Pokémon Direct 2019

jasenyoface · February 27, 2019

Today we received the first bit of news about Generation 8 Pokémon games! It was announced that Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield are the titles of the new pair of Pokémon games and they are to be released late 2019.

This time around trainers will explore the Galar region with one of three new starter Pokémon.
Scorbunny, the rabbit Pokémon
Sobble, the water lizard Pokémon
Grookey, the chimp Pokémon

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jasenyoface · February 27, 2019

Which starter will Ash have when he starts his journey in Galar?

I predict Sobble!

Poke J · February 27, 2019

Ya! Woooo! Gen 8 is here, but I feel we're missing the bigger picture here. We need to start pressuring Game Freak to base gen 9 on Germany.

YoshiMoshi · February 27, 2019

not backwards compatible?

evandixon · February 27, 2019

When Gen 7 was announced, I was pretty "meh", at least until the demo came out. I'm actually pretty interested in this one, however. Not sure exactly why though.

That map looks oddly linear. Not sure if that's a good or bad thing yet.

Hello, it's me! · February 28, 2019

we most likely wont get a demo for this one

theSLAYER · February 28, 2019

3 hours ago, Hello, it's me! said:

we most likely wont get a demo for this one

Did you mean: Demo via e-shop?

I think the only game that didn't have demo in the past few years were USUM. (even XY had a demo)
XY - live location demo
ORAS - e-shop demo
SM - e-shop demo
USUM - no demo(?)
LGPE - live location demo, after game release: e-shop demo

Hello, it's me! · March 1, 2019

20 hours ago, theSLAYER said:

Did you mean: Demo via e-shop?

I think the only game that didn't have demo in the past few years were USUM. (even XY had a demo)
XY - live location demo
ORAS - e-shop demo
SM - e-shop demo
USUM - no demo(?)
LGPE - live location demo, after game release: e-shop demo

i dont count the xy and LGPE demos as actual demos since they weren't available to the general public ( yes an eshop demo for LGPE was released at a time where there's no reason to release a demo when the main game has been released )

Edited March 1, 2019 by Hello, it's me!

theSLAYER · March 1, 2019

1 hour ago, Hello, it's me! said:

i dont count the xy and LGPE demos as actual demos since they weren't available to the general public ( yes an eshop demo for LGPE was released at a time where there's no reason to release a demo when the main game has been released )

Semantically speaking, even if it wasn’t for download on the internet, a demo is a demo.

People took photos, showed (then) new content or verified (then) unconfirmed info, and managed to do a short playthrough and experience the various mechanics.

Granted you probably need to be part of the lucky few (I wasn’t lucky enough for XY) to play it, but it doesn’t mean it didn’t exist, it just means it wasn’t as widespread as we would have liked (so in that sense I get what you mean ).

Like how Gen 2 & 4 had demos I didn’t even know existed, but I’m not gonna denounce it because of my ignorance nor because I didn’t get to play it

——Anyhow:

I’m kinda surprised they never released the XY demo online after the games were released tho. At least they finally learnt something

I sincerely hope Gen 8 demo isn’t limited to IRL, but given the buzz and popularity of the LGPE IRL demo, it might happen. Looks like I may need to go to PAX again this year.

Hello, it's me! · March 1, 2019

10 hours ago, theSLAYER said:

Granted you probably need to be part of the lucky few (I wasn’t lucky enough for XY) to play it, but it doesn’t mean it didn’t exist, it just means it wasn’t as widespread as we would have liked (so in that sense I get what you mean ).

Usually i think with LGPE , most of their guests were poketubers or well known figures in the community ( example : serebii ) who can broadcast the demo to a broader audience

10 hours ago, theSLAYER said:

I sincerely hope Gen 8 demo isn’t limited to IRL, but given the buzz and popularity of the LGPE IRL demo, it might happen. Looks like I may need to go to PAX again this year.

i still think they wont release a demo for this one ( not at least months after the main game is released ) in a desperate attempt to prevent datamines/leaks lol

they did the same thing with LGPE , i mean like surely the entire game wasn't datamined a week before its original release date riiiiight

theSLAYER · March 2, 2019

7 hours ago, Hello, it's me! said:

Usually i think with LGPE , most of their guests were poketubers or well known figures in the community ( example : serebii ) who can broadcast the demo to a broader audience

I think the LGPE demo was more widespread than that, as in it gave people a lot of chance to attend across the world, compared to XY. (Even I managed to go)

It’s just that poketubers helped the process for people who couldn’t attend ><

7 hours ago, Hello, it's me! said:

I still think they wont release a demo for this one ( not at least months after the main game is released ) in a desperate attempt to prevent datamines/leaks lol

they did the same thing with LGPE , i mean like surely the entire game wasn't datamined a week before its original release date riiiiight

That Would be a good reason to not release the demos, tho to be fair they did try to reduce the content in SM demos. The only reason why the stuff was datamined was because they screwed up the downsizing process.

If they didn’t screw up the process, then people wouldn’t be able to datamine stuff.

To not release a demo for that reason, is akin to giving up. It’s like punishing the fans simply because they’re incompetent.

Hello, it's me! · March 2, 2019

5 hours ago, theSLAYER said:

That Would be a good reason to not release the demos, tho to be fair they did try to reduce the content in SM demos. The only reason why the stuff was datamined was because they screwed up the downsizing process.

Usually gamestop/store employees get the game 10 days before the official release , some ill-minded employee hands over a copy to someone who dumps the game and afterwards the CIA/NSP/XCI gets tossed around all over the internet forums

This is how i've seen it happen for the past 2 gens

theSLAYER · March 2, 2019

1 hour ago, Hello, it's me! said:

Usually gamestop/store employees get the game 10 days before the official release , some ill-minded employee hands over a copy to someone who dumps the game and afterwards the CIA/NSP/XCI gets tossed around all over the internet forums

This is how i've seen it happen for the past 2 gens

Well then in that scenario it doesn’t matter whether they have a demo right

March 3, 2019

Let's talk about the game itself... Am I the only one here who feels a little bit disappointed about the trailer?
I was actually more hyped when I heard about the Unreal Engine Job Posting and these rumors:

I hoped for a bigger step forward for the series, if not for the gameplay at least in terms of graphic style as well as sound goes. Something a little bit more impressive... OK, Nintendo doesn't know what anti-aliasing is, so why should GameFreak, but these low-res textures are really painful to imagine on a big tv screen. Also I feel there is a huge difference in quality between the 3D models (now made my Creatures as far as I'm concerned) and the background.
If you don't know what I mean:

And it looks like they still keep recycling the old sound and music effects... Qualitywise I hoped this would feel more like a home console game and finally be the big change the series needed to be named with Mario and Zelda... I'm not even going as far to say being named a "Game of the Year" candidate in its Genre, Reception will always be good anyway because Pokémon can only be compared against Pokémon. Even within the RPG Genre no one is really taking the challenge to raise the bar... but I feel it's sad to see that they're not even trying to push forward to make a more modern feeling Pokémon game...

As far as innovation goes... I wished they would reimagine the vision of Pokémon and figure out how to evolve the gameplay instead of just building little features on top of the old core game. I mean what Satoshi Tajiri did is he translated his hobby as a "Bug Catcher" to a Game Boy Game, which is essencially what Pokémon became. Pokémon was more than just a game... back in the day it was fresh and innovative and known for adding innovative new features, however the core is still the same game from 1996. And while they were thinking about changing the game they never did it, so what we get is literally the same formula that was created for the original Game Boy Game with all its technical limitations which back in the day was an impressive game that pushed the Game Boy to its limits and a game perfectly playable on a handheld. But we're in a different time now and this is a completely different console and I feel that this could be the point where the flaws of the game might become even more visible... for example that it's not just a handheld game anymore but also a home console game. Still waiting to learn about the features but I'm convinced that the game will be pretty much the same we imagine.

I feel like the gameplay has become really stale after so many generations. You can say anything you want about Let's Go but at least they tried something different here. Now we're back with random encounters and the old wild battle system and people are happy about it. I have played Pokémon since Gen 1 and I have been a huge fan of the game since day one... Let's Go was not the Pokémon Game I always wanted but it was something different and I liked how I changed my way of playing the game, how it was more fast-paced as it's so much faster to catch Pokémon. It was an refreshing experience... and most of all I liked having Pokémon appear on the map and to be able to approach the Pokémon I want to catch, it also felt less silly than the stupid situation where you go through one random encounter after another just to escape to finally find the Pokémon you wanted to find. There's a reason why so many modern J-RPGs moved away from random encounters simply because it's rather annoying and outdated. I knew we will get wild battles since the last E3 and all the people complaining about Let's Go... but at least I wished they would keep spawning Pokémon on the map like they did in Let's Go, or at least give us a mix of both which I feel would have pleased everyone...

Instead what we get feels like "Just another Pokémon Game".
I mean it is what it is... and it was kinda expectable... I just wished they would surprise me this time.
C'mon GameFreak!

Starjudy · March 7, 2019

Nice, hope it will come soon, the last switch Pokémon: Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee! I have played them on my switch via sx pro, but now switch 7.0.1 has blocked all cfw, I think r4s donmgle + Atmosphere CFW will be the best choice, all of these switch card can be found easily on the Internet.

theSLAYER · March 7, 2019

I’ll excited for this game.

I’m glad I didn’t have unrealistic expectations. I think the graphics look really crisp, though I’ll like to see more from official sources before I commit emotionally.

I’m a bit down that there isn’t overworld encounters (I dislike having to battle endless amounts of Zubat in order to find what I want), but I understand why they made it traditional wild battles again, and I don’t hate it either way, so no losses there.

I’m curious what new gimmick they’ll add this generation. (Before people scream armor evolutions from the supposed leak, just gonna say I’m not committing to the idea just yet. It could have been a lucky guess. I’ll like to see more first.)

PokeMaster99999 · March 14, 2019

On 2/28/2019 at 8:54 AM, Poke J said:

Ya! Woooo! Gen 8 is here, but I feel we're missing the bigger picture here. We need to start pressuring Game Freak to base gen 9 on Germany.

...And the evil Team will be after controlling the Daycare system, trying to create "perfect" Pokémon via breeding? Rejecting all babies without 31*5 IVs for being 'genetically inferior'?

Team Smogon?

PokeMaster99999 · March 14, 2019

On 3/4/2019 at 10:50 AM, ajxpk said:

As far as innovation goes... I wished they would reimagine the vision of Pokémon and figure out how to evolve the gameplay instead of just building little features on top of the old core game. I mean what Satoshi Tajiri did is he translated his hobby as a "Bug Catcher" to a Game Boy Game, which is essencially what Pokémon became. Pokémon was more than just a game... back in the day it was fresh and innovative and known for adding innovative new features, however the core is still the same game from 1996. And while they were thinking about changing the game they never did it, so what we get is literally the same formula that was created for the original Game Boy Game with all its technical limitations which back in the day was an impressive game that pushed the Game Boy to its limits and a game perfectly playable on a handheld. But we're in a different time now and this is a completely different console and I feel that this could be the point where the flaws of the game might become even more visible... for example that it's not just a handheld game anymore but also a home console game. Still waiting to learn about the features but I'm convinced that the game will be pretty much the same we imagine.

...Well, it's not entirely based off of the Game Boy games; Ruby and Sapphire did completely revolutionise the underlying mechanics (Nature, IVs ranging from 0-31 instead of 0-15, EV system that caps at 510 total and 255 in a specific stat, Ability).

As for "home console game", Colosseum and XD: Gale of Darkness (not made by Game Freak, and therefore never really mentioned, sadly) kept the exact same battling and underlying mechanics as the GBA games, but added Shadow Pokémon and Snagging them on top. XD also had Battle CDs and Battle Bingo, which were pretty enjoyable sidequests. I too would like Sword and Shield to add something like this to bolster the experience, but Game Freak doesn't seem to have the same creativity that Genius Sonority did - they created utter masterpieces in Black/White (the best mainline Pokémon narrative, hands-down) and Black/White 2 (best amount of additional content - PWT, PokéStar Studios, Keys, Hidden Grottoes, Black Tower/White Treehollow, Challenge Mode), but followed them up with the complete borefest that was XY (weak Trainers, boring region and characters, almost no additional content, inexplicable nerfs to Steel and special moves).

Not to mention how they screwed over Let's Go - reducing the roster to only 151 Pokémon (plus Alolan formes, oddly) limits both the player's and the AI's team variety (Agatha and Lance are once more forced to use non Ghost-type and non-Dragon-type Pokémon), motion controls are dumb and repetitive and gimmicky, lack of held items and Abilities make battling less enjoyable, removed consistent and reliable EV system in favour of unreliable Candies, lacks the additional content the Game Boy Advance remakes introduced - the Sevii Islands - meaning the postgame is pretty much nil. FireRed and LeafGreen also locked players to only 151 Pokémon, even to the point of disabling Golbat's evolution into Crobat and placing the two-Pokémon Daycare in a postgame location to prevent breeding Pichu and such, but they at least removed this restriction upon obtaining the National Pokédex - Let's Go has no such leeway.

Anyway...this got a bit long. TL;DR - GBA brought about a revolution under the hood, and innovative home console Pokémon games have been made before, but not by Game Freak. Oh, and Game Freak is the worst at times.

PokeMaster99999 · March 14, 2019

On 3/7/2019 at 9:17 PM, Starjudy said:

Nice, hope it will come soon, the last switch Pokémon: Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee! I have played them on my switch via sx pro, but now switch 7.0.1 has blocked all cfw, I think r4s donmgle + Atmosphere CFW will be the best choice, all of these switch card can be found easily on the Internet.

Apparently Atmosphere's been updated for 7.0.1, so it should work - just not SX from Xecuter.

Talking about CFWs and homebrew, though, I personally find it quite important; I like to give my Pokémon 31*5 IVs and ideal EV spreads, and give them moves they are physically capable of pulling off but can't actually legally learn (i.e. Body Slam on Stoutland, Cross Chop on anything that learns X-Scissor or Cross Poison - what's the difference?, Close Combat on Luxray, Drain Punch on punching Pokémon - like Hitmonchan and Dusknoir). Also Nature and Ability, too. So I'll probably wait until PKHeX is updated to support it, or some other tool's made (like how PokéGen supplanted Pokésav, but PKHeX supplanted PokéGen).

Edited March 14, 2019 by PokeMaster99999

March 17, 2019

@theSLAYER What means "unrealistic" though? It almost sounds that it was impossible to make something better on a technical level...
And I don't see anything crips... I think the presentation is underwhelming, the 3D models are fine but there's a huge gap between those and the rest, especially when you look at the graphics and textures. I uploaded 2 pictures to my previous post to underscore what I mean...

@PokeMaster99999 I was talking about the gameplay itself. You're talking about features but the fact is it's still an old school turn-based RPG where you can't really interact much with the overworld apart from talking to NPCs and picking up items, with random battles on the map and a battle system where you pick between 4 Moves, it's just like the original Game Boy Game. When they first created Pokémon they were inspired by the SaGa franchise from Square seeing how well an traditional RPG can do on a handheld console. Meanwhile RPGs have changed and added action features and some even went becoming full Action RPGs while Pokémon is still pretty much the same. It's probably one of the franchises that is the most restricted as far as innovation goes in favor of tradition. I don't think it will ever change considering the way they do it is secure and lucrative with every 2 years throwing out a pair of new Pokémon Games and Pokémon will always sell no matter what they do, so it makes sense from a company perspective...

I just would really like to see something where I feel "Cool, that's new"... and that's all...
Pokémon Let's Go did it even it is not my favorite game of the franchise, but I liked that they did away with random battles seeing Pokémon appearing in real size on the map. This way the maps feels less empty and the way we play changes, too. I had really fun catching and chaining a lot of Pokémon this way. Some people like seeing the return of Pokémon following the Trainer which I don't really care about, but approaching the Pokémon I want to catch was something I really liked. I don't talk about the catching mechanics, just about visible Pokémon on the map and it's just an example, a small thing but it changed a lot and I hoped that could been a hint that they try new things.

Since Let's Go I feel that I would really love to see the next game become something bigger... like an open world experience where you can interact more freely. Like where you have different ways of searching and catching Pokémon and gameplay that feel less repetitive with more options how to play. For those who want to they could just approach a Pokémon and battle it but why does an encounter always mean that we have to battle? Pokémon Go and Let's Go show us that luring and throwing a PokéBall could be enough? And this wasn't even something new as we all did it before in the Safari Game. I think it would be cool to have it optional and let the us decide what we want to do and figure out what's the most efficient way and that would also give the game more freedom and depending how deep the gameplay becomes they could give these Pokémon some AI which would make them have more personality like actual living beings, which is something they actually want us to believe and that's the weird thing about keeping the old static gameplay the way it is...

I see that I'm pretty much alone with my views here and I think most people are happy that everything is still the same... good for you guys...

theSLAYER · March 17, 2019

5 hours ago, ajxpk said:

What means "unrealistic" though?

I would imagine it would be any technical expectation for the specifications, beyond what’s shown in the latest main series game (in this case, LGPE) and in the latest trailer.

For example, expecting an “open world” type of gameplay when it isn’t a thing in the most recent games Nor explicitly shown in the latest trailer. If people expect that, they’re setting themselves up for failure.

Granted, such a mechanism could be revealed, because “oh the trailer hinted at this and that” (in this case the camera appears to be slightly free) but going by that argument, anything could be speculated to be revealed. That covers too much ground, and it’s unlikely a game would be that all encompassing. Hence, unrealistic.

(counter argument: it could just be camera angle changes when character at certain maps or locations. Look back to Lumiose or Castelia.

I would like to be wrong about this, but my hopes don’t change reality)

I mean, by the time XY, SM and USUM was launched, it feels as tho they pretty much revealed everything. It appears GF doesn’t exactly hold back content to surprise their fans..

March 17, 2019

I feel a little bit misunderstood. I separated presentation and gameplay for a reason. I had no “expectations” when it comes to gameplay changes, I had expectations when it comes to the style and quality of the graphical presentation. I expect more quality for a full prized home console game and I think Let’s Go looked alright (for a Yellow Remake) in comparison and looked more polished than this. I was expecting this to look even better, hence I was disappointed seeing the trailer. The only thing that convinced me in the trailer are the 3D models, they did a good job when you compare the Pokémon models with the ones from Let’s Go.

About the other things I just wished (not expected) there was some kind of surprise, something fresh and new. The game is not a pure handheld game anymore. I don’t really think that’s unrealistic as they already have been saying in interviews that a Pokémon home console game must be different and reimagined and since Let’s Go I would say nothing is impossible, no one saw that coming, instead people thought we would get a Diamond & Pearl Remake with the Sun & Moon Engine. And even Let’s Go has been often criticized because people wished it to be like Sun & Moon it sold well. So an enhanced gameplay experience would do as well and I think it would have been the right time to do it now...

As for “open world experience” I think the transition would come more than natural as it’s an RPG. The story is about a young Pokémon Trainer going on a journey finding and catching Pokémon. There just would have to be a more interaction with the world to give it a more adventurous feel and to make you feel like you really discover a world by giving more depth to the way you interact with the overworld. I’m just saying how it could have been... It doesn’t really matter, based on the trailer it’s clear that nothing in that direction is going to happen. Even on the “new” hardware...

I hope at least they do something to make this generation one to remember for the ages. Maybe the Sword 🗡 and Shield 🛡 Theme means they’re playing with RPG clichés which would be interesting considering how the first games were originally like other RPGs in early development phase and this could be an opportunity to add scrapped ideas and content. I would just love to see what Pokémon could have become under different circumstances and I can imagine this might be one thing they already had in mind before, I find the armored Mewtwo trademark interesting, but I hope it’s not some kind of Mega Evolution thing and rather just like an equipped item with the effects being activated immediately, it wouldn’t make sense in my opinion and should be different than Mega Evolutions because otherwise it’s just a reused feature with a different name.

puchamon · April 5, 2019

I am a little disappointed in what is shown, although they are early stages and the game will change in the face of the final product. The designs of the pokemons are beautiful, in that there is no doubt, but they are more caricaturized than ever, something that has happened with the aesthetics since the 5th gene, behind were the most realistic animal designs of Ken Sugimori

What is shown in the trailer is basically a USUM pokemon but with higher resolution. We return to the random capture mechanics and without pokemon that follow you. Something that I think is a throwback, after what is shown in pokemon lets go Pikachu - Eevee.

the design of the trainer is quite bland, the charismatic designs of the first 6th gen were left behind to become a customizable anime-style generic avatar (which is not a mpg rpg to justify it).

the games lately are more automatic than ever (like pokemon quest) I only hope that the cinemactias can skip, because in SM, they made me heavy and slow.

As for the region, it seems interesting, the scenarios are fine, I liked them.

and the rumors that now the pokemon will have armor can be an interesting and fun concept as it was the mega evolution in its day or the alola variants in the 7th generation.

what is clear is that the game will not be polished, since the generation 6 games require patches, unfortunately this game will not be the exception.

and as a collector, I regret that there is no national pokedex. something that they also removed from the sixth generation. Tap pay poke bank.

Honestly I would be more excited about a Pokemon Lets go Jhoto or with Remakes Pearl / Diamond, but I will buy it out, I like pokemon since its launch in the late 90s

This may not happen but now that the online is paid and the pokemon for its style of play will not have saved in the cloud, could include the free pokebank with the menbresia online.