Pokémon Sword and Shield Discussion (this isn't ACTUALLY locked, btw)

[Missing? NO!]

Looks like there'll be a Pokemon Direct tomorrow at 6 AM PST. If you haven't been following the official Pokemon Twitter account as of late, they've been tweeting out a "tourism" tweet for every region over the past seven days leading up to Pokemon Day (tomorrow).

We'll know more tomorrow, but, until that happens, feel free to use this thread to speculate on what might be revealed tomorrow. My thought is that Generation 8 will be revealed, along with the starters, region, and box legendaries. We'll also definitely get the game titles.

My pipe dream is that we'll be able to travel to every region in that game, as the Switch is much more powerful console than any of the consoles that have housed mainline games in the past. It would definitely be possible... but whether or not it'll actually happen is another thing, though. I definitely think there's a chance, though, given the Pokemon account's past tweets over the last week.

[Parzival]

inb4 it's yet another rehash of Gen 1 and the other regions are DLC

[Bert]

inb4 it's yet another rehash of Gen 1 and the other regions are DLC

>Implying we'll ever get more than one region again

Lol silly gaijin kids don't have time to play through more than one region, what with all those smartphone games we think we're competing against for some reason. Btw the event Pokemon will be fifty dollars plus tip :^)

[Sherkel]

Which region should we visit next, Trainers?

This makes it seem very likely it'll be about Gen 8, thinking back to how they did the X and Y reveal.

Can't say I have any particular feelings one way or the other until it's announced. I've never been disappointed by a new generation, but between LGPE and the last two simply not being Unova I can't convince myself to be that hyped.

[ISSOtm]

I'll just link to what I replied to a guy asking for expectations on Gen 8.
Seriously, I'm definitely watching that Direct. After it, either I'll be trashing GF as I have been before, or I'll say some good from them - depends on whether that expectation is met. I really hope it is, I don't want Pokémon to become an "EA franchise"...

[Sherkel]

Well then!

Honestly, not too much I can say about the release trailer. The starters look okay, and the quick glimpses of the region were really nice, but might not represent most of what we'll see. The protagonists look very nondescript, but that could be due to customization features, hopefully increased since Sun and Moon. I do like how they took the chance right away to give an extremely blatant "WE BROUGHT BACK RANDOM ENCOUTNERS AND THE CATCHING SYSTEM", and the logos suggest some sort of change in tone down the line, so overall...yeah, I like what we've got so far (even if it's very little)! Shield these live up to the hype, I'm sure Game Freak will find their popularity has sword again!

[Parzival]

3/10 thumbnail has too much water

[Bert]

I can't wait to walk down all those straight lines and battle Trainers who carry less than six Pokemon.

[Hālian]

3/10 thumbnail has too much water

[judges you in hoennese]

[Raven Freak]

Scorbunny is the only decent looking starter this gen. Plus I don't like the names of the other two. Nothing is ever going to top Litten as the best starter IMO, cats are my favorite animal and dark types are my favorite. However I am extremely hyped to play Sword! It's been mostly confirmed that this region takes place in the UK, and I bet the evil team will be called Team Royal. I'm also speculating that Meltan/Melmetal play a role in medieval times as Pokemon who helped forged swords and shields and they only appear to trainers with royalty in present times. Their designs make much more sense, now we know the names of the Gen 8 games. I'm curious though, who is getting Shield here? Also I can't be the only one to think of the Yu-gi-oh card Shield and Sword right? :V

[Missing? NO!]

Stickied this due to relevancy / unstickied Sun and Moon Discussion due to irrelevancy.

Have to say, I'm pretty stoked looking at that most recent trailer. Really glad they brought back the catching system, and, though I'm a little disappointed that they're not bringing back overworld encounters from Let's Go, I'm definitely not heartbroken over the return of random battles. Also a little disappointed they didn't decide to go with a more realistic graphical style, a-la HD versions of Colosseum and XD, but the cel-shaded models look really good as is.

I'm a bit interested by the region. It looks really linear, even just by looking at the map. It's pretty clear that the Pokemon League is at the top of the map, past the mountains, and your hometown is at the bottom. I'm really interested to see how they allow us to explore the region, because I know for a fact Game Freak isn't just gonna say "okay walk up to get to your next destination".

Team Scorbunny btw

[Epsilon]

I've gotta chime in here... Can we talk about the starter design?

Just... they look odd outside of Scorbunny. The previous gen's starter designs were so much nicer in comparison - what with Litten, and Rowlet, with Popilio being the only one that might be a little bit out of the box (even then, it was still an OK design for what it's worth).


But in this Gen, the grass-type starter looks as though it was made in a terrible laboratory accident. I'm not even sure what the water-type starter is supposed to represent. That isn't to say Pokemon designs must represent something - but this almost looks like a deformed Mudkip.


Maybe i'm just being a grouch, but that's my $0.02.

[Zowayix]

I definitely have to agree with Raven Freak and Epsilon here. I know I've already talked about it in the Discord, but the more I think about it, the more I really have to agree.

Scorbunny is the only one who doesn't look completely s**t, personally, and that's only because it just looks a little bit s**t. I'm not a character design expert so I can't articulate what it is about these starters, but they just look really.... off.

Anyway, let's talk about the trailer a bit in general.

Feels like they didn't really tell us anything. Just showed us some ugly starters, some opponent trainer is a cute girl (damn right), the region has.... setpieces and details, and it's like… well of course it does.

It almost feels like they've deliberately set the bar low with Pokemon Go and Pokemon Let's Go so they can be like "yeah so we're actually making a Pokemon game". Hey kids! We have random encounters and normal catching mechanics! Yeah if you think about that in perspective, the other proper games had that too, so it's not actually special. The only reason why they need to sell us on that part is because stripped down experiences exist, and they need to reassure us that they _aren't_ giving us a stripped down basic game, they're saying "this could be done wrong but we won't do that", even though they're the ones who did the games without all the features anyway, so they're the ones who set the bar low in the first place, and.... argghhh

I'm falling asleep now, sorry for another tiredpost from your old pal Zowayix, I'm sure when I wake up I'll realise I have a lack of nuance

[ISSOtm]

It almost feels like they've deliberately set the bar low with Pokemon Go and Pokemon Let's Go so they can be like "yeah so we're actually making a Pokemon game". Hey kids! We have random encounters and normal catching mechanics! Yeah if you think about that in perspective, the other proper games had that too, so it's not actually special. The only reason why they need to sell us on that part is because stripped down experiences exist, and they need to reassure us that they _aren't_ giving us a stripped down basic game, they're saying "this could be done wrong but we won't do that", even though they're the ones who did the games without all the features anyway, so they're the ones who set the bar low in the first place, and.... argghhh

I've felt the same way... it's really too bad - I watched the Direct hoping they'd show something new for the first (not counting Let's Go) entry on a not-so-handheld console. When I told that to people in pret, though, they replied I was expecting Pokémon to become "not Pokémon", though.

[RashFaustinho]

It's still too soon to tell right now which kind of gameplay changes we will have, if any.

When X and Y were announced, GF took some time before they revealed the new main mechanic of the gen, Mega Evolutions, they didn't tell us immediately. Remember when they introduced Mega Mewtwo?

This trailer was more, like, a way of saying that this will not be a "Let's Go" game, rather than actually showing what it will be about.