NGL... I totally forgot this was a thing

 

I thought the trailer looked marvelous, personally. And those basculin + stantler? Evolutions were magnificent

I hate the chibi overworld player characters in the DP remakes though. I'll still get it

 

Is it just the video playback on my end, or does it seem like there's frame stuttering in the trailer?

 

Imagine crying for years for an open world "throw ball" Pokémon game and then crying over framerate.

Bitch there used to be glitches that legitimately broke the game and it was the best game in the world.

 

You don't encounter glitches during normal gameplay enough to impact the experience. Framerate you literally see every second of playing the game.

 

I know some people have a hardon for '120Hz or it's literally a slide-show' but this looks fine to me. I caught a couple of tiny stutters in there, but they were very brief. They've clearly fixed up the low animation frame-rate seen in the initial reveal which was a concern (not because I thought it would ever make it into the game in that state, but it was a bit weird that it was okayed for the reveal). The environments are looking a lot better generally, at least close up. The more distant landscapes could use some beautification, but that's also something which can be fiddled late on in development.

Interested to see how the gameplay ends up working out.

 

Is it just me or did that trailer feel very... empty.

No hint of purpose behind the behavior of the pokemon we do see beyond fighting, big stretches without any pokemon in sight at all, no real hint at plot(s) except for the pokemon-going-mad thing.

The sceptic in me sees a poorly ripped off Genshin world with pokemon instead of regular mobs.

 

Basculegion (water/ghost) and Wyrdeer (normal/psychic) are cool



Cool dex entry for the former as well

 

Meanwhile, in Korea:

 

Arceus knew what he was doing when he let the kleavor line of Scyther evolutions go extinct.

 

I kinda like it. I'm hoping this game has great size disparities. Huge pkmn should be huge. That braviary looked great

God I can't wait

 

So the Zorua line just got the regional form treatment.
Serebii confirmed them to be a normal/ ghost type.

 

I love Strawberry Ice Cream Zoroark.

 

This came out today.

I was completely not expecting it, as the marketing was awful and chose to highlight the worst looking graphics areas, but I'm actually really enjoying this game. And it looks like most people who were originally panning it ended up changing their tune after it leaked.

The graphics ... are still pretty bad. There's a few framerate dips and rendering issues, and the water texture in the beach area is in fact that embarassing tiled thing you saw in screenshots. This is still doing the nintendo thing of not having voice acting but still animating everyone's mouths, which is really weird.

That said, the gameplay is rock solid. I'm in the third area so far, about 6-7 hours in, and the basic loop of stealth/capture/battle is really enjoyable. There's also missions and captures, and the crafting doesn't seem bolted on. The noble bosses are basically "dark souls lite" where you have to learn their attack patterns and dodge them through multiple phases. Amusingly, the game keeps trying to make you battle them with your pokemon, but it's more effective to just keep attacking them as a human. XD

I'm in a weird position where I think there's either too little battling [trainer battles are rare and they only have 1-2 pokemon so far] or too much [actually battling wild pokemon is a bit of a chore sometimes]. I'm also not sure if it's possible to unlock field moves, as whenever you're attacked by 3-4 pokemon at once it feels like you just die really quickly.

Overall, if you were on the fence, watch some gameplay videos to check, but it just might be the most solid Pokemon game since ... I dunno. I'd really love if the next main series game had this gameplay but with more trainer battles and a traditional gym circuit. I was not expecting to feel this way going in.

 

I know I know, don't give GameFreak the BOTD, but god I hope this sells well and plays good enough. I was worried it would be a self fulfilling prophecy thing where they make a pile of shit that sucks, and then go, "see nobody wants this."

 

The best Pokemon game since Black/White 2. It is not graphically impressive. Truly you are the greatest of thinkers when you say: Gam loock bAdd.

On its merits of being a Pokemon game. It has the capture and the battle and the thrill. It has the adventure and discovery. It has the wonder.

 

Question, do stat boosting/ decreasing moves work like gen1? I'm not seeing any differentiation between special and physical atk/def...

Calm mind pretty good if so

 

I believe they streamlined and unified some moves. Defense and Offense stats are boosted together. Pretty much every move was re-coded from scratch in this one. It's why they all have new animations (flamethrower!) and a bunch were cut. Status effects are different too -- sleep was turned into "drowsy", stealth rock is a DoT move, etc. Overall I actually like the changes. The strong/weak move variations and the fact that speed matters a lot more since sometimes you can get multiple moves in a row adds a new level of strategy to battles.

I just beat the story for the game, about 15 or so hours in. It was actually pretty good.

Spoiler

Seeing how the sinnoh ruins became ruins was pretty amazing.

The HM joke was actually amusing as well. I didn't realize that they were doing that but it was obvious in hindsight. Wasn't expecting them to get that meta!

All in all, definitely very happy with this game. If the next main gen game was this but with towns, gyms, and trainer battles, I'd be stoked.

 

This is a shockingly fun game.

The focus on actually exploring and catching pokemon has everything that the SwSh wild area tried to do but stumbled at. If we'd had this type of gameplay in a 'wild area' between walled cities with those gigantic sports stadiums for gyms, I can only imagine how different the reception would have been.

There are so many little flavour improvements, like being able to manually aim and throw a pokeball. Even the pokeballs with a wee friend inside. Smashing a pokeball off the face of a charging monster to interrupt its attack long enough for your buddy to pop out and do his thing is awesome.

The little side quests are fun, and all the NPCs seem to have a bit of personality to them. I feel the absence of trainer battles, which is a bit of a downside, but it's thematically appropriate and fits with the setting. And I love the oldtimey aesthetic going on here. Not just the character design and the world, I really dig how it comes across in the battle UI.

The choice to have a bizarre unnecessary isekai with a smartphone amuses me just enough embrace it. I'm just glad that the pokedex is a notebook and not an app on the phone. Shame that the pokedex entries aren't funky looking pencil sketches of the pokemon to lean into the notebook vibe, that would have been rad.

As far as the graphics go, yeah they're a bit on the lo-fibside but nowhere near bad enough the justify the autistic screeching about them all of the internet. They haven't quite got it down, but there are parts like the tree models which genuinely feel like the use of pared down simplified forms to imply the shape and movement of a tree, rather than a status cardboard cutout. I like it a lot more than I thought I would. Still, it would have been awesome if this went heavier in a stylised direction. Something like okami, maybe, or Pokemon Wind Waker rather than Pokemon of the Wild.

 

lol @ doing the story, still haven't left the first area and I'm 10 hours in.

The game has a lot of issues for me, but the way they tweaked the dex filing gameplay is pretty satisfying.

No EV training is great. No abilities is sadge.

I think the biggest issue i have is i can't see a way pokemon games can introduce actual challenge - without self imposed restrictions - unless they fundamentally change the way combat works.

Do they have nature mints in this? Or do you need to farm natures normally?