Okay, as a successor to the trailer analysis it was only natural to do this, plus I did something like this three years ago for G7. This is where I extrapolate on everything I think we’ll get in Sword and Shield and everything I want to get. In no particular order:
-First off, I’m not demanding some Breath Of The Wild or Super Mario Odyssey-esqe leap forward like a lot of people seem to be doing, and I kind of side-eye those people (including some Youtubers I’m disappointed in because I know they’re better than that). That’s not sustainable for every single Nintendo franchise or hell every single video game franchise period. What I do want is a smaller advancement that keeps the franchise what it is while adding plenty that is new and interesting and not too gimmicky - to quote @enigma-boi on my Discord server more like the difference between Splatoon 1 and Splatoon 2. I want it to be like the breath of fresh air Unova or even Alola were. -On the note of those two please have a good plot. It’s not a dealbreaker but please. -Also less of a focus on gimmicks. Mega Evolutions and Z-Moves and such are cool but if you try to top them every gen things get… bloated. This is part of why I don’t like the Armored Evolution rumor. -There’s probably going to be at least one Eeveelution. Give me Dragon or give me death. -DITCH THE CATCHING TUTORIAL. LET’S GO HAD A STEP IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION THERE. PLEASE. -Hopefully HMs are gone for good too. I’m optimistic they are but. -Also put your PC in your bag like Let’s Go but make it more like the PCs from Hoenn to Alola. -Nicknaming your Pokemon on the fly should come back too. And LET US NICKNAME TRADED POKEMON FOR GOD’S SAKE -I feel we’ll get it but give us the Pokemon Amie equivalent. Let me pet my Arceus on my big-screen TV. -On that note. They said this would be a more handheld-oriented experience but I think when docked there will still be motion control some places like the Amie equivalent and in minigames, which are replaced by the touch screen and/or buttons in handheld mode. -I’m a little sad gyms are back because the island trials in G7 were a nice change of pace but given that weird logo that’s showing up everywhere I still have hope Galar’s gyms are unconventional. We’ll see. -Minor nitpick but I hope Pokecenters and Pokemarts are still merged here. I know they’ve only been unmerged in remakes of games predating that concept but still. -I’m pretty sure it’s not coming back this time but I want co-op to make a return. That was fun in Let’s Go, even if most of my experience with it was forcing a RL friend that knows jack shit about Pokemon to play with me. -Speaking of multiplayer! Go back to an online experience more like G6’s. Please. I’m begging you Gamefreak. -Regarding the Galar region and its UK-y nature my one wish is that we get a bunch of pesudo-Arthurian bullshit as part of the setting lore. If there is none I will be forced to make some (and probably do some silly Fate series crossovers while I’m at it). -References to UK pop culture would be delightfully silly too. -For the cover legendaries… the logos make me think twin wolves. There’s a rumor that it’s a metal snake and wooden horse and while I would be 100% down for the metal serpent and the inevitable Metal Gear Solid jokes it would attract that leaves the question of what the wolf heads represent so I’m currently banking on my first guess. -This makes me think the third legendary is a cat. Possibly a lion because Britain but we just had Solgaleo. Maybe a Welsh dragon instead. Or a third option of dragon cat. I suddenly want this. -As for other Pokemon… I’m not really picky as there’s no Pokemon design I outright dislike and I doubt that’s gonna change, so I’m cool with whatever. But I hope because of the setting we have lots of Dragon types. Also a gryphon/griffin Pokemon. Maybe with a hippogriff as a counterpart -Also this has nothing to do with the setting but I want a hummingbird and a dolphin -As for the final forms of the starters… I’m guessing/hoping Grass/Dark for Grookey, Fire/Electric for Scorbunny, and Water/Dragon for Sobble -On a minor note I hope they either make the Escape Rope a non-consumable key item or have a HM equivalent that lets you nope out of dungeons. -I assume Trainer customization is back but I’m gonna put it as a request anyway. Additionally, for when we do get it, diversifying hair and eye color beyond “natural” options as much as possible (if the NPCs can have blue hair why can’t we? We’re the protagonist! We’re supposed to be more special™ than they are!) Gen 7 had headway for this but I want MORE. Also a skin tone slider. -More events that let you catch and name the Pokemon yourself -There doesn’t seem to be a Dark gym on the map so… Give us a lore reason there’s not a Dark-type gym. (Is there some Defense Against The Dark Arts bullshit going on here? We need to know!) -This one is a bit weird but bring back something like the Friend Safari? That was fun. -Random encounters are back. Sigh. As a hope I hope we get a key item that replaces Repels and lets you toggle them on or off. -Upgrade a lot of the more held-item-based, out-of-battle-use only, or otherwise lackluster/situational Abilities to be less so. -Fill out the unused type combos. Especially the unused Fairy combos. GIVE ME FAIRY DARK AND DRAGON BUG -There will inevitably be cameos of characters from other regions and one of them is going to be Looker. Looker is omnipresent. Looker is omniscient. Looker is a being too powerful for this world. Arceus looks upon Looker and quakes in fear at what they have created. -And last but not least I think we’ll get at least one new hot female NPC and at least one new hot male NPC, because I am a bisexual mess. Whew! That was mostly hopes because I feel like we could get just about anything this gen but it was fun to write. But that’s about it. If anyone wants to throw predictions of their own at me feel free to do so.
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Because this was a more pleasant subject than some of the other Tumblr rambles I was considering.
But HOLY WOW. It happened! It finally happened! We have our first brand new Pokemon generation on a home console! It took Nintendo merging their home and mobile console experiences and we got a remake nobody can agree on if it’s a spinoff or not first but it happened. And I could not be happier. It looks so pretty. I know people wanted super-powerful graphics (more on stuff like that later) but Pokemon’s always looked nicer with that cartoony style (Detective Pikachu notwithstanding) and for what it is it looks gorgeous. I especially loved the way the water and the forests looked, and some of the effects. There’s this mysterious symbol going on with the gyms and the soccer/football jersey and even the game’s logos. I’m assuming it involves the Big Gimmick of this generation, the Mega and Z move equivalent. What it is, I can’t say. I’ve heard rumors but I don’t like any of them and have good reason to doubt most of them. But we’ll see. THE STARTERS. I love them all. I love Scorbunny the most though and I don’t care if it’s Fire Fighting I will love and protect it. I like the other two about equally, which is weird, since I can usually pin a least favorite even if I like all of them (which I always do). I just… want to hug them. Grookey needs more love though. Of course I need to see their evolutions before I make any final judgements but. The region looks really nice. I was surprised the UK rumors were true but I kinda like it. I especially like all the memes that have sprouted around this fact - particularly the female protagonist having all the essence of Groundskeeper Willie and Scottish Twitter stuffed into an anime girl’s body. I am a little disappointed in a couple things, and they’re both actually things I liked in Let’s Go. First off was the fact that classical random encounters are back instead of Pokemon appearing in the overworld. My ideal would have been that happening but you still fight them traditionally. I get the sheer amount of Pokemon that tended to appear at a time in Let’s Go might be weird to do in this engine, but it happening at all would make the world feel even more alive. Second is the lack of following Pokemon, which I was really hoping would be making a comeback. I just really hope all the genuine innovations in Let’s Go aren’t stuck there since this is more traditional - I want to nickname Pokemon on the fly and keep my PC in my bag and do co-op and stuff like that. I’m also a little disappointed we’re returning to gyms but there’s hints the gyms won’t be… conventional so we’ll see. That said… I keep seeing people who are disappointed in this game for kind of silly reasons? It’s like that Spongebob meme I did a bit back - you’re either happy this game exists at all or you’re disappointed it’s not some Breath Of The Wild or Super Mario Odyssey-esqe experience and the only in-betweens I saw were… like, three gaming and Nintendo Youtubers I follow. They outright said this was going to be more traditional, Gamefreak always takes baby steps, and, like, we’ve only seen less than seven minutes of gameplay so cool your jets on how “”“ambitious”“” or not this is. I did say on my main blog I wouldn’t mind this looking kinda like a Tales game and this is giving me kinda-sorta-maybe Vesperia vibes with how it looks and plays with camera angles so. On the note of getting more info, now begins the drip feed. The first couple months are always slow, but we’ll get more info eventually. I’ll probably go over my hopes and predictions for this generation in another post soon though. But yeah this year is a crazy one to be a Pokemon fan. We’re getting our first brand-new mainline game on a home console, we’re getting a remake of the first animated movie that’s also the first full CGI movie, and we’re getting our first live-action movie that has even weirder CGI than the full CGI movie. Shit’s wild man. Now if you’ll excuse me I need to hug all the new starters. |
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May 2019
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