool. They have another vid of a Gold/Silver city.

But to give an answer to the actual topic, I mostly just want something on par with Ni no Kuni on PS3, that seems realistic.

 

[Deleted member 4629]

I wish they would turn down the bloom, but other than that it's pretty cool. They have another vid of a Gold/Silver city.

But to give an answer to the actual topic, I mostly just want something on par with Ni no Kuni on PS3, that seems realistic.

Personally I think the bloom helps make it look good. The HD-2D artstyle can look beautiful when executed well, but i detest it in the Octopath games, it just looks way too dark and gritty for my tastes, very unappealing imo. I'd be okay with it if Pokemon uses this artstyle but I think it should be bright and colorful like this particular example.

 

[EtherPenguin]

Personally I think the bloom helps make it look good. The HD-2D artstyle can look beautiful when executed well, but i detest it in the Octopath games, it just looks way too dark and gritty for my tastes, very unappealing imo. I'd be okay with it if Pokemon uses this artstyle but I think it should be bright and colorful like this particular example.

That's fair. I have a distaste for bloom in general so that was probably just my own biases doing the talking. I do think Octopath's darkness is partially just the color palette choice for the pixel art. I always got the impression they kind of wanted it to look like a Matsuno game (desaturated + lots of earth tones).