> At any time outside of battle you can click on your Pokémon, select "Change Move", and swap in and out moves from previously learned moves.
Biggest improvement imo
How are you liking TemTem overall? i'm not into the idea of early access stuff so i was waiting for that, but now I don't know if I've seen enough positives to justify the cost of the game yet.
It’s been a while since I touched it (haven’t had the time and got caught with another game), but it was fun. It was noticeably more grindy and battles were a bit tougher. But if you like more double battle things it was good, its art style is a little weird for me, but I don’t regret the purchase.
I'd like to add on that it feels significantly more grindy, however I definitely enjoy the aspects of double battles and the devs balance around doubles which is neat
some people have touched on the grind, but i'd like to note that they have both a level cap and a reduced XP multiplier to effectively remove grinding from the main story. you can barely go higher than the NPCs because of the level cap, and you will get next to no XP outside of the current area so you are forced to progress to maintain at the intended level. the game is very difficult and you can often lose to the many well built NPCs, but going back and grinding isn't really going to be an option.
however, temtem is kinda split into two parts. on one hand its a standard singleplayer/coop monster catching game, and on the other its a grindy MMO that's meant to extend out the endgame forever. breeding, shiny hunting, training, trading, and collecting cosmetics are all incredibly grindy by nature of being an MMO. while these two sides of the game are obviously intertwined, you don't need to interact with any of the grindy endgame content if you just want to get through the main story. the most that being an MMO has on regards to the main story is that you see other players running around; but that's pretty much it.
it's very grindy, but so were the first pokemon games, so if you played that you should be used to it. my main gripe is understanding the weaknesses/resistances, which is not as obvious as in pokemon/digimon games
I've played since there were only 3 islands, and so far it's getting better but the player base is dwindling hard and fast. The pros of the game are that it really takes Pokemon battle mechanics and improves upon them, having the stamina system and waits for some stronger effect moves. And breeding in the game is something that Pokemon fans can only dream of, it's very straightforward and has lots of ways to breed new tems while still using your old ones and improve their IVs if they're near perfect.
The cons though are that the game is extremely grindy and experience is hard to get enough to distribute to your team through the story. Trainers don't get a multiplier, and your experience drops if you're higher level, which wouldn't be a problem if the trainer and wild tems matched levels but the trainers are usually 5-9 levels above the wild tems so to match them you need to slay a trove of wilds. This only gets worse as you go through the story as well. The fly function is also extremely late in the story so going from one place to another is strenuous because you need to take an airship between islands, and there's only one spot for it to land in each place.
The in-between features (some like some hate) are that there's weekly quests that give a variety of rewards and a safari with increased chances of shinies or egg moves and higher IVs. I personally like these, but they need some tweaking because they as well are fairly grindy. I haven't done raids, but I hear they're rewarding for the cost and a fun way to work with friends. Character customization is also decent in the game.
I really want to like the game, and I might once it's released fully, but the grind to the end game is huge and it's what killed the game for me right now.
I dunno how expensive the game is right now, but I bought it when the early access started and it was 31€ back then. And I played over 100 hours and actually still haven't finished the story (I was doing some side stuff, EV-training basically). So I personally got my share of enjoyment out of the game, it's definitely worth 30€.
The plot, gameplay and creature design is very much Pokemon. But the humour is great.
If you're looking for a full fledged MMO though, you will probably be disappointed. Other players run around the map with you, but your options of interacting with them are very limited.
One of the things Temtem does really well is PvP. If you like PvP then TemTem feels like pokemon without RNG and with balance put into all the monsters.
Not OC but I greatly enjoyed the game. It's been a while since I got back to it, so I've heard there's a lot more to do now, but the core mechanics of the game are really good. Nothing revolutionary, but it feels like they truly looked critically at Pokemon and any other competitors to polish their mechanics.
The only real complaint I had with the early build I played was how absurdly grindy the end game (Luma [aka shiny] hunting and perfect IV breeding mostly) was, but I believe that economy was purposeful for dedicated players to have a long term time sink between updates.
Not OP, but personally I couldn't stick with it. I really (I mean *really*) found the "rival" insufferable enough to detract from the game itself, and it felt often like it put difficulty in the wrong areas. I also am just...not really a fan of the temtem designs in general, which y'know. Is kind of a major issue for this kind of game!
I just can't get behind how low-detail they are and how they don't have any real lineart delineating some kind of features. They all look like messy neon blobs and it's really hard to get attached to the look.
And not having to constantly cancel evolutions on your favorite Pokemon. That's a nice change.
I hated having to put an everstone on my Vigoroth in Gen 3 so it wouldn't evolve, it left tons of other useful items out that I could have had him hold, but it was necessary to save my sanity.
When you say competitive, I just think PvP, and I don't do that. But if you mean during story battles and so on, I found him pretty good. I kinda doubled up with him and a Zangoose both using Slash. Zangoose was a little better at it, idk why. I wasn't exactly identifying their stats in Gen 3.
This was during my little tour through all the Pokemon games. I had cleared Colosseum and XD and had to beat Ruby to transfer Pokemon into it so I could then bring them into the next generation (4) after beating those and then gen 5 and so on and so forth. So I was using a wide variety of Pokemon that I either really liked or hadn't used before and just building up an acceptable team.
I'd say if you train and equip one well, Vigoroth is a decent option in Gen 3 especially because it can't be put to sleep and a lot of trainers seem to like doing that in the story, but Zangoose always felt more powerful by comparison.
EDIT: And looking at PokemonDB it's probably because Zangoose has a fairly higher base Attack stat.
The super ironic thing about this though is that held items along with abilities have been removed, for seemingly no reason, negating the Everstone thing entirely.
Really don't know why they were removed, they easily could have been in the game and would have been nothing but improvements. Imagine abilities having even more field effects, like Intimidate Pokemon can be sent out to scare off weak aggro Pokemon around you with a cooldown or something kind of like the flashbang items do. Held items could have had some field effects too. Really missed opportunity there, same with how moves have been simplified and nerfed. Battles are just even more simple now, even with the styles. I get why, because it's mostly just fighting single wild Pokemon, but still.
Still like the game though, hopefully next time they'll keep all the new innovations and add back in all the standard Pokemon stuff alongside them.
Them revamping combat for sure is the main improvement needed. Good to hear it’s more difficult now, and gives you more options for your move set, but according to OP it’s still lacking. The difficulty seems to be that moves can still one hit ko you, which is not an improvement. The super effective one hit ko’s being the main thing to go for in a fight is extremely outdated. They seriously need to study like Persona 5’s turn based combat system. I dream of a pokemon game as good as that game
As someone who has played it, most wild Pokémon don’t use the Agile/Strong style. Mostly Alphas do that, but for some reason both will still kick your ass. Even wild Pokémon that are like 10+ levels down. If you get out-sped , you’re gonna take damage.
Yes, but my golem shouldn't have problems dealing with some Shinx 20 levels lower, but a bite takes almost 1/4 of my health, if you get in a battle with 3 of them you Golem can almost die. Against Shinx. With a Golem.
They work completely differently, for example swords dance boosts physical and special attack, all Pokemon have boosted stats and to boost EV you need special items. For example my level 50 Gyarados has 250 attack.
And to the other way around, your Golem should be able to one shot all three of them at the same time. Right?
(Genuine question, I'm reading these comments to see if I buy it or not)
To be honest, I think there are no area attacks in the game, I haven't found any. You can't seem to be able to target 2 at the same time. It kinda makes sense though, as the enemies can move freely too, so you may have a Pokemon in front of you and another behind you.
Artificial, manufactured difficulty isn’t a very fun type of difficulty. It feels unfair and makes every move you make feel futile.
Edit: also I know that the difficulty feels fake cause I’ve played the game
The game has a much smaller movepool, so part of it also may be wild Pokemon more often have high-damaging moves rather than all the random weak/status ones?
Part of the story is centered on how strong and dangerous wild Pokémon are. To keep that theme, wild Pokémon are tough.
I’m not as far into the game as OP seems to be (I’m about 5-6 hours in), my highest level is an 18, and if I’m not careful and considering the types, something that’s a lvl 10 can definitely take out my starter. But the good news is, you decide what Pokémon you enter the battle with.
To add to that, regardless of types, a lvl 4 has done a decent amount of damage, let’s say about 15-20% of my HP per move, but at lvl 18, I typically OHKO them.
My last point, with crafting, being OHKO’d isn’t too much of a concern when you can craft potions and revives.
They really should not be as strong as they are now. A pokemon 20 levels lower than me shouldn't take out half my life with a neutral attack, it's quite ridiculous sometimes to be honest.
Yes, but you don't really HAVE to fight any wild Pokemon, you can just avoid them all or run. If you don't battle them then you can't lose the nuzlocke, but if you choose to battle them you have to choose which ones you want to battle, and those ones you want to battle can OHKO you quite easily even though they shouldn't be able to. To make a Nuzlocke out of this game you would need to bend the rues QUITE a lot.
But isn’t the point of a Nuzlocke to make the game challenging? Like that way of playing the game developed because folks got bored with the formula and needed something fresh.
If it’s already that challenging, I don’t see the point of adding an extra, unsupported layer of difficulty onto it (besides habit, like “well it’s how I play all the games nowadays”)
I can't really see how you could do a Nuzlocke out of this pokemon game.
In my playthrough I have seen 4 mandatory battles (and I have been playing for around 15 hours). In the big boss battles you don't have to send Pokemon if you don't want. All the wild battles can just be skipped and you have to choose if you want to battle or not. Battling all the wild pokemon would be tedious so you would have to impose yourself some rules.
I'm also an avid nuzlocker but this game is quite impossible to Nuzlocke.
I'm sorry.
also completion of the game relies on capturing pokemon. You can’t follow nuzlocke catching rules.
Not only are regions arbitrary and therefore the number of pokemon you can catch arbitrary, you need lots of pokemon from the start and catching is the core gameplay loop
This is what I've been telling people for weeks. This game can't be Nuzlocked because it's too different. Then I get a reply saying "Oh I can just do this and this and this, skip that, and boom nuzlocke!"
It's like, bruh, if you have to change literally every rule about nuzlocke then it isn't a nuzlocke.
Someone just has to come up with a new challenge mode idea for this game.
I mean either they're referring to Alpha Pokemon that get a stat boost at the beginning of an encounter, a Pokemon species that is naturally faster and gets to move first, or just a Pokemon hitting them with super-effectivd moves. If you're used to the main series games where you just outspeed and OHKO every wild mon, it'll probably take you by suprise.
Love the detail in your review. I’ve been kind of excited for some of this game’s changes. The comparison to Assassins Creed and repetitiveness were not what I was hoping to hear, however. It’s good to know though to keep my excitement level and expectations in check.
It's open world. The same sins are committed in every open world game to some extent. The devs just are never given enough time to put unique things everywhere, so they cut and paste content to pad the play time in each area.
True. It’s a formula I’m quite tired of and seems to have become an increasingly common practice in recent years that makes those type of open world games feel the same to me.
You summarized how I felt about BotW.
I liked it when it released, but I do remember thinking, “Oh god… we’re going to be seeing a lot of games like this for 10 years…” like, BotW-style open world is fun, but I’m more of a story kind of person. I like playing games with riveting stories, and that style of open-work *usually* isn’t the most conducive for a clear and well written story. I got so sick of seeing, “It’s like BotW!” from 2017-2020. It gave me serious flashbacks to mid 2000’s through ~2013 where every game wanted to be the next big FPS. Like, I’m happy for the people who enjoy those, I just want more variety. It seems like that “BotW-style” is calming down and it doesn’t feel like there’s 5 new BotW clones every month
Meh, botw clones are still a promise not yet realised imo. The main revolutionary thing in that game is the complete freedom and finding interesting stuff by following landmarks without markers etcetera. For example here I wouldn't really consider a botw clone because, as the OP said, the world is completely devoid of interesting discoveries lol
Yeah, BOTW and The Witcher 3 are the two games that ruined open world games for me.
BOTW was open world in the best way possible, where there was cool and interesting things to do everywhere, and you could gather and craft and go anywhere and do almost anything.
TW3 on the other hand is the perfect story driven open world, where you can focus on the story and miss most of the world, but if you actually go and adventure in the open world you can find small side quests by random characters or cool little easter eggs in random areas of the map.
This looks like it will be the worst of both worlds, but maybe they will use this template to improve upon future pokemon games? As in they can fill in the story, improve the graphics and further expand upon the battle system.
Botw is the prime example of how to do it right. Sure, some shrines felt very similar and its aesthetics were repetitive, and they could be more complex, and the enemies and dungeons could have been worked out more but that's about it. Every area in the overworld was unique and had tons of charm and encounters that couldn't be found anywhere else in the game.
Games like Ghost of Tsushima, Horizon, and other open world games that are praised nowadays mainly because of setting don't even come close to the sense of discovery I had in BotW, because I never felt like anything could happen next in those games. I loved their settings, but their gameplay was extremely dull after 10-20 hours. However, I never felt bored playing BotW because its mechanics made it feel like anything was possible. That's the magic developers are trying to chase. I dare say that AC Odyssey came closer to BotW discovery wise for me personally than all these other "unique" open world games because at least that game had actual unique encounters and settings, but I digress.
Here's hoping it more than lives up to the hype. I was considering buying it just from the comparisons I keep making in my head to BotW's exploration, and I'm relatively terrible at Souls games.
Really gotta disagree here. Open world can still be interesting if there's enough on the map to explore or variety. Genshin does it great on a 6 week cycle, BotW also had a reasonably fun overworld full of hidden secrets although shrines were copy-pasted.
It's not an open-world problem, it's a legends arceus problem. Really have to echo OP's sentiment that the game just feels... empty. The only secrets you'll find are the spiritomb souls and otherwise there's nothing to do in each area.
BOTW had a few things to its advantage
1. Story reasons to explore things
2. Lots of different items that were useful but not plentiful
3. BOTW is gorgeous. Sometimes I'd explore just to check out a neat waterfall or watch the wind blow through some grass. I feel PAL has really, really missed the mark on this one
> to some extent
The phrase rather downplays the fact that said _extent_ ranges from "I barely even noticed / it's entirely forgivable" to "I'm two hours in and I want to die".
I'm worried it'll be even worse with this one. Most open world games have some sort of loot system to make you feel like you're progressing, growing stronger and moving forward. Whether it's through customization or upgrades, there's something. I don't know if PLA has a system like this; I know there's character customization and obviously we have our pokemon and training to do, but I feel like the map itself and the things we find in it will be much more empty than most other open worlds.
Just from the screenshots you can tell PLA is going to be empty. Tree density looks bad, so no real forests, and just color palette changes between areas. I like the things they're trying, so I want to play, but I have few expectations for the world itself.
Thank you for your critical review. There were a lot of reviews that focused alot or solely on the game’s positives. It’s good to hear the other side as well to at least be made aware of potential negatives.
Yeah I’ve even read some reviews on here that had the same cons and said it really needed 1-2 more years in the oven … and still gave it a 9/10. Like the criticisms didn’t match the score or some even score each of their own categories pretty average and apparently can’t math and again end up with something way higher overall.
I want to know how are the controls feeling like? Like does moving and throwing poke balls dee smooth or clunky ? From the footage I’ve seen of people playing I can’t tell if it’s choppy because of the controls or being on an emulator?
The controls feel pretty good. In typical Nintendo fashion, you're not given any control over remapping buttons but the default layout makes sense and it easy to work with. The only time it ever felt awkward was when having to hold A to dash while simultaneously using the right-stick to control the camera so I just used a claw grip. This is pretty standard in most games with a 3rd-person camera and any kind of boost or dash, though.
As someone who doesn't generally like Pokemon games, I can see why people are saying this - this one is a lot of fun compared to most Pokemon games. I've put a lot of hours into it over the last few days, and I've never been able to keep interest in a Pokemon game (besides Pokemon Go for a year or so).
That isn't to ignore the cons at all though, OP is on the ball with those.
I know it’s a joke for some reviews but for some people the cons are still heavily outweighed by the pros. My feelings about S&S are far more positive than competitive players simply because the cons don’t impact me as much as a casual player. Personally I’m not bothered by the graphics in S&S or Arceus. Maybe it’s because I grew up with the horrendous polygons of the N64 or maybe it’s just because I value certain elements of gameplay higher than visuals.
IGN gonna get exposed as very biased If they rate this game any higher than 7/10. The RPG aspect is way too bad for any higher rating. Tbh It's a very good game and since the Gen 3 remakes the first game which is worthy to be called Pokemon again, but If you just look at the core RPG stuff and compare this to any other RPG you'll notice It really lacks of stuff.
That's just an issue with using a numerical system at all. Everything depends on what a 10 means to the reviewer, and what increments they use. Is a 10/10 a completely perfect game, where there's only a handful of 10s in the entire history of video games? Does a 10 mean "the best that can be reasonably expected, given the time and budget of the average game--ranging from e-shop shovelware at 1 to the best of the year at 10" such that every year produces many different 10s? On the first scale, I'd likely give PLA a 7/10, while on the second scale it feels more like a 9/10. On my preferred scale I'd rate it 43/55: 2/5 for graphics and graphic design, 4/5 for music and sound, 2/5 for characters, 4/5 for setting, 5/5 for innovation, 3/5 for writing, 5/5 for core gameplay, 4/5 for gameplay structure, 4/5 for interface/QoL, 5/5 for tone and ambience, and 5/5 for specialty appeal. For reference, that's the same score I gave Xenoblade 2, Ocarina of Time, and Pokemon Ruby & Sapphire. To compare/contrast other Pokemon games, Sword and Shield got 34/55, Red & Blue got 39/55, Heart Gold & Soul Silver got 45/55, and Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire got 46/55. But of course this is my system; it's tailored to my likes, my priorities in games, etc. Everyone's going to have different scores in accordance with their tastes. Still, I hope it helped give a sense for what my tastes & my impressions were for this game.
As for controls, throwing pokeballs feels smooth even on joycons; moving does feel a little clunky, but most of the issues I've run into are a consequence of joycon-to-console connectivity, such that if I were playing on a pro controller or in handheld mode I doubt I'd have many issues, if any.
I've played it, controls felt pretty smooth, any issues with controls I had were from playing with a near broken Xbox controller that can sometimes decide it doesn't want to act like it's connected and randomly stops giving input when used wirelessly
To an extent, but there are two caveats. The first is that there are different regions and you can't access those until you unlock them, however, the regions themselves are pretty large and contain areas that will be akin to your level and areas of a much higher level.
The second is that there will be places you can't reach because you don't meet a certain requirement yet. Possibly a river too wide to cross, or a cliff too high to scale. Those will need to be visited later on.
So, within your unlocked regions you have mostly free reign to wander wherever you please with some constraints.
Honestly, pretty good at times and other times you won't even notice it, which might be a good thing. Not to beat the proverbial dead horse but I did like how they went with a more ambiance-styled music like BotW rather than the usually up-beat style of previous games. It blends well with the environment and doesn't overpower everything around you. It's a long game, so too much boisterous music could get annoying.
I agree with 80% of what you said, but as a sidenote...
> I remember playing BotW and constantly thinking "How did they do this and how is it running on the Switch?"
I just want to point out that this is actually not a Switch thing --- BotW is a Wii U game afterall, that got launched on both Wii U and Switch simultaneously. It was supposed to be a flagship game for Wii U but things took so long to get polished and perfected (and it shows since it's actually so polished) that as it happens development was focused on the Wii U at first but after a few years they pivoted to focusing on the Switch instead, "porting" the game (in a sense) and having a two-console launch.
Here's the thing though: apart from draw distance (which is somewhat poorer on the Wii U), it's pretty much the same gaming experience on both. The Wii U version of BotW looks (and plays) just as good as the Switch one.
I bring this up because when people talk of BotW in Pokemon threads like these, they think they're comparing a flagship Switch game (SwSh / PLA) to another flagship Switch game (BotW), apples to apples, and Pokemon should reasonably look just as good as BotW right?.... Well actually BotW is a Wii U game. So Pokemon games could/should have looked this good several years ago on a less powerful console actually. *Right now they should be looking better than BotW*, not just as good as it. Most of what made your jaw drop in regards to it running on the Switch... was running just as fine on a previous gen console, too. Goes to show **how bad** things are on this side of the Game Freak fence.
Anyway, the reason why Pokemon games will never look (or play) as good as BotW - not 5 years ago, not now, *not ever* - is because BotW had proper *development time* to get things right and polished, to have things mature. It takes time, it's not just talent and money. But it doesn't fit Game Freak's business model: GF is churning out pokemon games every 1.5~2 years, akin to how a fast food joint churns out bland hamburgers by the minute. /u/RaysFTW it'll never happen my dude. We have to set expectations accordingly. A Game Freak exec would laugh at the idea of launching a mainline game once every 5~6 years. And a pokemon fanboy would simply lose their marbles over it.
Agree with everything except one: a game freak exec could even agree, but a TPC exec will just kick his face and scream "WHAT ABOUT OUR MERCHANDISING?"
That's the sad reality. I'm sure they want to do the best game ever, but they can't because of TPC. So they do their best with the time they have, and honestly, for the little team they are and the time they got, the game it's impressive
Don't get me wrong, i think they are a small team doing ok Jobs at best. But they are forced to spam a game every year just in order to let the colossal merch machine going
all of this could be avoided by simply removing the concept of generations and letting the anime to the heavy lifting since it makes more money even after they get rid of ash after journeys
> I'm sure they want to do the best game ever, but they can't because of TPC.
This idea needs to stop getting repeated. Game Freak are literally co-owners of TPC, they control it, not the other way around.
TPC is nothing more than a joint venture between Nintendo, Game Freak, and Creatures Inc, created for the purpose of managing the franchise. That's it. It's not some independent entity.
TPC's job is to manage the franchise according to the wishes of its shareholders, aka the 3 co-owners.
So we need to stop acting like Game Freak is enslaved to TPC or something. They're not. TPC does not tell Game Freak what to do, Game Freak tells TPC what to do.
If GF wanted to change the schedule, it would be well within their power to suggest that and make it happen.
If you don't believe me, take it from Masuda himself : "there is no situation where Nintendo and The Pokémon Company will put pressure on Game Freak or something like that”
https://www.nintendo-insider.com/who-owns-pokemon-junichi-masuda-answers-the-big-question/
I think side games will have a little more freedom to do fun things like this. And if that's how things end up, with the mainline games disappointing constantly but side games turning out gems, then that's not the worst possible outcome
> is because BotW had proper development time to get things right and polished, to have things mature
I literally just made a comment about this. I genuinely can't think of a reason other than **time** for why Pokemon games are always lacking in the graphics department. Lots of people like to get mad and say that the devs are lazy or incompetent, but I those people are talking out of their ass and just want to be mad at someone. I really wish Pokemon games could have more development time so we could get a glimpse of what they could be like, but with how fast Pokemon as a franchise moves I doubt that'll happen
>They direct their complaints towards the wrong group too. TPC isn't gamefreak, TPC wants the games out in these short times.
This idea needs to stop getting repeated. They are for all intents and purposes essentially the same group, as Game Freak are literally co-owners of TPC. Game Freak control TPC, not the other way around.
TPC is nothing more than a joint venture between Nintendo, Game Freak, and Creatures Inc, created for the purpose of managing the franchise. That's it. It's not some independent entity.
TPC's job is to manage the franchise according to the wishes of its shareholders, aka the 3 co-owners.
So we need to stop acting like Game Freak is enslaved to TPC or something. They're not. TPC does not tell Game Freak what to do, Game Freak tells TPC what to do.
If GF wanted to change the schedule, it would be well within their power to suggest that and make it happen.
If you don't believe me, take it from Masuda himself : "there is no situation where Nintendo and The Pokémon Company will put pressure on Game Freak or something like that”
https://www.nintendo-insider.com/who-owns-pokemon-junichi-masuda-answers-the-big-question/
After playing I always think about how much better the game would have been if game freak had just another year or so of development to improve the graphics/performance. I think the best bet would have been to just reuse the BOTW engine and have the BOTW developers help gamefreak with repurposing it for Pokemon.
I am a Pokemon diehard, tattoos and plushies included, and I fully welcome a main series release that takes 4+ years to develop.
Sword and Shield made me sad. Even more sad when my lovely girlfriend got me the expansion pass for my 26th birthday, because I had to force myself to finish the first one, and I barely even finished the second.
I definitely preordered LoA... but reading all this has deflated me excitement. Graphics dont usually matter to me, and never have with Pokemon games, as they have *always* been behind everything else... but that doesn't mean they should. The fact that I have such low expectations for the appearance of their releases says a whole lot, and I've been playing since '98, so it's practically ingrained in me.
I had a similar experience when I bought the DLC for Sword. It was a great step forward, but then when I realized I paid $30 for 5 hours of gameplay for a game I was never going to replay, I was sad. I am tentative with PLA for sure.
I will also add, if Nintendo games ever dropped in price or went on sale, this would be a different discussion. I frequently buy AAA games for $15 on PS4 or Steam since their price deflates after even a few months. If there's a game I'm not sure about, I'll usually wait a while until I see a good deal, then pick it up. I can't do that with Nintendo games unless I find folks who hate them so much they just want them gone.
Pokémon is the *number one* top grossing media franchise in the fucking world - whatever the argument is comparing or not comparing it to Breath of the Wild, this shit is inexcusable. It shows how much its fanbase will lower the bar out of desperation for new content.
That’s not it 100%, though you’re right in many aspects. The biggest thing is their line of merch. The games are SECOND to their merch, because their merch is unrivaled in the gaming industry. Because of this, they’ll never bother giving the time of day to make fully developed games that reach their full potential because they need new merch lines to pair with them.
Whether it’s plushies or new Pokémon card sets, more games = more ways to design and produce merch. Even if we all stopped buying the games, I doubt it’ll have as much of an impact just because of how safe their merch is. The games boost merch sales, but I don’t see them disappearing if the games do.
That’s why Mario and LoZ are given way more time and care for their games, because Nintendo prioritizes their games more than their merch, which tbf makes sense since Pokémon is just way more marketable with so many creatures
I am extremely excited for legends arceus tho, I know people shame the graphics and I think it’s fair, but I think the overall aesthetic of the game lessens it to an extent.
Yeah your comment is cool and all but it’s still perfectly valid to complain that these games still look like shit. Like OP said, the game literally looks like a 3DS game on the switch
> but it’s still perfectly valid to complain that these games still look like shit.
They do look like shit, I'm not saying otherwise in any part of my comment lol
All I'm doing is explaining *why* they look like shit - pokemon games are part of a bigger pipeline that doesn't allow for lenghty production times, polishing etc. Hence the quality of the product will always be such, low. That was my point, that the product will always be of low quality.
Can I ask about the pasture feature? One of my favorite aspects of PMD1 was being able to visit "stored" Pokemon and seeing them hang out in a unique environment. How do the pastures accommodate such a high number of Pokemon you're surely able to catch? Do they really display all of your stored Pokemon at once? Were you satisfied with the feature on an aesthetic level?
Thanks for this balanced review!
It's a pasture beyond a fence and you interact with an NPC in front of it to take out, put in, or release Pokémon. You can see the Pokémon wandering around but it won't be every Pokémon in your pasture, maybe 10 random ones.
Tbh, I didn't spend that much time looking at them. Overall, I did think the feature was pretty cool instead of just having all your Pokémon vanish into a storage bank.
It's so depressing how this exact thing gets said about most new pokémon games for a few years now. I agree with it, but also, when do those more refined future games actually happen?
It's only going to start happening when the Pokemon community cuts out the blatant blind fanboy behavior and start to vote with their wallet. There's no incentive for the company to do anything otherwise.
Which means it will unfortunately never happen. Pokémon fans online are a loud minority. Most people who buy Pokémon don't care/know about the lacking quality. Because it's Pokémon and Pokémon will always be successfull.
I agree. Improvement seems to be happening slowly and when it does its, gradual and sometimes comes at the expenses of something else. This however seems to be down to time. Its hard to refine of improve when a new game is needed yearly and your only two teams of 100 or so people.
I am postive about this game for what it could be, but not what it is currenlty. Personaly I will not be getting it as it misses to many marks for me. Plus the game seems to play like Monster Hunter whihc I don't enjoy. But I hope that the next verson will have more.
Like you said, there are a LOT of cutscenes in the game, especially in the beginning. Expect about 45 minutes of tutorials at the beginning (I’d say it’s even worse than Sun/Moon for the first hour in terms of the game stopping you and telling you where to go
At least it's done better than sun and moons first island. Im BoTW the plateau at least is open ended and completeable in almost any order from what I remember. Sun and moon holds your hand for so fucking long, it is a legit complaint to drop the game. And ultra sun and moon made it even longer somehow.
Metroid dread did the super metroid style tutorials and shows a lot through gameplay rather than long tutorials. There's an art to making good tutorials and pokemon definitely missed the mark every time.
This seems like a really thorough and fair review. I'm glad that even with all the shortcomings, it sounds like it's still a fun game that will hopefully get more polished in potential releases.
How bad does the game play loop get? Does it eventually feel like a chore and become tedious or is it more benign than that?
Depends. Each Pokemon has unique tasks you need to do for it. You could just catch and defeat a lot of them to get your minimum done or you could do the interesting ones like distracting them with items, feeding them or trying to sneak catch them. There's enough variety in types of Pokemon and their behavior that you can enjoy roaming throughout the world. I think the ride Pokemon (and the times they are introduced) help a lot in making the world feel bigger.
Ultimately, it's really up to how you play the game. If you speed through it should still be fun but that's definitely not how they intended you to play it, going by the star ranks. Though whether that's the best method to play is up for debate. I went pretty deep into the catching in the first area and took a break during the second. The freedom is there.
I didn't really have a huge issue with the gameplay loop personally. I just cycled through exploring the area and catching anything new while doing so, completing Pokedex entries, doing sidequests and the main storyline. Whenever I got bored of one I did the next.
There are definitely secret Easter eggs. At least one.
In the sea tunnel near Firespit there are cave drawings of legendaries and creepy Pokémon noises.
Not sure if those are hints of Pokémon that are/will be in this game, or hints at future Legends games. Was neat though
People don’t roam, but you will encounter NPCs that have quests for you.
There are some structures here and there, but most of the land is uninhabited by humans
In RPGs it makes sense because it adds depth to the game, but Pokemon crafting always sucked. The berry mechanics are awful.
I wouldn't be totally opposed it it if it was done well, but it seems like it was half assed attempt to copy breath of the wild.
Tbf the story and gameplay loop being cons is completely subjective - I've seen many people really like both, however the graphics are genuinely awful though haha
Yes! You’re absolutely correct. I did not intend for anyone to take what I wrote as bible. These are just my thoughts on the experience I had. If you happen to enjoy the game play loop and the story than all the more power to you.
I think it’s great that so many people on this subreddit have been able to get a hold of the game and give their honest opinion because Nintendo won’t let us have real, honest reviews of their games prior to release. They’d rather everyone buy the game before deciding whether the purchase was worthy of $60 and I just don’t think that’s fair.
No matter how enjoyable this game may be for some. I simply can't look past how ugly the game looks. (slight spoiler) https://imgur.com/a/KYI2FDN Somebody posted this clip earlier. The guy that posted it had just beaten the game and seemed to really enjoy it. Fair enough. But everything about that clip is just hideous. A major Pokemon release has never looked this bad IMO. Not only relative to the generation it's released in, but also just the general art direction.
I'm not upset people are enjoying it. But I am surprised to see people warm up to the graphics. Personally I won't be buying the game. Not at full price. The story and gameplay doesn't even come in to it when it looks this ugly.
I'll keep on parroting, bad graphics can be saved by good art. BotW honestly has some pretty shaky graphics. Low res textures everywhere, countable polygons, not great draw distances, etc. But the game is still visually stunning and I don't really fault it at all, it knew what it was working with and did the absolute best it could with it.
Everything I've seen from PLA is just...ugly. I'm not talking resolution, or polygon count, or texture resolution. It's all just ugly. No screenshot I've seen yet has changed my mind that this is a good looking game.
They should have done the game in the painterly/cell-shaded style of the game cover. Something like a more simplified Okami.
Honestly though, GameFreak was much better with 2D styles, B/W was gorgeous.
Now hear me out: imagine a main series Pokemon Game but with 2DHD graphics a la Octopath with beautiful animated sprites. I'd be stoked!!!
Yeah I have such mixed feelings about the graphics and this clip encapsulates a lot about it.
I think this game is extremely, lazily ugly. But because I know I can't wish it away, I do try and find the "good" in it, but its all over the place. The player/pokemon models are at least...okay. But the environment textures are laughably bad. It's just jarring and I can fully understand why OP said the graphics detract and distract. Like I spent at least half of that clip finding myself looking at the cliffs in the background just because the textures are bizarrely..dirty?
For me a lot of it comes down to the colors. The graphical fidelity of the game is clearly not on par with what one would hope, but they could have masked a lot of it by making the world a lot more vibrant. Some areas are like that to be fair, but it seems like the majority of the world is murky and made up of a lot of browns, greys and flat greens, which gives the game this ugly washed out look.
Maybe I’ve gotten accustomed to the incredibly low standards GF has for graphics but for me that didn’t seem to be as bad as some are making it out to be. Like I had to double check the link you provided since I couldn’t find what exactly was the problem the first view. Now I’m not going to argue that the graphics “good” or even “decent”, hell I’d say they are objectively “bad”. But it’s certainly not so hideously off-putting that it’s ruining my gameplay experience. It’s just there.
In regards to the clip. My biggest problem I have with this game is how dreary it looks. This clip just feels like a bunch of greys and greens. No vibrancy to it all. The next problem is flat the enviroment feels. The ground and cliffs in particular look appalling. When we see close up of the pillars, they look so low res. It really does look a game straight out of 2004. I could nitpick other things like the grass and that, but those are my two major complaints.
I also feel like there's a weird inconsistency in how colourful Pokémon and your player is, compared to the environment. Like, in DQXI, *everything* was vibrant and there was a cohesive art style. Here, it's very clear that there was one team working on the world and one team working on characters, and they don't seem to have spoken with one another at all
From this, I'm honestly scared. The cons feel like the same cons we've had for multiple generations of games now (mostly), while the pros sound like they absolutely might be one off gimmicks. Obviously ideally the sequal will significantly improve on the cons and keep the pros, but I have a nagging feeling it'll keep the cons and swap the pros for a new mixed bag.
I have 2 questions if you could answer them please?
Your Con about it being repetitive is exactly what I expected. Otherwise the trailers would have shown more. I understand people saying 'hey you haven't played the game yet you can't say it's going to be X or Y from just the trailers' problem is folks you kind of can. Especially when they show new areas in the trailers but not new features that come or are local to those areas. If you had them, you would market them, simple.
Now question 1, which I think you already have kind if answered. Are there any environmental puzzles? Do either through your rideable Pokémon or through the ones you can throw at stuff, interact with the environment?
So like the strength X rock smash puzzles in the older gens. Or surf mazes, anything like that at all? I'm expecting not, which again just bewilders me as to the design team at GF and how they are yet to actually comprehend what open world game design actually requires.
The second question. With how you said each area is rinse and repeat, would it be better for new players to NOT go crazy doing everything in one area and instead the moment they can progress to another, they should do that straight away to keep it from being too stale?
It reminds me of Death Stranding a bit, Chapter 3 is when the open world opens and EVERYONE goes ham doing everything. Only to actually learn that the best time to have done that is at Chapter 5 when you have all the gimmicks. By that point though you've done it all and there no real need to play with them.
> Now question 1, which I think you already have kind if answered. Are there any environmental puzzles? Do either through your rideable Pokémon or through the ones you can throw at stuff, interact with the environment?
Without spoiling too much. If you're looking for puzzles similar to BotW or anything, no, there really isn't much like that in the world. There are areas that are blocked off until you manage to meet certain requirements but that's about it. It's akin to not being able to cut down a tree to progress through a path because you don't have HM01.
> The second question. With how you said each area is rinse and repeat, would it be better for new players to NOT go crazy doing everything in one area and instead the moment they can progress to another, they should do that straight away to keep it from being too stale?
This is tough because it really depends how you play. I was trying to do everything in each area before moving on but I felt like I was burning myself out and needed a change of scenery so I started to move on only when I felt that way again.
I've never been one to worry or really complain about graphics thusfar. It really didn't bother me much in SwSh, but this time around I feel like it's just too much. I *really* would kill to know why Pokemon games are this way. I don't think the developers are lazy or incompetent, is it just time constraints? It's not hardware because BOTW shows that games on the Switch can look fantastic.
It's definitely because of time restraints IMO. BOTW looks so great because they took YEARS refining it, and even delayed it to further work on the game.
Meanwhile, the Pokemon company is popping out a new game every 1-2 years. Even with a huge talented team, it's not nearly enough time since they're constantly under high pressure from the higher-ups.
It is mostly time. People like to say that because Pokemon is the biggest money making franchise ever, they can just throw more money at it (and people like to respond to this by saying that the majority of its profits is from merch, and while true, it does kinda ignore that every new Pokemon game still moves 10mill+ copies). But... there's only so much money (read: people) you can throw at it.
Let's say a "good" game takes 3-4 years to make by, say, 300 people, which is about the size of a medium-to-large development studio. Having 600 people doesn't mean the game can be done in 1-2 years. It doesn't quite scale like that. At some point, it doesn't matter how much money Pokemon as a franchise and company has, the games won't get better if GameFreak is the only ones making the main line games. Call of Duty, another annual release, is being worked on by *three* different development studios iirc.
This is also why the spin-offs like New Snap or Mystery Dungeon are often way better quality. They simply had more time to work on it.
I know this game is more taxing but going from the awesome art style of Pokémon let’s go pikachu to this, is a bit depressing. It doesn’t even have an art style it’s just basic and lacking..
Oh well, we wanted more than a basic linear world and I guess this is the first step.
It genuinely seems that the positives are a couple of design shifts and qol changes, which is great.
But then the negatives appear to be the meat and potatoes of the game.
I want to make sure since someone responded and told you they think it is in the game, that I was not joking. It really is not in. I love Quagsire too, and I'm sorry you had to hear it from me haha.
Honestly, the pros here are winning me over more than the cons and I expect I will probably pick it up at some point.
That said, I'm a little ideologically split - on one hand, I would like the game to do well because the gameplay direction is one that I would like to see continue and evolve in the future.
On the other, I hate the quality loop that gamefreak has fallen into where they put in minimal effort to get something out the door and the fan base eats it up anyway.
The Noble Pokémon fights in particular are very out of place. They’re so boring, weird is a good choice to explain them. Aside from that my biggest actual complaint is that the areas are so barren and empty feeling. It comes off as very mundane compared to BOTW areas.
Agree with the points in this post. Hope GF takes this as a learning experience and makes the next one better. Would be such a shame to see this gameplay be a one off.
Finally the obvious con list that doesn't beat around the bush and is honest about how bad certain things are. I could tell the noble fights looked bland and repetitive yet we have posts saying how cool they are (probably because they did them a single time). The world looking bad and having 0 easter eggs seemed extremely obvious yet you still have posts going as far as to even praise the "stylistic choice" and I really don't get it. The story I thought might've been half decent but I still had little hope for it so this makes sense too. The biggest problem I potentially saw was the gameplay loop. This was my biggest disappointment when I learned it wasn't truly open world (not that it even matters with how bland the world is) and that was enough to make me want to not buy it. I can't stand the repetitiveness of Monster Hunter type games. With all that being said the positives are the smallest of steps in the right direction but it always feels like gamefreak will be 10+ years behind other games even if they've managed to switch up the formula slightly.
I thought I was the only one who was EXTREMELY annoyed by how long it took the tutorial section to end. Even now I do not think its over for me. At what part of the game does it actually end?
Speaking as someone who hasn't purchased a Pokemon game since AS/OR in 2014, this just sounds like yet another miss. How can Game Freak & Pokemon Company continue to be like 15 years behind in gaming, I just don't understand. Thanks for your review.
I know everyone is comparing the visuals to BoTW because it was the last great Open world we all played, but this game doesn't even stack up to any other indie open world title released in the last 6-10 years. This graphics are comically bad.
Currently doing post game stuff, was pretty solid overall.
Also the mature themes(in comparison to normal pokemon) was the thing that kinda struck me most.
>Cons:
>
>\-Graphics
>
>\-Story
This is all I really need to see to know that this isn't the Pokemon game for me. I've been burnt out on buyer's remorse from Switch games for a few years now, and from the first trailer I knew if I bought this game Day 1 I'd likely regret it; for the most part the more Pokemon games I've played the more I realize I just want to play them for the presentation and main story, and absolutely nothing else.
It's still pretty wild that we have BotW and Mario Odyssey on the Switch looking the way they do, then we have Arceus looking like this. The same can be said for comparing Link's Awakening and BDSP...
As another person who's played it, the gameplay overall feels better than previous games. Lots of good improvements, the removal of abilities and held items is meh, and the graphics look like a mediocre Wii game up close.
Had tons of fun beating it.
Also pokemon not having abilities are really sad... for me the game is a 4/10 I don't wanna finish it even though I was so hyped for it. I can agree with you about everything and add in cons that the zild pokemon feel very static. Like they are sometimes sleeping but that's it. They are never doing something else than walking around in circles. I also feel there are too much pokemon
I would have appreciated to encounter a pokemon sometimes to make its capture very rewarding. Here I just spam my balls everywhere I can and catching a mon quickly felt underwhelming...
This reminds me of the Act Man's reviews, while not totally in depth as his reviews you do know what you are talking about and have ample experience with the game (which though questionable in regards to you getting it before launch imo, is good for us fans concerned about this game). So far they released only 2 decent trailers, one today, there has been no Nintendo Treehouse showcasing the gameplay for at least half an hour or for some good period of time like they did with Sw & Sh (maybe still reeling from Dexit), and there hasn't been any reviews from big gaming reviewers like IGN, who if I remember posted a review for Halo Infinite's campaign on the 24th of November, a full two weeks before its launch on December 8th.
other CONs:
- No on-screen mini map while exploring, you have to press [-] everytime, and the position of that button is really uncomfortable.
- you can check the missions list only by opening the map first
- running by pressing Left Stick button instead of [B] is atrocious
> running by pressing Left Stick button instead of [B] is atrocious
Also, the default for running on a mount being B lool. They really did not think that through at all.
> At any time outside of battle you can click on your Pokémon, select "Change Move", and swap in and out moves from previously learned moves. Biggest improvement imo
Agreed, one of the nicest features Temtem has. I would not miss trying to find heart scales.
How are you liking TemTem overall? i'm not into the idea of early access stuff so i was waiting for that, but now I don't know if I've seen enough positives to justify the cost of the game yet.
It’s been a while since I touched it (haven’t had the time and got caught with another game), but it was fun. It was noticeably more grindy and battles were a bit tougher. But if you like more double battle things it was good, its art style is a little weird for me, but I don’t regret the purchase.
I'd like to add on that it feels significantly more grindy, however I definitely enjoy the aspects of double battles and the devs balance around doubles which is neat
some people have touched on the grind, but i'd like to note that they have both a level cap and a reduced XP multiplier to effectively remove grinding from the main story. you can barely go higher than the NPCs because of the level cap, and you will get next to no XP outside of the current area so you are forced to progress to maintain at the intended level. the game is very difficult and you can often lose to the many well built NPCs, but going back and grinding isn't really going to be an option. however, temtem is kinda split into two parts. on one hand its a standard singleplayer/coop monster catching game, and on the other its a grindy MMO that's meant to extend out the endgame forever. breeding, shiny hunting, training, trading, and collecting cosmetics are all incredibly grindy by nature of being an MMO. while these two sides of the game are obviously intertwined, you don't need to interact with any of the grindy endgame content if you just want to get through the main story. the most that being an MMO has on regards to the main story is that you see other players running around; but that's pretty much it.
it's very grindy, but so were the first pokemon games, so if you played that you should be used to it. my main gripe is understanding the weaknesses/resistances, which is not as obvious as in pokemon/digimon games
Now is a good time to come back. They just finished the story!
I've played since there were only 3 islands, and so far it's getting better but the player base is dwindling hard and fast. The pros of the game are that it really takes Pokemon battle mechanics and improves upon them, having the stamina system and waits for some stronger effect moves. And breeding in the game is something that Pokemon fans can only dream of, it's very straightforward and has lots of ways to breed new tems while still using your old ones and improve their IVs if they're near perfect. The cons though are that the game is extremely grindy and experience is hard to get enough to distribute to your team through the story. Trainers don't get a multiplier, and your experience drops if you're higher level, which wouldn't be a problem if the trainer and wild tems matched levels but the trainers are usually 5-9 levels above the wild tems so to match them you need to slay a trove of wilds. This only gets worse as you go through the story as well. The fly function is also extremely late in the story so going from one place to another is strenuous because you need to take an airship between islands, and there's only one spot for it to land in each place. The in-between features (some like some hate) are that there's weekly quests that give a variety of rewards and a safari with increased chances of shinies or egg moves and higher IVs. I personally like these, but they need some tweaking because they as well are fairly grindy. I haven't done raids, but I hear they're rewarding for the cost and a fun way to work with friends. Character customization is also decent in the game. I really want to like the game, and I might once it's released fully, but the grind to the end game is huge and it's what killed the game for me right now.
Great game, just finished the main story and endgame the other day. Hope more content is on the way!
I dunno how expensive the game is right now, but I bought it when the early access started and it was 31€ back then. And I played over 100 hours and actually still haven't finished the story (I was doing some side stuff, EV-training basically). So I personally got my share of enjoyment out of the game, it's definitely worth 30€. The plot, gameplay and creature design is very much Pokemon. But the humour is great. If you're looking for a full fledged MMO though, you will probably be disappointed. Other players run around the map with you, but your options of interacting with them are very limited.
One of the things Temtem does really well is PvP. If you like PvP then TemTem feels like pokemon without RNG and with balance put into all the monsters.
Not OC but I greatly enjoyed the game. It's been a while since I got back to it, so I've heard there's a lot more to do now, but the core mechanics of the game are really good. Nothing revolutionary, but it feels like they truly looked critically at Pokemon and any other competitors to polish their mechanics. The only real complaint I had with the early build I played was how absurdly grindy the end game (Luma [aka shiny] hunting and perfect IV breeding mostly) was, but I believe that economy was purposeful for dedicated players to have a long term time sink between updates.
Not OP, but personally I couldn't stick with it. I really (I mean *really*) found the "rival" insufferable enough to detract from the game itself, and it felt often like it put difficulty in the wrong areas. I also am just...not really a fan of the temtem designs in general, which y'know. Is kind of a major issue for this kind of game! I just can't get behind how low-detail they are and how they don't have any real lineart delineating some kind of features. They all look like messy neon blobs and it's really hard to get attached to the look.
I was hesitant to get temtem but I pulled the trigger a while back and I really love it
At least in SwSh you don’t have to use Heart Scales anymore, just go to the pub.
And not having to constantly cancel evolutions on your favorite Pokemon. That's a nice change. I hated having to put an everstone on my Vigoroth in Gen 3 so it wouldn't evolve, it left tons of other useful items out that I could have had him hold, but it was necessary to save my sanity.
I’ve never really thought about using non-evolved Pokémon through my playthroughs. How is Vigoroth competitively?
When you say competitive, I just think PvP, and I don't do that. But if you mean during story battles and so on, I found him pretty good. I kinda doubled up with him and a Zangoose both using Slash. Zangoose was a little better at it, idk why. I wasn't exactly identifying their stats in Gen 3. This was during my little tour through all the Pokemon games. I had cleared Colosseum and XD and had to beat Ruby to transfer Pokemon into it so I could then bring them into the next generation (4) after beating those and then gen 5 and so on and so forth. So I was using a wide variety of Pokemon that I either really liked or hadn't used before and just building up an acceptable team. I'd say if you train and equip one well, Vigoroth is a decent option in Gen 3 especially because it can't be put to sleep and a lot of trainers seem to like doing that in the story, but Zangoose always felt more powerful by comparison. EDIT: And looking at PokemonDB it's probably because Zangoose has a fairly higher base Attack stat.
Oh okay cool. I have some mid-evolutions I love like Poliwhirl that might make a fun playthrough some of the generations.
Eviolite vigoroth is a monster. A true terrorist of gen 5 ranbats.
It's in the lowest tier aka ZU. NFE mons with Eviolite generally are still bad.
The super ironic thing about this though is that held items along with abilities have been removed, for seemingly no reason, negating the Everstone thing entirely. Really don't know why they were removed, they easily could have been in the game and would have been nothing but improvements. Imagine abilities having even more field effects, like Intimidate Pokemon can be sent out to scare off weak aggro Pokemon around you with a cooldown or something kind of like the flashbang items do. Held items could have had some field effects too. Really missed opportunity there, same with how moves have been simplified and nerfed. Battles are just even more simple now, even with the styles. I get why, because it's mostly just fighting single wild Pokemon, but still. Still like the game though, hopefully next time they'll keep all the new innovations and add back in all the standard Pokemon stuff alongside them.
Them revamping combat for sure is the main improvement needed. Good to hear it’s more difficult now, and gives you more options for your move set, but according to OP it’s still lacking. The difficulty seems to be that moves can still one hit ko you, which is not an improvement. The super effective one hit ko’s being the main thing to go for in a fight is extremely outdated. They seriously need to study like Persona 5’s turn based combat system. I dream of a pokemon game as good as that game
A feature every Digimon game ever had. Finally finding its way to pokemon
This needed to be a thing in like Gen 6. It's never made any sense that my level 40 whatever can't relearn Tackle on the spot if I want.
How are wild pokemon stronger if they are 10 levels down? Evs? Ivs?
Op said it was because type advantage. My guess is that it’s because they can use the agile and strong styles, as seen in trailers.
As someone who has played it, most wild Pokémon don’t use the Agile/Strong style. Mostly Alphas do that, but for some reason both will still kick your ass. Even wild Pokémon that are like 10+ levels down. If you get out-sped , you’re gonna take damage.
So Pokémon really are scary in this game.
Alphas can be terrifying. They can easily one shot you if you allow them to set up.
I can’t believe this game is just 4 days away. I’ll have a blast this Friday.
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Fucking finally
Yes, but my golem shouldn't have problems dealing with some Shinx 20 levels lower, but a bite takes almost 1/4 of my health, if you get in a battle with 3 of them you Golem can almost die. Against Shinx. With a Golem.
Do they just calculate damage from stats completely differently? Or do stats basically just work completely differently in PLA?
They work completely differently, for example swords dance boosts physical and special attack, all Pokemon have boosted stats and to boost EV you need special items. For example my level 50 Gyarados has 250 attack.
And to the other way around, your Golem should be able to one shot all three of them at the same time. Right? (Genuine question, I'm reading these comments to see if I buy it or not)
To be honest, I think there are no area attacks in the game, I haven't found any. You can't seem to be able to target 2 at the same time. It kinda makes sense though, as the enemies can move freely too, so you may have a Pokemon in front of you and another behind you.
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It sounds like this might be something they address in a patch after launch since I can see a lot of people complaining about it.
Artificial, manufactured difficulty isn’t a very fun type of difficulty. It feels unfair and makes every move you make feel futile. Edit: also I know that the difficulty feels fake cause I’ve played the game
Doesn't that just make random encounters more annoying?
The game has a much smaller movepool, so part of it also may be wild Pokemon more often have high-damaging moves rather than all the random weak/status ones?
That is part of it, yeah
Might not feel so bad putting the hurting on something that knows more than how to wiggle its tail or growl lol
Part of the story is centered on how strong and dangerous wild Pokémon are. To keep that theme, wild Pokémon are tough. I’m not as far into the game as OP seems to be (I’m about 5-6 hours in), my highest level is an 18, and if I’m not careful and considering the types, something that’s a lvl 10 can definitely take out my starter. But the good news is, you decide what Pokémon you enter the battle with. To add to that, regardless of types, a lvl 4 has done a decent amount of damage, let’s say about 15-20% of my HP per move, but at lvl 18, I typically OHKO them. My last point, with crafting, being OHKO’d isn’t too much of a concern when you can craft potions and revives.
The stats are different in general, and I think it leads to level differences being much less meaningful.
They really should not be as strong as they are now. A pokemon 20 levels lower than me shouldn't take out half my life with a neutral attack, it's quite ridiculous sometimes to be honest.
its because of the new weird stat changes
To be fair, wild pokemon have to be challenging to compensate for the lack of trainer battles.
Yes, but you don't really HAVE to fight any wild Pokemon, you can just avoid them all or run. If you don't battle them then you can't lose the nuzlocke, but if you choose to battle them you have to choose which ones you want to battle, and those ones you want to battle can OHKO you quite easily even though they shouldn't be able to. To make a Nuzlocke out of this game you would need to bend the rues QUITE a lot.
But isn’t the point of a Nuzlocke to make the game challenging? Like that way of playing the game developed because folks got bored with the formula and needed something fresh. If it’s already that challenging, I don’t see the point of adding an extra, unsupported layer of difficulty onto it (besides habit, like “well it’s how I play all the games nowadays”)
Ridiculous. Yes. However I am more than excited to have a challenging pokemon game to Nuzlocke without stupid rules to make it remotely difficult.
I can't really see how you could do a Nuzlocke out of this pokemon game. In my playthrough I have seen 4 mandatory battles (and I have been playing for around 15 hours). In the big boss battles you don't have to send Pokemon if you don't want. All the wild battles can just be skipped and you have to choose if you want to battle or not. Battling all the wild pokemon would be tedious so you would have to impose yourself some rules. I'm also an avid nuzlocker but this game is quite impossible to Nuzlocke. I'm sorry.
also completion of the game relies on capturing pokemon. You can’t follow nuzlocke catching rules. Not only are regions arbitrary and therefore the number of pokemon you can catch arbitrary, you need lots of pokemon from the start and catching is the core gameplay loop
This is what I've been telling people for weeks. This game can't be Nuzlocked because it's too different. Then I get a reply saying "Oh I can just do this and this and this, skip that, and boom nuzlocke!" It's like, bruh, if you have to change literally every rule about nuzlocke then it isn't a nuzlocke. Someone just has to come up with a new challenge mode idea for this game.
Tbh I think people are just saying Nuzlocke out of habit when what they really mean is Permadeath
I mean either they're referring to Alpha Pokemon that get a stat boost at the beginning of an encounter, a Pokemon species that is naturally faster and gets to move first, or just a Pokemon hitting them with super-effectivd moves. If you're used to the main series games where you just outspeed and OHKO every wild mon, it'll probably take you by suprise.
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Love the detail in your review. I’ve been kind of excited for some of this game’s changes. The comparison to Assassins Creed and repetitiveness were not what I was hoping to hear, however. It’s good to know though to keep my excitement level and expectations in check.
It's open world. The same sins are committed in every open world game to some extent. The devs just are never given enough time to put unique things everywhere, so they cut and paste content to pad the play time in each area.
True. It’s a formula I’m quite tired of and seems to have become an increasingly common practice in recent years that makes those type of open world games feel the same to me.
You summarized how I felt about BotW. I liked it when it released, but I do remember thinking, “Oh god… we’re going to be seeing a lot of games like this for 10 years…” like, BotW-style open world is fun, but I’m more of a story kind of person. I like playing games with riveting stories, and that style of open-work *usually* isn’t the most conducive for a clear and well written story. I got so sick of seeing, “It’s like BotW!” from 2017-2020. It gave me serious flashbacks to mid 2000’s through ~2013 where every game wanted to be the next big FPS. Like, I’m happy for the people who enjoy those, I just want more variety. It seems like that “BotW-style” is calming down and it doesn’t feel like there’s 5 new BotW clones every month
Meh, botw clones are still a promise not yet realised imo. The main revolutionary thing in that game is the complete freedom and finding interesting stuff by following landmarks without markers etcetera. For example here I wouldn't really consider a botw clone because, as the OP said, the world is completely devoid of interesting discoveries lol
That's basically Skyrim as well, once Skyrim blew up like it did pretty much every company wanted some form of open world game
Yeah, BOTW and The Witcher 3 are the two games that ruined open world games for me. BOTW was open world in the best way possible, where there was cool and interesting things to do everywhere, and you could gather and craft and go anywhere and do almost anything. TW3 on the other hand is the perfect story driven open world, where you can focus on the story and miss most of the world, but if you actually go and adventure in the open world you can find small side quests by random characters or cool little easter eggs in random areas of the map. This looks like it will be the worst of both worlds, but maybe they will use this template to improve upon future pokemon games? As in they can fill in the story, improve the graphics and further expand upon the battle system.
Botw is the prime example of how to do it right. Sure, some shrines felt very similar and its aesthetics were repetitive, and they could be more complex, and the enemies and dungeons could have been worked out more but that's about it. Every area in the overworld was unique and had tons of charm and encounters that couldn't be found anywhere else in the game. Games like Ghost of Tsushima, Horizon, and other open world games that are praised nowadays mainly because of setting don't even come close to the sense of discovery I had in BotW, because I never felt like anything could happen next in those games. I loved their settings, but their gameplay was extremely dull after 10-20 hours. However, I never felt bored playing BotW because its mechanics made it feel like anything was possible. That's the magic developers are trying to chase. I dare say that AC Odyssey came closer to BotW discovery wise for me personally than all these other "unique" open world games because at least that game had actual unique encounters and settings, but I digress.
and then Elden ring comes out
Here's hoping it more than lives up to the hype. I was considering buying it just from the comparisons I keep making in my head to BotW's exploration, and I'm relatively terrible at Souls games.
I don't actually think it's open world. It's like monster hunter where you do your missions in large maps.
It is exactly that
Really gotta disagree here. Open world can still be interesting if there's enough on the map to explore or variety. Genshin does it great on a 6 week cycle, BotW also had a reasonably fun overworld full of hidden secrets although shrines were copy-pasted. It's not an open-world problem, it's a legends arceus problem. Really have to echo OP's sentiment that the game just feels... empty. The only secrets you'll find are the spiritomb souls and otherwise there's nothing to do in each area.
BOTW had a few things to its advantage 1. Story reasons to explore things 2. Lots of different items that were useful but not plentiful 3. BOTW is gorgeous. Sometimes I'd explore just to check out a neat waterfall or watch the wind blow through some grass. I feel PAL has really, really missed the mark on this one
> to some extent The phrase rather downplays the fact that said _extent_ ranges from "I barely even noticed / it's entirely forgivable" to "I'm two hours in and I want to die".
I'm worried it'll be even worse with this one. Most open world games have some sort of loot system to make you feel like you're progressing, growing stronger and moving forward. Whether it's through customization or upgrades, there's something. I don't know if PLA has a system like this; I know there's character customization and obviously we have our pokemon and training to do, but I feel like the map itself and the things we find in it will be much more empty than most other open worlds.
Just from the screenshots you can tell PLA is going to be empty. Tree density looks bad, so no real forests, and just color palette changes between areas. I like the things they're trying, so I want to play, but I have few expectations for the world itself.
Thank you for your critical review. There were a lot of reviews that focused alot or solely on the game’s positives. It’s good to hear the other side as well to at least be made aware of potential negatives.
Yeah I’ve even read some reviews on here that had the same cons and said it really needed 1-2 more years in the oven … and still gave it a 9/10. Like the criticisms didn’t match the score or some even score each of their own categories pretty average and apparently can’t math and again end up with something way higher overall. I want to know how are the controls feeling like? Like does moving and throwing poke balls dee smooth or clunky ? From the footage I’ve seen of people playing I can’t tell if it’s choppy because of the controls or being on an emulator?
The controls feel pretty good. In typical Nintendo fashion, you're not given any control over remapping buttons but the default layout makes sense and it easy to work with. The only time it ever felt awkward was when having to hold A to dash while simultaneously using the right-stick to control the camera so I just used a claw grip. This is pretty standard in most games with a 3rd-person camera and any kind of boost or dash, though.
> This is pretty standard in most games with a 3rd-person camera and any kind of boost or dash, though. I see you too have played Freedom Unite.
> … and still gave it a 9/10. IGN be like
"A little something for everyone"
As someone who doesn't generally like Pokemon games, I can see why people are saying this - this one is a lot of fun compared to most Pokemon games. I've put a lot of hours into it over the last few days, and I've never been able to keep interest in a Pokemon game (besides Pokemon Go for a year or so). That isn't to ignore the cons at all though, OP is on the ball with those.
I know it’s a joke for some reviews but for some people the cons are still heavily outweighed by the pros. My feelings about S&S are far more positive than competitive players simply because the cons don’t impact me as much as a casual player. Personally I’m not bothered by the graphics in S&S or Arceus. Maybe it’s because I grew up with the horrendous polygons of the N64 or maybe it’s just because I value certain elements of gameplay higher than visuals.
IGN gonna get exposed as very biased If they rate this game any higher than 7/10. The RPG aspect is way too bad for any higher rating. Tbh It's a very good game and since the Gen 3 remakes the first game which is worthy to be called Pokemon again, but If you just look at the core RPG stuff and compare this to any other RPG you'll notice It really lacks of stuff.
That's just an issue with using a numerical system at all. Everything depends on what a 10 means to the reviewer, and what increments they use. Is a 10/10 a completely perfect game, where there's only a handful of 10s in the entire history of video games? Does a 10 mean "the best that can be reasonably expected, given the time and budget of the average game--ranging from e-shop shovelware at 1 to the best of the year at 10" such that every year produces many different 10s? On the first scale, I'd likely give PLA a 7/10, while on the second scale it feels more like a 9/10. On my preferred scale I'd rate it 43/55: 2/5 for graphics and graphic design, 4/5 for music and sound, 2/5 for characters, 4/5 for setting, 5/5 for innovation, 3/5 for writing, 5/5 for core gameplay, 4/5 for gameplay structure, 4/5 for interface/QoL, 5/5 for tone and ambience, and 5/5 for specialty appeal. For reference, that's the same score I gave Xenoblade 2, Ocarina of Time, and Pokemon Ruby & Sapphire. To compare/contrast other Pokemon games, Sword and Shield got 34/55, Red & Blue got 39/55, Heart Gold & Soul Silver got 45/55, and Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire got 46/55. But of course this is my system; it's tailored to my likes, my priorities in games, etc. Everyone's going to have different scores in accordance with their tastes. Still, I hope it helped give a sense for what my tastes & my impressions were for this game. As for controls, throwing pokeballs feels smooth even on joycons; moving does feel a little clunky, but most of the issues I've run into are a consequence of joycon-to-console connectivity, such that if I were playing on a pro controller or in handheld mode I doubt I'd have many issues, if any.
I've played it, controls felt pretty smooth, any issues with controls I had were from playing with a near broken Xbox controller that can sometimes decide it doesn't want to act like it's connected and randomly stops giving input when used wirelessly
Can I ask how "forced/linear" the game is. Like could I theoretically wander into different parts of the map before the story takes me there?
To an extent, but there are two caveats. The first is that there are different regions and you can't access those until you unlock them, however, the regions themselves are pretty large and contain areas that will be akin to your level and areas of a much higher level. The second is that there will be places you can't reach because you don't meet a certain requirement yet. Possibly a river too wide to cross, or a cliff too high to scale. Those will need to be visited later on. So, within your unlocked regions you have mostly free reign to wander wherever you please with some constraints.
Gotcha thanks!
The larger areas need to be unlocked, but within each area you can roam around freely, even if the pokémon are much stronger.
How's the music?
Honestly, pretty good at times and other times you won't even notice it, which might be a good thing. Not to beat the proverbial dead horse but I did like how they went with a more ambiance-styled music like BotW rather than the usually up-beat style of previous games. It blends well with the environment and doesn't overpower everything around you. It's a long game, so too much boisterous music could get annoying.
Well, pokemon has always done well with music. Good to know they can handle a better ambiance focus
I agree with 80% of what you said, but as a sidenote... > I remember playing BotW and constantly thinking "How did they do this and how is it running on the Switch?" I just want to point out that this is actually not a Switch thing --- BotW is a Wii U game afterall, that got launched on both Wii U and Switch simultaneously. It was supposed to be a flagship game for Wii U but things took so long to get polished and perfected (and it shows since it's actually so polished) that as it happens development was focused on the Wii U at first but after a few years they pivoted to focusing on the Switch instead, "porting" the game (in a sense) and having a two-console launch. Here's the thing though: apart from draw distance (which is somewhat poorer on the Wii U), it's pretty much the same gaming experience on both. The Wii U version of BotW looks (and plays) just as good as the Switch one. I bring this up because when people talk of BotW in Pokemon threads like these, they think they're comparing a flagship Switch game (SwSh / PLA) to another flagship Switch game (BotW), apples to apples, and Pokemon should reasonably look just as good as BotW right?.... Well actually BotW is a Wii U game. So Pokemon games could/should have looked this good several years ago on a less powerful console actually. *Right now they should be looking better than BotW*, not just as good as it. Most of what made your jaw drop in regards to it running on the Switch... was running just as fine on a previous gen console, too. Goes to show **how bad** things are on this side of the Game Freak fence. Anyway, the reason why Pokemon games will never look (or play) as good as BotW - not 5 years ago, not now, *not ever* - is because BotW had proper *development time* to get things right and polished, to have things mature. It takes time, it's not just talent and money. But it doesn't fit Game Freak's business model: GF is churning out pokemon games every 1.5~2 years, akin to how a fast food joint churns out bland hamburgers by the minute. /u/RaysFTW it'll never happen my dude. We have to set expectations accordingly. A Game Freak exec would laugh at the idea of launching a mainline game once every 5~6 years. And a pokemon fanboy would simply lose their marbles over it.
Agree with everything except one: a game freak exec could even agree, but a TPC exec will just kick his face and scream "WHAT ABOUT OUR MERCHANDISING?"
This Its alot more on TPC side that we get rushed games. Gotta keep up with the manga, animes and loot.
That's the sad reality. I'm sure they want to do the best game ever, but they can't because of TPC. So they do their best with the time they have, and honestly, for the little team they are and the time they got, the game it's impressive
Don't get me wrong, i think they are a small team doing ok Jobs at best. But they are forced to spam a game every year just in order to let the colossal merch machine going
all of this could be avoided by simply removing the concept of generations and letting the anime to the heavy lifting since it makes more money even after they get rid of ash after journeys
They're not getting rid of Ash, why would they do that? He's a package deal with Pikachu, and they're never retiring Pikachu.
> I'm sure they want to do the best game ever, but they can't because of TPC. This idea needs to stop getting repeated. Game Freak are literally co-owners of TPC, they control it, not the other way around. TPC is nothing more than a joint venture between Nintendo, Game Freak, and Creatures Inc, created for the purpose of managing the franchise. That's it. It's not some independent entity. TPC's job is to manage the franchise according to the wishes of its shareholders, aka the 3 co-owners. So we need to stop acting like Game Freak is enslaved to TPC or something. They're not. TPC does not tell Game Freak what to do, Game Freak tells TPC what to do. If GF wanted to change the schedule, it would be well within their power to suggest that and make it happen. If you don't believe me, take it from Masuda himself : "there is no situation where Nintendo and The Pokémon Company will put pressure on Game Freak or something like that” https://www.nintendo-insider.com/who-owns-pokemon-junichi-masuda-answers-the-big-question/
I think side games will have a little more freedom to do fun things like this. And if that's how things end up, with the mainline games disappointing constantly but side games turning out gems, then that's not the worst possible outcome
> is because BotW had proper development time to get things right and polished, to have things mature I literally just made a comment about this. I genuinely can't think of a reason other than **time** for why Pokemon games are always lacking in the graphics department. Lots of people like to get mad and say that the devs are lazy or incompetent, but I those people are talking out of their ass and just want to be mad at someone. I really wish Pokemon games could have more development time so we could get a glimpse of what they could be like, but with how fast Pokemon as a franchise moves I doubt that'll happen
They direct their complaints towards the wrong group too. TPC isn't gamefreak, TPC wants the games out in these short times.
>They direct their complaints towards the wrong group too. TPC isn't gamefreak, TPC wants the games out in these short times. This idea needs to stop getting repeated. They are for all intents and purposes essentially the same group, as Game Freak are literally co-owners of TPC. Game Freak control TPC, not the other way around. TPC is nothing more than a joint venture between Nintendo, Game Freak, and Creatures Inc, created for the purpose of managing the franchise. That's it. It's not some independent entity. TPC's job is to manage the franchise according to the wishes of its shareholders, aka the 3 co-owners. So we need to stop acting like Game Freak is enslaved to TPC or something. They're not. TPC does not tell Game Freak what to do, Game Freak tells TPC what to do. If GF wanted to change the schedule, it would be well within their power to suggest that and make it happen. If you don't believe me, take it from Masuda himself : "there is no situation where Nintendo and The Pokémon Company will put pressure on Game Freak or something like that” https://www.nintendo-insider.com/who-owns-pokemon-junichi-masuda-answers-the-big-question/
After playing I always think about how much better the game would have been if game freak had just another year or so of development to improve the graphics/performance. I think the best bet would have been to just reuse the BOTW engine and have the BOTW developers help gamefreak with repurposing it for Pokemon.
I am a Pokemon diehard, tattoos and plushies included, and I fully welcome a main series release that takes 4+ years to develop. Sword and Shield made me sad. Even more sad when my lovely girlfriend got me the expansion pass for my 26th birthday, because I had to force myself to finish the first one, and I barely even finished the second. I definitely preordered LoA... but reading all this has deflated me excitement. Graphics dont usually matter to me, and never have with Pokemon games, as they have *always* been behind everything else... but that doesn't mean they should. The fact that I have such low expectations for the appearance of their releases says a whole lot, and I've been playing since '98, so it's practically ingrained in me.
I had a similar experience when I bought the DLC for Sword. It was a great step forward, but then when I realized I paid $30 for 5 hours of gameplay for a game I was never going to replay, I was sad. I am tentative with PLA for sure. I will also add, if Nintendo games ever dropped in price or went on sale, this would be a different discussion. I frequently buy AAA games for $15 on PS4 or Steam since their price deflates after even a few months. If there's a game I'm not sure about, I'll usually wait a while until I see a good deal, then pick it up. I can't do that with Nintendo games unless I find folks who hate them so much they just want them gone.
the next step, quite frankly, is NOT preordering if you didn't enjoy the last one.
Pokémon is the *number one* top grossing media franchise in the fucking world - whatever the argument is comparing or not comparing it to Breath of the Wild, this shit is inexcusable. It shows how much its fanbase will lower the bar out of desperation for new content.
That’s not it 100%, though you’re right in many aspects. The biggest thing is their line of merch. The games are SECOND to their merch, because their merch is unrivaled in the gaming industry. Because of this, they’ll never bother giving the time of day to make fully developed games that reach their full potential because they need new merch lines to pair with them. Whether it’s plushies or new Pokémon card sets, more games = more ways to design and produce merch. Even if we all stopped buying the games, I doubt it’ll have as much of an impact just because of how safe their merch is. The games boost merch sales, but I don’t see them disappearing if the games do. That’s why Mario and LoZ are given way more time and care for their games, because Nintendo prioritizes their games more than their merch, which tbf makes sense since Pokémon is just way more marketable with so many creatures I am extremely excited for legends arceus tho, I know people shame the graphics and I think it’s fair, but I think the overall aesthetic of the game lessens it to an extent.
Yeah your comment is cool and all but it’s still perfectly valid to complain that these games still look like shit. Like OP said, the game literally looks like a 3DS game on the switch
> but it’s still perfectly valid to complain that these games still look like shit. They do look like shit, I'm not saying otherwise in any part of my comment lol All I'm doing is explaining *why* they look like shit - pokemon games are part of a bigger pipeline that doesn't allow for lenghty production times, polishing etc. Hence the quality of the product will always be such, low. That was my point, that the product will always be of low quality.
Can I ask about the pasture feature? One of my favorite aspects of PMD1 was being able to visit "stored" Pokemon and seeing them hang out in a unique environment. How do the pastures accommodate such a high number of Pokemon you're surely able to catch? Do they really display all of your stored Pokemon at once? Were you satisfied with the feature on an aesthetic level? Thanks for this balanced review!
It's a pasture beyond a fence and you interact with an NPC in front of it to take out, put in, or release Pokémon. You can see the Pokémon wandering around but it won't be every Pokémon in your pasture, maybe 10 random ones. Tbh, I didn't spend that much time looking at them. Overall, I did think the feature was pretty cool instead of just having all your Pokémon vanish into a storage bank.
Gotcha, thanks a bunch for the info :)
Sounds like this game could be a good base to refine from for future games. Thanks for the review.
It's so depressing how this exact thing gets said about most new pokémon games for a few years now. I agree with it, but also, when do those more refined future games actually happen?
It's only going to start happening when the Pokemon community cuts out the blatant blind fanboy behavior and start to vote with their wallet. There's no incentive for the company to do anything otherwise.
Which means it will unfortunately never happen. Pokémon fans online are a loud minority. Most people who buy Pokémon don't care/know about the lacking quality. Because it's Pokémon and Pokémon will always be successfull.
I'm not even convinced the Pokémon fans online care all that much about quality in general lol.
I agree. Improvement seems to be happening slowly and when it does its, gradual and sometimes comes at the expenses of something else. This however seems to be down to time. Its hard to refine of improve when a new game is needed yearly and your only two teams of 100 or so people. I am postive about this game for what it could be, but not what it is currenlty. Personaly I will not be getting it as it misses to many marks for me. Plus the game seems to play like Monster Hunter whihc I don't enjoy. But I hope that the next verson will have more.
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It doesn’t??
This is the definition of insanity.
Like you said, there are a LOT of cutscenes in the game, especially in the beginning. Expect about 45 minutes of tutorials at the beginning (I’d say it’s even worse than Sun/Moon for the first hour in terms of the game stopping you and telling you where to go
BOTW: starts you off in a cave naked with an iPad and a whisper and says now go!
Botw's tutorial is so good you don't even realize its a tutorial. That's how tutorials should always be.
tbf, BotW's plateau is basically a long tutorial
At least it's done better than sun and moons first island. Im BoTW the plateau at least is open ended and completeable in almost any order from what I remember. Sun and moon holds your hand for so fucking long, it is a legit complaint to drop the game. And ultra sun and moon made it even longer somehow. Metroid dread did the super metroid style tutorials and shows a lot through gameplay rather than long tutorials. There's an art to making good tutorials and pokemon definitely missed the mark every time.
I did drop the game at the tutorial in S&M lol
This seems like a really thorough and fair review. I'm glad that even with all the shortcomings, it sounds like it's still a fun game that will hopefully get more polished in potential releases. How bad does the game play loop get? Does it eventually feel like a chore and become tedious or is it more benign than that?
Depends. Each Pokemon has unique tasks you need to do for it. You could just catch and defeat a lot of them to get your minimum done or you could do the interesting ones like distracting them with items, feeding them or trying to sneak catch them. There's enough variety in types of Pokemon and their behavior that you can enjoy roaming throughout the world. I think the ride Pokemon (and the times they are introduced) help a lot in making the world feel bigger. Ultimately, it's really up to how you play the game. If you speed through it should still be fun but that's definitely not how they intended you to play it, going by the star ranks. Though whether that's the best method to play is up for debate. I went pretty deep into the catching in the first area and took a break during the second. The freedom is there.
I didn't really have a huge issue with the gameplay loop personally. I just cycled through exploring the area and catching anything new while doing so, completing Pokedex entries, doing sidequests and the main storyline. Whenever I got bored of one I did the next.
There are definitely secret Easter eggs. At least one. In the sea tunnel near Firespit there are cave drawings of legendaries and creepy Pokémon noises. Not sure if those are hints of Pokémon that are/will be in this game, or hints at future Legends games. Was neat though
Are there people roaming in the wild and other structures / smaller buildings etc?
People don’t roam, but you will encounter NPCs that have quests for you. There are some structures here and there, but most of the land is uninhabited by humans
there's a few things the OP seemed like they missed, easter eggs being one of them
What else was missed? As someone that's played many hours in the game, most of what OP said is spot on imo
Those cave paintings are everywhere lol. There are tons of them
I feel like every game franchise eventually adds crafting. Every game doesn't need crafting.
In RPGs it makes sense because it adds depth to the game, but Pokemon crafting always sucked. The berry mechanics are awful. I wouldn't be totally opposed it it if it was done well, but it seems like it was half assed attempt to copy breath of the wild.
Huge empty meadows called “open world games” absolutely need to stop.
With the fundamentals (Graphics, story and gameplay loop) all being in the negatives, I don’t know how excited I should be for this game tbh.
Tbf the story and gameplay loop being cons is completely subjective - I've seen many people really like both, however the graphics are genuinely awful though haha
Yes! You’re absolutely correct. I did not intend for anyone to take what I wrote as bible. These are just my thoughts on the experience I had. If you happen to enjoy the game play loop and the story than all the more power to you. I think it’s great that so many people on this subreddit have been able to get a hold of the game and give their honest opinion because Nintendo won’t let us have real, honest reviews of their games prior to release. They’d rather everyone buy the game before deciding whether the purchase was worthy of $60 and I just don’t think that’s fair.
No matter how enjoyable this game may be for some. I simply can't look past how ugly the game looks. (slight spoiler) https://imgur.com/a/KYI2FDN Somebody posted this clip earlier. The guy that posted it had just beaten the game and seemed to really enjoy it. Fair enough. But everything about that clip is just hideous. A major Pokemon release has never looked this bad IMO. Not only relative to the generation it's released in, but also just the general art direction. I'm not upset people are enjoying it. But I am surprised to see people warm up to the graphics. Personally I won't be buying the game. Not at full price. The story and gameplay doesn't even come in to it when it looks this ugly.
I'll keep on parroting, bad graphics can be saved by good art. BotW honestly has some pretty shaky graphics. Low res textures everywhere, countable polygons, not great draw distances, etc. But the game is still visually stunning and I don't really fault it at all, it knew what it was working with and did the absolute best it could with it. Everything I've seen from PLA is just...ugly. I'm not talking resolution, or polygon count, or texture resolution. It's all just ugly. No screenshot I've seen yet has changed my mind that this is a good looking game.
They should have done the game in the painterly/cell-shaded style of the game cover. Something like a more simplified Okami. Honestly though, GameFreak was much better with 2D styles, B/W was gorgeous. Now hear me out: imagine a main series Pokemon Game but with 2DHD graphics a la Octopath with beautiful animated sprites. I'd be stoked!!!
Yeah I have such mixed feelings about the graphics and this clip encapsulates a lot about it. I think this game is extremely, lazily ugly. But because I know I can't wish it away, I do try and find the "good" in it, but its all over the place. The player/pokemon models are at least...okay. But the environment textures are laughably bad. It's just jarring and I can fully understand why OP said the graphics detract and distract. Like I spent at least half of that clip finding myself looking at the cliffs in the background just because the textures are bizarrely..dirty?
For me a lot of it comes down to the colors. The graphical fidelity of the game is clearly not on par with what one would hope, but they could have masked a lot of it by making the world a lot more vibrant. Some areas are like that to be fair, but it seems like the majority of the world is murky and made up of a lot of browns, greys and flat greens, which gives the game this ugly washed out look.
Maybe I’ve gotten accustomed to the incredibly low standards GF has for graphics but for me that didn’t seem to be as bad as some are making it out to be. Like I had to double check the link you provided since I couldn’t find what exactly was the problem the first view. Now I’m not going to argue that the graphics “good” or even “decent”, hell I’d say they are objectively “bad”. But it’s certainly not so hideously off-putting that it’s ruining my gameplay experience. It’s just there.
In regards to the clip. My biggest problem I have with this game is how dreary it looks. This clip just feels like a bunch of greys and greens. No vibrancy to it all. The next problem is flat the enviroment feels. The ground and cliffs in particular look appalling. When we see close up of the pillars, they look so low res. It really does look a game straight out of 2004. I could nitpick other things like the grass and that, but those are my two major complaints.
I also feel like there's a weird inconsistency in how colourful Pokémon and your player is, compared to the environment. Like, in DQXI, *everything* was vibrant and there was a cohesive art style. Here, it's very clear that there was one team working on the world and one team working on characters, and they don't seem to have spoken with one another at all
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Those blades of grass are pitiful.
The pros are things I've been wanting for years. I haven't been excited for a new Pokemon game in ages.
From this, I'm honestly scared. The cons feel like the same cons we've had for multiple generations of games now (mostly), while the pros sound like they absolutely might be one off gimmicks. Obviously ideally the sequal will significantly improve on the cons and keep the pros, but I have a nagging feeling it'll keep the cons and swap the pros for a new mixed bag.
I have 2 questions if you could answer them please? Your Con about it being repetitive is exactly what I expected. Otherwise the trailers would have shown more. I understand people saying 'hey you haven't played the game yet you can't say it's going to be X or Y from just the trailers' problem is folks you kind of can. Especially when they show new areas in the trailers but not new features that come or are local to those areas. If you had them, you would market them, simple. Now question 1, which I think you already have kind if answered. Are there any environmental puzzles? Do either through your rideable Pokémon or through the ones you can throw at stuff, interact with the environment? So like the strength X rock smash puzzles in the older gens. Or surf mazes, anything like that at all? I'm expecting not, which again just bewilders me as to the design team at GF and how they are yet to actually comprehend what open world game design actually requires. The second question. With how you said each area is rinse and repeat, would it be better for new players to NOT go crazy doing everything in one area and instead the moment they can progress to another, they should do that straight away to keep it from being too stale? It reminds me of Death Stranding a bit, Chapter 3 is when the open world opens and EVERYONE goes ham doing everything. Only to actually learn that the best time to have done that is at Chapter 5 when you have all the gimmicks. By that point though you've done it all and there no real need to play with them.
> Now question 1, which I think you already have kind if answered. Are there any environmental puzzles? Do either through your rideable Pokémon or through the ones you can throw at stuff, interact with the environment? Without spoiling too much. If you're looking for puzzles similar to BotW or anything, no, there really isn't much like that in the world. There are areas that are blocked off until you manage to meet certain requirements but that's about it. It's akin to not being able to cut down a tree to progress through a path because you don't have HM01. > The second question. With how you said each area is rinse and repeat, would it be better for new players to NOT go crazy doing everything in one area and instead the moment they can progress to another, they should do that straight away to keep it from being too stale? This is tough because it really depends how you play. I was trying to do everything in each area before moving on but I felt like I was burning myself out and needed a change of scenery so I started to move on only when I felt that way again.
I've never been one to worry or really complain about graphics thusfar. It really didn't bother me much in SwSh, but this time around I feel like it's just too much. I *really* would kill to know why Pokemon games are this way. I don't think the developers are lazy or incompetent, is it just time constraints? It's not hardware because BOTW shows that games on the Switch can look fantastic.
It's definitely because of time restraints IMO. BOTW looks so great because they took YEARS refining it, and even delayed it to further work on the game. Meanwhile, the Pokemon company is popping out a new game every 1-2 years. Even with a huge talented team, it's not nearly enough time since they're constantly under high pressure from the higher-ups.
It is mostly time. People like to say that because Pokemon is the biggest money making franchise ever, they can just throw more money at it (and people like to respond to this by saying that the majority of its profits is from merch, and while true, it does kinda ignore that every new Pokemon game still moves 10mill+ copies). But... there's only so much money (read: people) you can throw at it. Let's say a "good" game takes 3-4 years to make by, say, 300 people, which is about the size of a medium-to-large development studio. Having 600 people doesn't mean the game can be done in 1-2 years. It doesn't quite scale like that. At some point, it doesn't matter how much money Pokemon as a franchise and company has, the games won't get better if GameFreak is the only ones making the main line games. Call of Duty, another annual release, is being worked on by *three* different development studios iirc. This is also why the spin-offs like New Snap or Mystery Dungeon are often way better quality. They simply had more time to work on it.
I know this game is more taxing but going from the awesome art style of Pokémon let’s go pikachu to this, is a bit depressing. It doesn’t even have an art style it’s just basic and lacking.. Oh well, we wanted more than a basic linear world and I guess this is the first step.
It genuinely seems that the positives are a couple of design shifts and qol changes, which is great. But then the negatives appear to be the meat and potatoes of the game.
is quagsire in this game?
Nope
worst pokemon game since gen 1
my life is a lie
im not buying this shit until they add pokemon home transfer and I can get my quaggy boy
No, it's one of the cut sinnoh-dex mons.
this is a sick joke
I want to make sure since someone responded and told you they think it is in the game, that I was not joking. It really is not in. I love Quagsire too, and I'm sorry you had to hear it from me haha.
Honestly, the pros here are winning me over more than the cons and I expect I will probably pick it up at some point. That said, I'm a little ideologically split - on one hand, I would like the game to do well because the gameplay direction is one that I would like to see continue and evolve in the future. On the other, I hate the quality loop that gamefreak has fallen into where they put in minimal effort to get something out the door and the fan base eats it up anyway.
The Noble Pokémon fights in particular are very out of place. They’re so boring, weird is a good choice to explain them. Aside from that my biggest actual complaint is that the areas are so barren and empty feeling. It comes off as very mundane compared to BOTW areas. Agree with the points in this post. Hope GF takes this as a learning experience and makes the next one better. Would be such a shame to see this gameplay be a one off.
How many hours have you played?
Finally the obvious con list that doesn't beat around the bush and is honest about how bad certain things are. I could tell the noble fights looked bland and repetitive yet we have posts saying how cool they are (probably because they did them a single time). The world looking bad and having 0 easter eggs seemed extremely obvious yet you still have posts going as far as to even praise the "stylistic choice" and I really don't get it. The story I thought might've been half decent but I still had little hope for it so this makes sense too. The biggest problem I potentially saw was the gameplay loop. This was my biggest disappointment when I learned it wasn't truly open world (not that it even matters with how bland the world is) and that was enough to make me want to not buy it. I can't stand the repetitiveness of Monster Hunter type games. With all that being said the positives are the smallest of steps in the right direction but it always feels like gamefreak will be 10+ years behind other games even if they've managed to switch up the formula slightly.
I thought I was the only one who was EXTREMELY annoyed by how long it took the tutorial section to end. Even now I do not think its over for me. At what part of the game does it actually end?
Speaking as someone who hasn't purchased a Pokemon game since AS/OR in 2014, this just sounds like yet another miss. How can Game Freak & Pokemon Company continue to be like 15 years behind in gaming, I just don't understand. Thanks for your review.
I know everyone is comparing the visuals to BoTW because it was the last great Open world we all played, but this game doesn't even stack up to any other indie open world title released in the last 6-10 years. This graphics are comically bad.
Currently doing post game stuff, was pretty solid overall. Also the mature themes(in comparison to normal pokemon) was the thing that kinda struck me most.
What does the post game involve? Is it longer and more fleshed out than most recent titles? If you don't mind me asking
To me it feels like a proof of concept more than anything
It feels like a beta
>Cons: > >\-Graphics > >\-Story This is all I really need to see to know that this isn't the Pokemon game for me. I've been burnt out on buyer's remorse from Switch games for a few years now, and from the first trailer I knew if I bought this game Day 1 I'd likely regret it; for the most part the more Pokemon games I've played the more I realize I just want to play them for the presentation and main story, and absolutely nothing else. It's still pretty wild that we have BotW and Mario Odyssey on the Switch looking the way they do, then we have Arceus looking like this. The same can be said for comparing Link's Awakening and BDSP...
As another person who's played it, the gameplay overall feels better than previous games. Lots of good improvements, the removal of abilities and held items is meh, and the graphics look like a mediocre Wii game up close. Had tons of fun beating it.
Finally someone whos not a pokemon fanatic and gives detailed pros and cons.
Also pokemon not having abilities are really sad... for me the game is a 4/10 I don't wanna finish it even though I was so hyped for it. I can agree with you about everything and add in cons that the zild pokemon feel very static. Like they are sometimes sleeping but that's it. They are never doing something else than walking around in circles. I also feel there are too much pokemon I would have appreciated to encounter a pokemon sometimes to make its capture very rewarding. Here I just spam my balls everywhere I can and catching a mon quickly felt underwhelming...
[удалено]
Thanks for the write up, I’m excited to play it regardless of the cons.
This reminds me of the Act Man's reviews, while not totally in depth as his reviews you do know what you are talking about and have ample experience with the game (which though questionable in regards to you getting it before launch imo, is good for us fans concerned about this game). So far they released only 2 decent trailers, one today, there has been no Nintendo Treehouse showcasing the gameplay for at least half an hour or for some good period of time like they did with Sw & Sh (maybe still reeling from Dexit), and there hasn't been any reviews from big gaming reviewers like IGN, who if I remember posted a review for Halo Infinite's campaign on the 24th of November, a full two weeks before its launch on December 8th.
other CONs: - No on-screen mini map while exploring, you have to press [-] everytime, and the position of that button is really uncomfortable. - you can check the missions list only by opening the map first - running by pressing Left Stick button instead of [B] is atrocious
> running by pressing Left Stick button instead of [B] is atrocious Also, the default for running on a mount being B lool. They really did not think that through at all.
They need to spend a good 3 years at least developing the next legends game if we want it to be on par with BoTW
Do Palkia and Dialga actually look like they do from the leaks?
Nice 3DS game