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Discussion Pokémon BDSP proves what I have suspected for years: top down, linear Pokémon is much better than "open world" Pokémon

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I have been playing Pokémon BDSP alongside SMT V for a couple of days now and I'm having a blast, so much that it really cemented something I suspected ever since I played Sword and Shield in 2019: Pokémon is at its best when it's top down and linear.

Sinnoh's route are much smaller than any Wild Area in SwSh and DLC, but it plays to the strenght of Pokémon. Every route feels different and fun to explore, with small rewards (in forms of items carefully placed in small side-deviations in the routes that requires small detours to be obtained) and NPCs populating it making them feel "lively" and "handcrafted".
In comparison the open spaces of SwSh/DLC never really felt like anything more than huge, overly flat wastelands populated by roaming Pokémon that never felt like they were really "roaming" being tied to their fixed spawnzones.

One of the biggest benefits of the top down approach is also how much more the game can pack in a much shorter travel distance, and what benefit the most from this is the cities that no longer need the filler window dressing that many of SwSh cities used to increase their size to match the visual feel of a proper city.

I also noticed how BDSP's artstyle is more coherent with itself.
The world of Pokémon lends itself perfectly to a chibi, diaorama like style as opposed to the more realistic artstyle of SwSh (and the upcoming Arceus) that often had this really ugly visual look given by the more realistic looking, low quality models and texturing conflicting with the much more detailed and very popping colors of the monster.

BDSP is a less advanced, less "ambitious" experience that ends up proving how Pokémon's strenght was always its "bite sized" (in terms of dimensions) charming simplicity. The newer formula on the other hand feels like a compromise that sacrifices what made the old style Pokémon games actually great and gets almost nothing but the downsides of other contemporary JRPGs, something underlined even more by just how much more I'm enjoying the world design, artstyle and visual capabilities of Shin Megami Tensei V compared to the very underwhelming Sword and Shield.
 
I don't think one poorly executed area in an otherwise largely traditional Pokémon really proves anything. Especially when you compare it to one of the best generations.
 
Coco said:
Having the Wild Area =/= being open world. The rest of the game still played like a normal Pokémon game.
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A worse version of the past games.

The standard routes in SwSh never reached the peaks of previous regions, limited by the "bigger" proportions of the world that effectively forced Game Freak to spread content over a much bigger surface area and honestly a quite disappointing lack of "side exploration".

Dardan Sandiego said:
I don't think one poorly executed area in an otherwise largely traditional Pokémon really proves anything. Especially when you compare it to one of the best generations.
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Game Freak now gave us 3 attemps at the Wild Area concept: Wild Area, Isle of Armor and Crown Tundra.

Crown Tundra is honestly the only one of the three I actually found charming, but even that felt bloated by long traversals that don't feel particularly fun to navigate and limited by the same key technical drawbacks.
 
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Joseki said:
A worse version of the past games.

The standard routes in SwSh never reached the peaks of previous regions, limited by the "bigger" proportions of the world that effectively forced Game Freak to spread content over a much bigger surface area and honestly a quite disappointing lack of "side exploration".
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That was the least of SwSh’s problems, such as the game falling off a cliff at the 7th gym. I don’t think it’s fair to say that was because of the wild area, the wild area didn’t force them to release the game with a campaign that felt blatantly unfinished.
 
Raccoon said:
you've sabotaged your own thread by saying open world
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I'm not particularly bothered by it, if it wasn't "open world" used to describe the "open area approach" I'd have to read nitpicks about something else that also has nothing to do with the content of my OP as its traditions with every Pokémon thread.
 
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I think you're comparing executions, rather than concepts.

You've been playing SMTV, so you know exactly how well Pokemon could translate into 3D.
 
bellydrum said:
I think you're comparing executions, rather than concepts.

You've been playing SMTV, so you know exactly how well Pokemon could translate into 3D.
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I don't think TPC will ever give any Pokémon game the development time ATLUS dedicated to SMTV, and I don't think GF will ever sacrifice its demon roaster to give the players a better world to navigate. The brand of Pokémon is intrinsecally linked to the monsters and also its quantity, as the Dexit clearly showed, SMT not to the same degree.

I would personally accept a 200 Pokémon dex if it meant offering a Pokémon region that not only feels genuinely feel fun to navite, looks great and it is also puts the player constantly on its toes as they move from A to B, but this is not something Pokémon can, or wants, to offer.

They do also have lots in common conceptually, at the end of the day both are solo journeys mainly focused on the battle and management of the monsters with the occasional plot happening in between, but the brands have different strenghts and focuses.

I'm simply comparing what Pokémon released in now close to a full lifecycle of a console.
 
BDSP is definitely more enjoyable for me than SwSh, but I don't really agree with the overall sentiment. There's nothing intrinsic to Pokemon that would prevent an open world game from being just as enjoyable as the classics. The main problem with the world design of SwSh was that it tried to have a more open area while still clinging to the past, and the result was a region that felt half-hearted at best.
 
Given the absolute leap in level design between the Wild area in Sw/Sh and the Crown Thundra, I am pretty convinced they'll nail Gen 9 (or even Arceus).

Linear designs has its merits but doesn't mesh well with overworld Pokemon roaming around (which adds a lot in explorability and richness of the world).
 
Joseki said:
The standard routes in SwSh never reached the peaks of previous regions, limited by the "bigger" proportions of the world that effectively forced Game Freak to spread content over a much bigger surface area and honestly a quite disappointing lack of "side exploration".
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I feel you're falsely attributing this to modern graphics when really it's just the fault of rushed development.

Sun and Moon looked basically the same in style, just in lower fidelity on 3DS, and they managed to have plenty of side areas and content between gyms. A good, modern 3D Pokemon game with satisfying content isn't impossible, and SwSh shouldn't be used as evidence that it must be.
 
The problem with modern Pokémon games is that they have a 1990s skeleton with 2020s organs, if that makes sense? Like when Mario went from 2D -> 3D Nintendo kept the Super Mario "essence" without keeping the actual parts (no shrinking/growing from Mushrooms for example).

Pokémon games still have the same skeleton of an old school party based JRPG in its core mechanics, but they aren't making old school party based JRPGs anymore. You can really see the seams here in something like Max Raids, which are miserable and a lot of that is because the mechanics aren't designed around something like that. Some of the supposed "quality of life" changes in BDSP show this too. Not requiring you to plan your team around HM use, and EXP Share are missing the point of Pokémon mechanics, while still clinging to them. If they think these features are necessary they need to update other parts of the design which they continually fail to do.

In fact, if competitive Pokémon weren't so popular they would have probably ditched those mechanics a long time ago.

The older game designs are going to be better always because they're going to be the closest design+mechanics match.
 
Joseki said:
I don't think TPC will ever give any Pokémon game the development time ATLUS dedicated to SMTV, and I don't think GF will ever sacrifice its demon roaster to give the players a better world to navigate. The brand of Pokémon is intrinsecally linked to the monsters and also its quantity, as the Dexit clearly showed, SMT not to the same degree.
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They're doing exactly that now with Arceus, we just have to wait and see if it's good or not.

Top down tightly designed Pokémon was wonderful, and a more open 3D world could be amazing too. The fact that the last entries in the series were bad have nothing to do with either of those.
 
They had over 2 decades of experience to perfect the traditional formula - lets see how Gen 9 improves on Sw/Sh.
Then again in terms of nostalgia its always gonna be difficult to beat the OG Pokemon games, when you grew up with them.
 
Modern Pokémon is to Classic Pokémon as Playstation Allstars Battle Royal is to Super Smash Bros.

PSABR used SSB mechanics but didn't understand them and built a different design that no one really loved. Modern Pokémon do the same, they use classic mechanics even when they don't fit the rest of the gamr, but probably couldn't explain why other than "tradition." They definitely need to either completely ditch the old mechanics, or bring the series back closer to the older games, or bifurcate the series and alternate between both (like Mario and Zelda do).
 
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I think we should wait until Gen 9 to begin drawing any specific conclusions. While I was very disappointed with Sw/Sh, we can see them taking steps to try and advance the games with Legends being more experimental with the open areas. Sw/Sh was their first attempt at open areas and I have a very slim hope that Legends will show that they're learning how to make those more engaging - and Gen 9 might expand even further.

Or maybe all their open area attempts will suck. But it feels too difficult to judge open area vs more linear after just one game with an open area.
 
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I dunno about Pokémon, but I’d posit that top-down, “linear” Zelda is much better than “open world” Zelda, and side-scrolling, linear Mario is much better than “open world” Mario.

Of course, “better” in the context of these claims is entirely subjective and based on personal preference.
 
I think a proper 3D, Open World Pokemon could be amazing.

Not whatever Game Freak tried with Sword and Shield though and, from the looks of it, also nothing like Legends Arceus is going to be. There is a reason I haven't pre-ordered Legende Arceus and am not even sure I will play it.

I had no issues pre-odering the remakes. They seemed simple from the trailers, simple but good, nostalgic comfort food.

Legends Arceus attempts something new, which in and of itself is good, but nothing, literally nothing I have seen in trailers so far has convinced me that this new will be good. The graphics are ...questionable at best, especially for the highest grossing media franchise in history. I would be willing to look past that if the gameplay was good but so far it just looks like "complete hundreds of meaningless and mundane quests like watching your cyndaquil spam a certain attack 50 times for no reason just so you can complete the pokedex". In what world is that good game design?

So unless they show me there is something substantial to do aside from that in the game (one legendary subquest is not enough by any means), or reviews end up going through the roof (& when I say through the roof I mean botw-style-through-the-roof) I won't be buying it. Sorry, but no can do.
 
The funny thing is they don’t even need to go “open world”. They just need to learn from other games like other jrpgs or things like traditional Zelda and tighten up their level design. Give it meaning beyond just being a space to exist in. You can easily translate 2d Pokémon’s routes to 3d and expand on them. You could have steep hills that the player can’t run up, but can jump off just like the 2d games. Then later on they get a bike or Pokémon ability the lets them get up them. Things like that. The dlcs are a good start, but they’re still super basic and offer very little in the way of meaningful level design. And they offer very little for the player to actually do as they make their way from one fetch quest to another. Give the player actual mechanics like jumping, climbing, grabbing, throwing. It doesn’t have to be complicated. Legends is a start, but they could’ve been doing a lot of these things for a long time without going “open”.
 
Joseki said:
I have been playing Pokémon BDSP alongside SMT V for a couple of days now and I'm having a blast, so much that it really cemented something I suspected ever since I played Sword and Shield in 2019: Pokémon is at its best when it's top down and linear.

Sinnoh's route are much smaller than any Wild Area in SwSh and DLC, but it plays to the strenght of Pokémon. Every route feels different and fun to explore, with small rewards (in forms of items carefully placed in small side-deviations in the routes that requires small detours to be obtained) and NPCs populating it making them feel "lively" and "handcrafted".
In comparison the open spaces of SwSh/DLC never really felt like anything more than huge, overly flat wastelands populated by roaming Pokémon that never felt like they were really "roaming" being tied to their fixed spawnzones.

One of the biggest benefits of the top down approach is also how much more the game can pack in a much shorter travel distance, and what benefit the most from this is the cities that no longer need the filler window dressing that many of SwSh cities used to increase their size to match the visual feel of a proper city.

I also noticed how BDSP's artstyle is more coherent with itself.
The world of Pokémon lends itself perfectly to a chibi, diaorama like style as opposed to the more realistic artstyle of SwSh (and the upcoming Arceus) that often had this really ugly visual look given by the more realistic looking, low quality models and texturing conflicting with the much more detailed and very popping colors of the monster.

BDSP is a less advanced, less "ambitious" experience that ends up proving how Pokémon's strenght was always its "bite sized" (in terms of dimensions) charming simplicity. The newer formula on the other hand feels like a compromise that sacrifices what made the old style Pokémon games actually great and gets almost nothing but the downsides of other contemporary JRPGs, something underlined even more by just how much more I'm enjoying the world design, artstyle and visual capabilities of Shin Megami Tensei V compared to the very underwhelming Sword and Shield.
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I still maintain that the most beautiful Pokemon games, and the best ones, are Black/White (and/or 2). That spritework, plus the seasons mechanic that allows me to make it autumn, plus so many other things make them my favorite games by miles. I'm almost dreading remakes for Gen 5 because while on one hand I want them, I'd almost just prefer a widescreen HD version of the games as they already are.
 
Joseki said:
Game Freak now gave us 3 attemps at the Wild Area concept: Wild Area, Isle of Armor and Crown Tundra.

Crown Tundra is honestly the only one of the three I actually found charming, but even that felt bloated by long traversals that don't feel particularly fun to navigate and limited by the same key technical drawbacks.
Click to expand...

As everyone has said, calling the wild areas "open world" is a stretch and a half. It's definitely not what people had in mind when hypothesizing about an open world Pokémon game (neither is Legends Arceus from what we've seen). I definitely prefer "old Pokémon" (the DS era specifically) from what we've gotten but I don't think SwSh nor its DLC invalidate open world Pokémon at all.
 
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There's no open world Pokemon yet
Sword and shield has the exact same world design of small narrow halways as all Pokemon games
 
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Saying every route in BDSP looks different is a bold claim when they all reuse the same assets all over the region with the exception of the snow ones.

I’m glad they made a game that appeals to you but no thanks on my part
 
I've said this before but Game Freak is incredibly slow at progressing which is why you've seen other series/franchises evolve at a faster rate than Pokemon and a lot of these series don't make as much money as Pokemon as well. There are so many things these games lack in terms of modern standards.

They've shown improvements over the years but it just takes too damn long and I think that's why so many people are frustrated by Pokemon games (Ignore the overly dramatic and insufferable section of fans). Wild areas are a cool concept-wise but they just aren't that good and while Crown Tundra is an improvement it's still not that great. Level design is an area Game Freak needs to improve upon a lot especially if they are trying to put a heavy emphasis on exploration. It's why I'm not sure if Arecus will be great because it seems like the main appeal of the game is to explore the world.

I think semi-open areas can be done well in a Pokemon game it's just Game Freak hasn't been able to accomplish that IMO. It's why to this day I prefer older top-down Pokemon games to modern Pokemon rn. I agree that Game Freak is taking steps to improve when it comes to Pokemon standards, but the issue lies that these steps aren't really that big in the grand scheme of things when it comes to the gaming industry overall.

Honestly, at this point Pokemon being too big and having no competition is a blessing and a curse. It being incredibly successful with no competition in sight means that you won't see a huge glow-up or fast progress from the series like other franchises. There's nothing to push Game Freak up to that level plus you have the terrible schedule that puts a burden on them and you basically get current Pokemon.

You can be disappointed but at the end of the day, you just gotta enjoy the games for what they are.
 
Joseki said:
I don't think TPC will ever give any Pokémon game the development time ATLUS dedicated to SMTV, and I don't think GF will ever sacrifice its demon roaster to give the players a better world to navigate. The brand of Pokémon is intrinsecally linked to the monsters and also its quantity, as the Dexit clearly showed, SMT not to the same degree.

I would personally accept a 200 Pokémon dex if it meant offering a Pokémon region that not only feels genuinely feel fun to navite, looks great and it is also puts the player constantly on its toes as they move from A to B, but this is not something Pokémon can, or wants, to offer.

They do also have lots in common conceptually, at the end of the day both are solo journeys mainly focused on the battle and management of the monsters with the occasional plot happening in between, but the brands have different strenghts and focuses.

I'm simply comparing what Pokémon released in now close to a full lifecycle of a console.
Click to expand...

I completely agree... honestly I feel like the "chokehold" that TPC has on Game Freak and the Pokemon game release schedule is the primary factor for the things most people complain about.

Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl are fantastic. If this is the future of Pokemon—outsourcing the remakes so that GF can have more time to put into new, innovative, 3D Pokemon experiences—I am all for that.
 
Gonna need to see how Arceus Legends plays out to properly judge this.

I think GF got batter at larger areas to explore with each DLC, but the sheer amount of random Pokemon milling about doing nothing to interact with the environment made it quite dull to explore, and also the pop-in. I think the routes in SWSH are just as good as route from any other game.
 
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I really don’t see how the routes are memorable in gen 4… the only route I remember (I haven’t reached it yet in BD) is the really long one which I only remember because I don’t like it.

In Hoenn, for instance, I think the routes are much more unique (if you ignore the sea lol).

Do people really remember old routes based on diverging paths? I remember them by their visual elements (ashes falling, snow, sandstorm, beach, forests, cycling roads, caves), not by their layout. SwSh had memorable places if only they were larger, unfortunately they are short and we spend a lot of time in the wild area which is not memorable. This has nothing to do with traversal in a 3D space, though, as proven by Isle of Armor and Crown Tundra. It’s more about “shoot we didn’t have enough time to develop these areas”.
 
bellydrum said:
I completely agree... honestly I feel like the "chokehold" that TPC has on Game Freak and the Pokemon game release schedule is the primary factor for the things most people complain about.

Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl are fantastic. If this is the future of Pokemon—outsourcing the remakes so that GF can have more time to put into new, innovative, 3D Pokemon experiences—I am all for that.
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it's the other way around. TPC doesn't put a time table on GF. TPC dances around the GF's timing
 
First lets see how arceus works.

second: Sw/Sh was just a worse game in so many aspects. My favorites are still BW2.
but the problem whas not that it was slightly open world, but the bad execution. No interactivity, nothing to find, pokemon fellt like generic spawning monster, and not really as if they where part of the world (i think some sad that the dlc improved it…)

SMT5 shows already how much more engaging a open world can be. I love it. Yet it owuld need some improvements and changes for pokemon. But the thing is: the game needs to be designed for that, and it needs TIME, the one thing they wont give the pokemon games for development.

and if they dont wont to do that, then yeah, the top down version is better then the open world version…

but lets see how legends is.
 
Diamond and Pearl are not linear games.

The issue with the modern games isn't linearity or the lack thereof, the issue is they lack any meaningful map design. BDSP on the other hand benefit from using the best map in the series.

I do agree that Pokemon is stronger in top down than 3D, mind you, but I think that comes down to Game Freak being unable to properly leverage 3D spaces to create meaningfully fulfilling worlds. At least, that's been the trend so far. Maybe Legends finally delivers, who knows. But as of right now, top down Pokemon is where the series is strongest, no arguments.
 
Parthenios said:
The problem with modern Pokémon games is that they have a 1990s skeleton with 2020s organs, if that makes sense? Like when Mario went from 2D -> 3D Nintendo kept the Super Mario "essence" without keeping the actual parts (no shrinking/growing from Mushrooms for example).

Pokémon games still have the same skeleton of an old school party based JRPG in its core mechanics, but they aren't making old school party based JRPGs anymore. You can really see the seams here in something like Max Raids, which are miserable and a lot of that is because the mechanics aren't designed around something like that. Some of the supposed "quality of life" changes in BDSP show this too. Not requiring you to plan your team around HM use, and EXP Share are missing the point of Pokémon mechanics, while still clinging to them. If they think these features are necessary they need to update other parts of the design which they continually fail to do.

In fact, if competitive Pokémon weren't so popular they would have probably ditched those mechanics a long time ago.

The older game designs are going to be better always because they're going to be the closest design+mechanics match.
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I'd argue that building around 1v1 battles in single player is one of the biggest things that need to go in future pokemon games, 2v2 should be most of the game rather than something thrown in once in a while since 3rd gen.
 
caff!!! said:
I'd argue that building around 1v1 battles in single player is one of the biggest things that need to go in future pokemon games, 2v2 should be most of the game rather than something thrown in once in a while since 3rd gen.
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level scaling and difficulty modes are sorely needed. an easy mode that's the same as right now, normal mode that has either level normalizing or equal number of battle mons, and hard mode that has both.

or just do what DQ11S did and have a bunch of toggles
 
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ILikeFeet said:
it's the other way around. TPC doesn't put a time table on GF. TPC dances around the GF's timing
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I’ve always wondered about that… GF had a difficult time being on schedule for SwSh to the point that everything there seems rushed. Why didn’t they delay it if they have the power to do so? Why they stick to 3 years development time even though their last generations really needed more time in the oven?

I always thought they were pressured by Nintendo to follow the schedule, considering Nintendo has a small share on GF and Creatures Inc. as well as the trademarks for all Pokémon names and publishing rights. This has always made me think Nintendo is the stronger arm in the negotiating table and the one dictating when the games need to be done.
 
Heruderu said:
I’ve always wondered about that… GF had a difficult time being on schedule for SwSh to the point that everything there seems rushed. Why didn’t they delay it if they have the power to do so? Why they stick to 3 years development time even though their last generations really needed more time in the oven?

I always thought they were pressured by Nintendo to follow the schedule, considering Nintendo has a small share on GF and Creatures Inc. as well as the trademarks for all Pokémon names and publishing rights. This has always made me think Nintendo is the stronger arm in the negotiating table and the one dictating when the games need to be done.
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It's not Nintendo pressuring Game Freak, it's TPCi. Pokemon is a cross media behemoth, and they need to stick to the schedule when the new TCG expansions, new merchandize, new anime season, etc. are launching.
 
Heruderu said:
I’ve always wondered about that… GF had a difficult time being on schedule for SwSh to the point that everything there seems rushed. Why didn’t they delay it if they have the power to do so? Why they stick to 3 years development time even though their last generations really needed more time in the oven?

I always thought they were pressured by Nintendo to follow the schedule, considering Nintendo has a small share on GF and Creatures Inc. as well as the trademarks for all Pokémon names and publishing rights. This has always made me think Nintendo is the stronger arm in the negotiating table and the one dictating when the games need to be done.
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Nintendo assists, but everything is decided by Game Freak. if they want to make a game in a short amount of time, they hang themselves. they just work with TPC to plot things out and choose not to give themselves enough time.
 
Phantom Thief said:
It's not Nintendo pressuring Game Freak, it's TPCi. Pokemon is a cross media behemoth, and they need to stick to the schedule when the new TCG expansions, new merchandize, new anime season, etc. are launching.
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The other poster said it was TPC that needs to follow GF’s schedule.

And honestly, it makes more sense than TPC mandating everything, because TPC is owned by Game Freak, Creatures and Nintendo. They can’t have more power than the companies that founded them.
 
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ILikeFeet said:
Nintendo assists, but everything is decided by Game Freak. if they want to make a game in a short amount of time, they hang themselves. they just work with TPC to plot things out and choose not to give themselves enough time.
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So this makes me think the real problem with their schedules are Ishihara and Masuda…


EDIT: sorry for the double post.
 
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