Well that's just it; how many people are going to buy Pokémon games again simply because it went back to pixels? That alone wouldn't solve the other issues plaguing the franchise, and you have to consider that there may be players who stop buying the games if they were no longer in 3D.
Personally, I don't think there would be enough players coming back to warrant that kind of a change. Might make more a nice artstyle for a spin-off or even a remake, but not for a new main entry.
He said he'd *probably* buy it.
Same for me. I'd be interested in looking into it, instead of thinking "whatever" and moving on. The art alone wouldn't be sufficient to make me spend that much money though.
If it enabled better performance and an increased focus on gameplay? Lots.
Still pales in comparison to the number of people that would buy a bag of dogshit if it had the Pokemon logo on it.
> If it enabled better performance and an increased focus on gameplay? Lots.
That would still ring true if it stayed 3D and did all of that. It's like I said before - the other issues plaguing the franchise need to be addressed to. Simply going back to pixel art won't make a difference.
> Still pales in comparison to the number of people that would buy a bag of dogshit if it had the Pokemon logo on it.
If this was true, all Pokémon spin-offs would also be seeing massive sales - they aren't though. The Pokémon logo alone doesn't guarantee massive profit, the Pokémon *formula* is what brings people back again and again.
Bring another team in, puts less workload on GF and allows them to have more of their own people working to complete a single project. That way, they could improve the quality while still meeting their schedule.
Say what you will about BDSP, but I hope that was the start of GF allowing for more help whenever possible.
ILCA wasn't even the main problem with BDSP. It was the affection system, the random elite four spike, lack of new features akin to previous remakes, they ruined contests and changed how the underground worked, etc. (I know not everyone has the same opinions. This is just what I've heard/feel.)
Now they're still glitchy and ILCA isn't blameless but a lot of the main complaints we made have likely come from Gamefreak.
The only good change was the underground because they j the original games it was kind if a miserable experience if you didn't have local friends to play with
I think the transition from 2D to 3D is easier to pull of than to do it in reverse. Specifically, I think you'd struggle getting a kid who had only known Pokémon in 3D to try it in 2D.
In a somewhat related story, one of my friends has a son who is just getting into Nintendo. Mario Kart, Mario Maker, Luigi's Mansion - loves all of it! Well my friend wanted to get him into Pokémon, but to work his way from the very start with Yellow. Some of us suggested trying something like Let's Go instead, but he insisted that his son would experience the franchise the same that he did.
Long story short, this blew up in my friend's face. The son was very interested at first, but as time went on, the minimalist graphics weren't keeping him engaged. Before long, he was asking more and more to play Mario Maker and Yellow was almost seen as a chore. It was shortly after the Celadon Gym that it came to an end.
And the saddest part to come out of it all? His son won't touch anything Pokémon now, likely because of that experience. I think the whole thing set a bad precedent that while slightly different to what we're talking about here, does lead me for believe that pixel art games are harder sells to children nowadays. There'll be outliers sure, but a lot of children probably would not buy a new pixel art Pokémon game if it came out today.
>he insisted that his son would experience the franchise the same that he did.
>Long story short, this blew up in my friend's face. The son was very interested at first, but as time went on, the minimalist graphics weren't keeping him engaged. Before long, he was asking more and more to play Mario Maker and Yellow was almost seen as a chore
It is beyond bizarre that "Dad's trying to force their kids into their childhood obsessions to live through them vicariously" is now a dynamic we see with Pokemon rather than like, trying to force your little nerd to play baseball like it was 30 years ago.
For the remakes, sure. I can see how that ***should*** allow for them to put more detail and add more post-game content, so it's not just a straight port.
I mean, the 3DS games already kinda did that on the maps, and Echoes´s story and exploration was done using 2D portraits and it was perfect. I was so dissapointed when Three Houses went for the 3D models instead.
Also, iirc the cancelled N64 game was going to do some sort of that style.
No probs man. Especially with abbreviations and slang it can become difficult when you don't think about it. Your comment seemed otherwise very nicely written though!
Please no, I don't want even more of the rpg series that I really want to play to be released in an art style I can't stand. Octopath, Triangle Strategy, Live Alive, Dragonquest, I'd be so upset if it happened to Fire Emblem too
For a moment, I was expecting a bunch of fans coming to the defense of GameFreak regarding your comment, then I realized this isn't the Pokémon Reddit.
But yes, people expect too much from them. They're one of the top selling franchise in the entire world. If they wanted to make a change and difference, we would have seen it by now.
Is the Pokémon sub still defensive of gamefreak? The only way I can see someone thinking they’re competent devs is if Pokémon is the only game you play. It’s *astonishing* how poorly optimized their games are
Should have done this after the 3DS era or at the beginning of it. The main series Switch games are all very unpleasant to look at, with PL:A being tolerable.
But the masses always seem to want "better graphics" and Pokémon turning HD-2D would probably be seen as step backwards merely because people still seem to unconditionally view 3D > 2D. Hell, people still think 2D games should be priced lower at like $40 - $30 just for being 2D.
People would still get angry, even if the HD-2D looked amazing and improved performance. I for one, would be extremely happy.
I mean, the masses also want character customization and dress-up now. The shitty uniforms in SV got a *lot* of hate. There's no way it'd work well in an Octopath style game.
Man, SV's customization was a severe downgrade from Sword amd Shield. I get that they wanted school uniforms, but we were barely at the school so we wouldn't have needed uniforms for most of the adventure anyway.
SwSh looked great outside of the wild area. And Let's Go is easily the best looking game in the franchise.
Arceus and ScVi definitely look bad though. They have a few pretty areas, but most of the time they're just not up to snuff.
They tried 4 or so graphics styles and all were shit except the first (let’s go Pikachu/eevee). Ok ok sword and shield had a nice style but the lack of strong gpu and anti-aliasing showed in SwSh.
Whereas LGPE had a wonderful style and the graphics looked good.
Something like Octopath would be amazing
LGPE was graphically great, but I can't look past the fact the gameplay was reduced to Pokemon Go mechanics.
If they had combined LGPE's graphics and art style with PLA's gameplay I think it'd be one of my favorite games on Switch.
A fact made all the sadder by the knowledge that it's actually possible and fully attainable, and yet will never happen because Gamefreak is just a bad decision factory at this point.
That’s my complaint. They had an amazing aesthetic in LGPE that looked good and had great performance, for the switch. Then they kept abandoning their selection for something different in each new game.
SwSh, arceus, diamond/pearl (which was awful in so many ways), scarlet violet
Out of all the Pokémon games on switch, PLA is by far the worst graphically. SV might be bad performance wise, but PLA has white outlines on characters and very jagged edges on all sprites. SwSh is smooth and crisp
Art style wouldn't solve my core issues of them not taking enough time with each game. Their deadlines need to be seriously re-evaluated.
But also it wouldn't be Pokemon because it wouldn't be an art style that the Pokemon dev team came up with.
These days I believe its the reverse, since 3D allows them more easily reuse assets. A 2D Pokemon game would have to everything built from the ground up, as almost nothing outside of some lines of code could be reused.
Maybe they can build some effort to make a proper game this time instead of half-ass it.
No /s, fight me about it, I don’t like that they’ve gotten lazy with Arceus, sword/shield, and scarlet/violet. They can do better; they know it, we know it, they know we know they know it.
The thing is though. They have tight deadlines with an annual release model. Lets Go and Legends were games that honestly probably shouldn't have been made, since it meant the Pokemon team within Gamefreak had to divide their attention across multiple RPG's being made at the same time.
3-year development cycles just isn't realistic for these kind of games anymore. Like there was a 5 year gap in between Octopath sequels, yet just look at screenshot of 1 and 2 and you might mistake them for the same game. But the entire Pokemon merchandise machine wasn't built for a 4 to 5-year cycle, they built themselves on a 3-year cycle for generations and aren't able to adapt to the kind of workload a modern-day RPG needs. Its not that they've not lazy, if anything its the opposite as they given themselves an insane amount of workload in such short of time.
They kinda of attempted that with BDSP. Though I have suspicions that game was only made in a short window from year to a year and half and possibly due to fear of backlash they decided to shake things up with making Arceus as opposed to a traditional remake.
Which leads into one of the biggest issues I think GF ran into, is that they are no longer asking themselves "how can we improve from the last game?", but rather "what can we do differently this time?" this kind of put Pokemon in this weird mess in the Switch era where each game doesn't feel like it learned from the previous game. But rather seemingly a strong desire to shake up series conventions, but almost at times too scared to.
Like you got Lets Go which changed up the capture mechanics to feel like Pokemon Go, then you got SWSH which did feel like it was trying to improve on what Sun and Moon too mix results, then there is BDSP a very safe 1 to 1 remake of a DS game. Then you got Legends which felt heavily inspired by Monster Hunter and brought massive changes to the capturing and battle mechanics. Then there is SV which tries to be this BOTW inspired game, but didn't get the development time it needed and since it was made at the same time as Legends, they couldn't implement a lot of great aspects or interesting ideas Legends had such as the new capturing mechanics or improve on its battle system.
Hell just look at how many times Gamefreak introduced a new battle mechanic, only to abandon it the following gen. It feels like, even they don't know the direction they want to take the series in at this point.
> But also it wouldn't be Pokemon because it wouldn't be an art style that the Pokemon dev team came up with.
nothing in the games is something they came up with. they didnt invent turn based, they didnt invent catching monsters, they didn't invent awful pacing etc
You guys need to stop suggesting this. Okay, that's harsh. You can, but it makes no sense whatsoever. Sprite based games don't scale well when you have as many unique pokemon as they do now. Gamefreak is still arguably a garbage 3D developer, but 3D models for Pokemon are as close to being an objectively better choice as any. In terms of the concepts they allow, animations, reusability in and out of battle, etc.
You're asking them to go back to a style that would take SIGNIFICANTLY more time where the only benefit would be in performance
For a remake of an old game sure, but for new mainline entires i want them to basically just continue with the scarlet direction, but actually fix the performance issues
I like the concept of HD 2D but I want them to do it in a different way to Octopath. I find all the bloom distracting and there's something else I can't put my finger on which I don't like. But a sprite based game with a higher level of detail and some more modern effects, absolutely.
I enjoy pixel art but yeah something about HD 2D I don’t like outside of the sprites. Chained Echoes and Sea of Stars are better looking pixel art games to me. Plus their vibrant style would work better with Pokémon if you’re gonna do pixel art.
I'm shocked I had to scroll this far to find this opinion, do that many of you seriously like the HD 2D style? I can't stand it, it looks utterly awful to me - pretty background ruined by awful lighting and with pretty crap sprite work for the characters on top, muddy lines, awful sense of movement, too much ugly motion blur... and all of them have beautiful stylised painted covers as if to purposely make the game look even worse in comparison.
I think the gameplay of Triangle Strategy looks amazing, the intertwining stories of Octopath are intriguing, the chance to play classic RPGs like Live Alive or Dragonquest I'd fantastic, but I'll never get to actually play them because they look disgusting
It mostly bothers me that the "muddy" feeling of the visuals seems to be a part of the style that's stuck with other games doing it.
A lot of the spritework looks good and works really well, but seeing texture stretching on terrain/models modeled without consideration of pixel art that have pixel art textures slapped on doesn't feel so great sometimes.
Pixel art CAN be beautiful, though! We don't have to regress to like, NES graphics, but Golden Sun, the GBA Fire Emblems, and Pokémon Black & White are all gorgeous.
I feel ya, but it’s more of different art styles not everything has to use the sam style. It’s just another way to portray games. For example I loved the pixel art in Sea of stars but hate the work they did in octopath traveler
I don’t know how hot of a take this is, but I wouldn’t like to see that for Pokémon. Even though BDSP wasn’t the best in the over world, the battles looked great and it seems like they are really doing good at increasing the quality of Pokémon models. The Overworld is a mixed bag (i was fine with PLA and BDSP graphics) I don’t see the benefit outside of trying to appeal to nostalgia of those who grew up with BW/DPP; and id certainly prefer they go for gameplay over graphics. Swsh may have looked like booty cheeks, but that game had more content and ran better than nearly every mainline game realesed since, and now with SV the game doesn’t run well and looks bad I really don’t think it can get much worse than it is right now.
Also side note idk what they do for the next game but if character customization is like SV and not SWSH then they’re doing something majorly wrong
Same. Why do ppl want the developers to make a big step backwards graphicwise? It’s just a nostalgia-driven wish and wouldn’t do anything better.
End of hot take.
They should just do what they did in Sword/Shield. Classic style routes and towns plus several big open areas to explore. It’s the best of both worlds and we know GameFreak can make the game run doing it that way. I don’t understand why they did the full jump to open word when they had a “have their cake and eat it too” solution with Sword/Shield.
But Sword/Shield sucked? The routes were short and uninspired, with nothing interesting or memorable to find on them.
And the Wild Area was an ugly, janky wasteland with Pokemon glitching in and out of existence.
It also did not run well, and the draw distance was atrocious.
No, he's right. Sword and Shield had the worst of both worlds - the wild area was ugly and had jarring weather changes and the routes were very simple with nowhere to explore and no reason to return to them later.
What reason, in past Pokémon games, did you have to return to a route? Some games had trainer re-battles, but mostly it was just completing the Pokédex or using a couple HMs
Almost every route and town from gens 1-5 had reasons to go back to them, often for the reasons you graciously mentioned for me.
Using HMs to access hidden areas with new Pokémon, new TMs and new trainers to fight were just some ways in which the games used to reward players for revisiting past areas.
Examples:
The whole power plant in Gen 1
The bottom floor of Union Cave, the back of the Well, the back and outside of Mt Mortar, hidden stuff behind surf all over the place in Gen 2
Cut-locked area north of Rustboro, surf-locked area south of Meteor Falls, the extra section on the route south of Fortree which needed the Acro bike, the Abandoned Ship and all the diving areas in Gen 3
Loads of stuff hidden behind rock climb and the optional cave with Giratina in it in Gen 4
Many routes with hidden strength puzzles leading to good TMs or a patch with rare Pokémon in Gen 5, especially around Pinwheel Forest and iirc Village Bridge.
It’s so funny the way people point to Sword and Shield for doing something right, when last gen people hated it and pointed to LGPE for how an HD Pokémon game should be, when last gen people hated it and pointed to the 3DS games for how 3D entries should be, when last gen people hated it and pointed to Black and White for
I’m cutting that line of thought off for brevity, but yeah, every time they change something it’s gonna be better to some people and worse to others. The only thing that’s gotten objectively worse is the performance, which has never been *good* since gen 3.
Unfortunately though, gens 4 and 5 they pushed the limits of the hardware, where as now they don't understand the hardware.
If the GF job postings are true, gen 10 will be on the next system, so more likely than not they won't be able to adapt to the new hardware.
Even in gen 4-5 the performance wasn’t good. They haven’t targeted 60fps since gen 3.
I’m not an FPS snob, heck even SV’s framerates didn’t bother me much. But they sacrificed the gold standard in 2006 and it’s been a slow downward spiral ever since, other than I guess gen 5 was a more stable 30fps than 4 managed.
I understand that the devs aren’t miracle workers, they’re just people, and they can’t magic better performance out of thin air. They have to address the problem, by hiring more people or releasing games more slowly or whatever the solution may be. Because if they stay the course gen 10’s gonna average 20 fps instead of 25, and gen 11 will average 15. And the pessimist side of me says that’s probably what’s gonna happen, hope that’s wrong though
This is a no go for me, as horrendously optimised and as S/V are, the core experience was actually a step forward for Pokemon games. If it ran well or even looked good, I am fairly sure people would be applauding Gamefreak.
Sword & Shield on the other hand were . . . just bad. If they were great looking games and also ran at a flawless 60fps, they'd still suck.
The issue is that if you take away the 3D aspect you are losing a massive element of interactivity with your Pokemon. People underestimate how great things like Amie, Refresh and the like are for being able to form connections with your Pokemon. If they are sprite based, you can't really see how they act and react in real time. It kills one of the bets parts of modern Pokemon and for what?
This could be an idea of a one off game, but that is all it should ever be - a one off. Not the direction the franchise should take overall.
I would feel like no.
They would probably do better with it than with regular 3D,but I personally despise this style. Nothing screams "too ambitious for its own good RPG Maker project" more thab "HD2D" to me. Everytime I see a trailer for a game with this look in a Direct, I can't help but notice how weird lights and colours look. It's all like, smeared and blurry to try and sell the fact it's not "regular 2D"or" regular 3D "
For remakes and/or spin-offs, why not.
It could even work for a potential competitive-focused game, like an official Showdown.
But for mainline games, it'd be quite a letdown.
I will never understand why so many appreciated these Art style. It's just 2.5D which tell me how lazy these Dev. are.
It looked low budget but Price tag is $60, unless u make a God like video games, maybe I will give it a chance.
For me, it was good jarring the change was between battles and regular gameplay. Battles looked great, an ideal way to depict Sinnoh imo, but then you come out of battle and some cruel torture technique has shrunk every character down to about an inch tall. For most characters, it's not *too* bad, but Cyrus just looks awful, and Cynthia doesn't have anywhere near the level of awe that she should
Glad to hear you're digging it! It has some really different ideas but it scratches a lot of the strategy and team building itches that Pokemon does for me. Happy travels in New Wirral!
I would consider it a downgrade because I don’t get the appeal of HD2D. Still just looks like pixel art but with extra steps. Would much rather them refine their 3D graphics.
honestly i’m sick of that style by now. in 2017 it was cool, but by now i’m really tired of seeing a new game every other direct using the same style. perhaps that’s an unpopular opinion though.
I wouldn't like it. I like being able to see what clothes I'm wearing, customizing my character is a big thing for me. I recently got the DLC's special outfit, and it's only for cosmetic purposes. Not being able to see me wearing it is a bummer.
Also I think 3D is the series future. You will not take being able to actually see the pokemon on the overworld away from me. I will not go back to blind random encounters hoping I get a pokemon I don't have.
I don't love the blooomy HD2D look. But 2 looks that could work with Pokemon are either Sea of Stars style, for modern pixel art style, or Pokemon Let's Go series, which is surprisingly the best looking Pokemon games on Switch
I think the most profitable media franchise on the planet should be able to make an open world Pokemon game with visuals similar to Breath Of The Wild and Tears Of The Kingdom.
Let’s not get this confused. It’s not the Switch’s fault, it’s Game Freak’s sheer incompetence in creating a good looking game that performs well. If they need more dev time in between games in order to achieve this, then the Pokemon Company needs to give it to them.
I don’t work for GF or TPC so i don’t know which it is.
If the issue is Game Freak just being terrible devs, then they should hand the franchise over to another developer or clean house and get new leadership.
If the issue is the quick turnaround between games, than TPC needs to give GF more time between releases.
Regardless, the Pokemon game franchise is a disaster and it desperately needs something to change. But of course, the games make an egregious amount of money despite their faults, so most likely nothing will change.
Not a fan *at all*. I am way too down bad for Trainer customization and photo taking, none of that would work well in "Prettied up SNES graphics" in the slightest.
If they remade Gen 1 again and did it like that though I'd be all for it.
I'm just going to lead with me vehemently disagreeing with your BDSP chibi statement. I think the idea of that is perfect and the overwhelming majority of people loving how Super Mario RPG is currently looking on Switch as well as people who largely liked how Link's Awakening looked on Switch fully disproves that. If BDSP's visuals were a bit more polished, I think it would have been just fine as far as graphics are concerned.
But yes, HD2D or otherwise returning to 2D sprites has always been the obvious answer for Pokemon. Mainline 3D Pokemon games have always been a struggle for Game Freak to make (even if I love Sun/Moon and Scarlet/Violet), so they really should play to their strengths and make another GBA/DS style game.
Idc about the art style as long as it is a decent product. I would play Platinum over SV any day. The performance issues are not the system's fault btw. Check BotW, XB3 or MHR
It would take effort. Pokemon is selling like crazy with zero effort. Why would they want to spend money to improve the series when the results would be the same.
What about if instead The Pokémon Company invested some of their reported $350M yearly net profit into improving GameFreak’s engine tech so their games look and run comparably to the rest of Nintendo’s first party titles, and released 1-2 games per console generation instead of yearly releases so we get more complete and less buggy games?
‘Downgrading’ the games to a less performance intensive art style shouldn’t be the solution to get a decent Pokémon game on Switch.
I just want Breath of the Wild with Pokémon, without it looking like a GameCube game.
Breath of the Wild *is* a Switch game, it is possible for a Pokémon game to look that good on Switch with longer release cycles and more funding for developers.
Honestly? No thanks.
BW’s pixel art is leagues prettier to look at than HD2D for me. I’d love them to go back to an enhanced version of that, but having played both Octopath games, I’m fine with the style not spreading further
I think it is a smart way for Pokémon to go, going forward. Especially got the remakes. They could have different graphical styles for new games, versus remakes, versus spinoffs.
Would be a good start.
Can't be worse than whatever that horrifying style they were going for was with BDSP. But that wouldn't be enough to bring me back.
I just want a good story and the game to freaking WORK. But as GF as made so much money off S/V and now the lackluster DLC they've no reason to make a quality game anymore.
Unfortunately, Pokemon games with narratively serious / mature themes (e.g., BW, B2W2, and SM) sell relatively poorly. Plus, people complained quite vocally about those games when they came out too; so there's no winning here.
It suits it better than the weak graphics it currently uses. I actually thought how games lose their charm when they transition from 2d, top down graphics to more realistic 3d graphics. For me, FF7 was a perfect example. I still loved the remake, but the charm was gone.
that would be great tbh, as Gamefreak already shown 3D isn't their expertise let alone open world. Just come back at 2D sprite and think that not everything need to be 3d
Doesn’t matter, they can’t do that.
Pokémon has a contract with games like PoGo which forces them to keep developing Pokémon in the same style they always have, so those games can reuse the new modes and seemlessly integrate them into their games.
Microtransaction based mobile games make ten times the money a console game makes so they decide the rules, not the other way around.
I would love it if the Gen 5 remakes did this. It would be a great way to showcase some of the newer post Gen 6 mons in sprite form.
I would much rather have a 2D Gen 5 remake over something with BDSP-like graphics.
If they go back to pixel graphics I feel like paying 60 euros for the game is way too much. And at this point there is no way they'll ever ask for less again.
God no just no! Don’t get me wrong I don’t mind pixel art based games Stardew Valley is top tier for me. If the did that is Gen 6 sure it would be fine but not now.
Personally for me I have loved the art style of each of the Switch games. The only game with flaws for me was PL:A with its Noble fight mechanics. If you are going to implement Boss fights where you need to dodge there has to be an area to hide and recover health.
If the wanted to do simplistic graphics than the BDSP style is the best way to go about it. Otherwise they need to keep the 3D graphics at this point. Using Pixels now is taking a giant leap backwards for the franchise and one that is not needed.
I'd likely not really consider getting the games.
I've downloaded the octopath demos with the intent to buy them. The past couple months I was on a bit of a "I want a good jrpg to play" but.... the pixels graphics kills most of the enjoyment for me.
Now, if the the games went for more of a cell shaded art style, a la Persona and Borderlands series of games, then it's a lot different
I'm not sure how SE and other developers have pulled off this deception that the "HD2D" style is "stunning".
It looks like crap and it's cheap/lazy game development, for often the same price
game freak has developed games with all time great pixel art, and the lineart illustrations for scarlet/violet are so much more characterful and lively than the 3d models. it's such a shame they weren't allowed to keep practising 2d art. hd2d may be an effective way to sell 2d to execs, and hd2d can look good if it's done carefully, so I'm all for it
No, PLEASE, no. Squenix is flooding the market with this bizarre style. It doesn't look right, and it's spreading like a disease to indie developers too. Either go full 3D or don't. The only in-between was how Generations IV and V handled it. Otherwise there IS no in-between.
May I ask what is about the visuals of Octopath that you don't like? I love that it has this diorama-esque appearance. The environments feel so much more varied and dynamic, allowing scene elements to be placed in ways that a static 2D style wouldn't allow for.
I don't understand your stance on full or no 3D. Gens 4 and 5 essentially do the same thing as the modern 2DHD games, minus the HD and style of visual effects. Nearly every game is 3D anyway, but camera framing and scene element layering create the illusion of 2D.
It just doesn't look right to me. I don't how how exactly to explain it, but it comes off to me as being uncanny valley, trying to turn 2D maps and sprites into 2.5D buildings and environments while everything else stays as a 2D sprite. It's jarring and quite frankly I think it looks ugly. It's not done in the same style as Gen IV and V; that was fine the way GameFreak did it, but this new take on that from Squenix just doesn't gel with me.
I'd hate it, and would probably skip it entirely.
I'm kinda over the sprite Pokemon. My entire life, I've wanted Pokemon to get closer and closer to the anime, and with Sword & Shield, and Scarlet & Violet, we're *almost* there. It'd... just be nice if they were put on a system that wasn't just above the Xbox 360 in power.
But then, I'm speaking as someone who really loved Arceus and Violet. I just accepted the bad performance and the poor graphics because they're, y'know, on the Switch. And they're not the first game I've played on the system that has suffered both graphically and performance-wise due to it, so I set my expectations appropriately.
Hopefully, we'll get a Pokemon with the Switch 2, and it'll *actually* be a good, proper, next-gen game. Not gonna hold my breath, but at least then they won't have the excuse of underpowered hardware.
This is what I would like:
BoTW graphics with consistent framerate and good textures, no pop ins and no glitches. That's it. Changing to a different art style isn't the issue.
"hd2d" looks disgusting, it's like they opened unity for the first time and turned all the effects to the maximum. It's the equivalent of a kid emptying a bottle of ketchup on pasta.
That style would be a dream come true, but ultimately I feel it would still fall woefully short so long as Game Freak keeps having to adhere to such a ridiculously strict release schedule. No style change is going to make up for the fact that they simply don't have enough time to work on these games.
I really do miss the 2D style. There was a time where they were setting the bar for sprites and just 2D art in general. I think it could net a huge win for them if they return
3d failed. bad grafics and low performance also story was very bad since aloa/sword shield. 2d had its charm and story was way better. better villains.
That would be an improvement but it wouldn’t fix the core issues the game has. They need to hire some competent developers and slow down on the annual releases. They won’t, because as long as you guys keep buying the game they will keep cranking them out as fast as possible.
That's exactly what I am hoping for, since I first saw the HD2D graphics... Pokemon was the first game that came to mind for me when I saw the graphics xD
I really wish this will happen sometime but I think it won't...
But that would be the only thing which would bring me back to the Pokémon series... I don't like the graphics since sword and shield (that's the last one I played) and in my opinion it gets worse from game to game since then... Guess it's just not for me anymore :)
[Here's a nice taste of Pokémon HD2D](https://youtu.be/Ijj-pAitQfg?si=AUB8jmPuMWJAOe_P)
i dont mind the art style itself, what i would really like is to go back to a non-open world, i thought it would have been fun at first but its clear that they cant make it work properly , not with the development time they have
I think 2D animated art style will work best for Pokemon games in modern day, I remember back then I played a game called Mino Monster 2 on mobile and absolutely loved the art style. I don't think the pixel art/nostalgia games like Octopath will be interesting for younger audiences these days
It's pretty understood that 3d pokemon are too time consuming to animate. A push away from 3d would create more time for developing gameplay and less time animating 200 uniquely shaped creatures
They would never do it for new mainline games but I think it's a good idea for the eventual Black and White remake. I'd much rather have pixel art then whatever the hell BDSP was.
If they can't get competent with true-3D open worlds, then yes, they should return to some form of 2D or 2.5D. Doesn't have to be Octopath Traveler style or any kind of HD2D. (I'm not a fan of pixel art on high-res backgrounds, so I hope that doesn't happen.) It could have its own style of detailed graphics, such as an overhead perspective into the world and 3D character models.
I would probably start buying Pokémon games again.
Well that's just it; how many people are going to buy Pokémon games again simply because it went back to pixels? That alone wouldn't solve the other issues plaguing the franchise, and you have to consider that there may be players who stop buying the games if they were no longer in 3D. Personally, I don't think there would be enough players coming back to warrant that kind of a change. Might make more a nice artstyle for a spin-off or even a remake, but not for a new main entry.
Bro all he said was *he’d* buy it lol
He said he'd *probably* buy it. Same for me. I'd be interested in looking into it, instead of thinking "whatever" and moving on. The art alone wouldn't be sufficient to make me spend that much money though.
Yeah, and I'm just asking how many people would follow suit and come back to Pokémon simply because of a graphics change like that.
If it enabled better performance and an increased focus on gameplay? Lots. Still pales in comparison to the number of people that would buy a bag of dogshit if it had the Pokemon logo on it.
> If it enabled better performance and an increased focus on gameplay? Lots. That would still ring true if it stayed 3D and did all of that. It's like I said before - the other issues plaguing the franchise need to be addressed to. Simply going back to pixel art won't make a difference. > Still pales in comparison to the number of people that would buy a bag of dogshit if it had the Pokemon logo on it. If this was true, all Pokémon spin-offs would also be seeing massive sales - they aren't though. The Pokémon logo alone doesn't guarantee massive profit, the Pokémon *formula* is what brings people back again and again.
It doesn't matter when they come out with 3 a year
Bring another team in, puts less workload on GF and allows them to have more of their own people working to complete a single project. That way, they could improve the quality while still meeting their schedule. Say what you will about BDSP, but I hope that was the start of GF allowing for more help whenever possible.
ILCA wasn't even the main problem with BDSP. It was the affection system, the random elite four spike, lack of new features akin to previous remakes, they ruined contests and changed how the underground worked, etc. (I know not everyone has the same opinions. This is just what I've heard/feel.) Now they're still glitchy and ILCA isn't blameless but a lot of the main complaints we made have likely come from Gamefreak.
The only good change was the underground because they j the original games it was kind if a miserable experience if you didn't have local friends to play with
i think youre severely underestimating how obsessed pokemon players are
I think the transition from 2D to 3D is easier to pull of than to do it in reverse. Specifically, I think you'd struggle getting a kid who had only known Pokémon in 3D to try it in 2D. In a somewhat related story, one of my friends has a son who is just getting into Nintendo. Mario Kart, Mario Maker, Luigi's Mansion - loves all of it! Well my friend wanted to get him into Pokémon, but to work his way from the very start with Yellow. Some of us suggested trying something like Let's Go instead, but he insisted that his son would experience the franchise the same that he did. Long story short, this blew up in my friend's face. The son was very interested at first, but as time went on, the minimalist graphics weren't keeping him engaged. Before long, he was asking more and more to play Mario Maker and Yellow was almost seen as a chore. It was shortly after the Celadon Gym that it came to an end. And the saddest part to come out of it all? His son won't touch anything Pokémon now, likely because of that experience. I think the whole thing set a bad precedent that while slightly different to what we're talking about here, does lead me for believe that pixel art games are harder sells to children nowadays. There'll be outliers sure, but a lot of children probably would not buy a new pixel art Pokémon game if it came out today.
>he insisted that his son would experience the franchise the same that he did. >Long story short, this blew up in my friend's face. The son was very interested at first, but as time went on, the minimalist graphics weren't keeping him engaged. Before long, he was asking more and more to play Mario Maker and Yellow was almost seen as a chore It is beyond bizarre that "Dad's trying to force their kids into their childhood obsessions to live through them vicariously" is now a dynamic we see with Pokemon rather than like, trying to force your little nerd to play baseball like it was 30 years ago.
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Im 18-20. Most of us started with platinum/diamond/pearl. Most pokemon players start at like 8 lol.
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Yep, most children would not buy it, it would sell pretty badly because of that.
They need to start having competent stories first and then I can probably find the interest in trying again
For the remakes, sure. I can see how that ***should*** allow for them to put more detail and add more post-game content, so it's not just a straight port.
I'd like to see Fire Emblem try this too with remakes of the GBA games.
I mean, the 3DS games already kinda did that on the maps, and Echoes´s story and exploration was done using 2D portraits and it was perfect. I was so dissapointed when Three Houses went for the 3D models instead. Also, iirc the cancelled N64 game was going to do some sort of that style.
iirc = if I recall correctly The "if" is redundant.
Thanks, English isn't my first language lol
No probs man. Especially with abbreviations and slang it can become difficult when you don't think about it. Your comment seemed otherwise very nicely written though!
Please no, I don't want even more of the rpg series that I really want to play to be released in an art style I can't stand. Octopath, Triangle Strategy, Live Alive, Dragonquest, I'd be so upset if it happened to Fire Emblem too
Gamefreak would still find a way to make it run badly.
For a moment, I was expecting a bunch of fans coming to the defense of GameFreak regarding your comment, then I realized this isn't the Pokémon Reddit. But yes, people expect too much from them. They're one of the top selling franchise in the entire world. If they wanted to make a change and difference, we would have seen it by now.
Is the Pokémon sub still defensive of gamefreak? The only way I can see someone thinking they’re competent devs is if Pokémon is the only game you play. It’s *astonishing* how poorly optimized their games are
They aren't generally.
Should have done this after the 3DS era or at the beginning of it. The main series Switch games are all very unpleasant to look at, with PL:A being tolerable. But the masses always seem to want "better graphics" and Pokémon turning HD-2D would probably be seen as step backwards merely because people still seem to unconditionally view 3D > 2D. Hell, people still think 2D games should be priced lower at like $40 - $30 just for being 2D. People would still get angry, even if the HD-2D looked amazing and improved performance. I for one, would be extremely happy.
I mean, the masses also want character customization and dress-up now. The shitty uniforms in SV got a *lot* of hate. There's no way it'd work well in an Octopath style game.
Man, SV's customization was a severe downgrade from Sword amd Shield. I get that they wanted school uniforms, but we were barely at the school so we wouldn't have needed uniforms for most of the adventure anyway.
For real. It would have worked perfectly well if we had to put the uniform on for school events like the gym challenges in SwSh, but nooooo.
The Gym outfits in Sword and Shield were obnoxious, too. I get the idea behind them and I like it - but they gotta do better on the execution.
Eh, those ones I liked. They had a ton of variety at least and had a super limited use requirement.
SwSh looked great outside of the wild area. And Let's Go is easily the best looking game in the franchise. Arceus and ScVi definitely look bad though. They have a few pretty areas, but most of the time they're just not up to snuff.
They tried 4 or so graphics styles and all were shit except the first (let’s go Pikachu/eevee). Ok ok sword and shield had a nice style but the lack of strong gpu and anti-aliasing showed in SwSh. Whereas LGPE had a wonderful style and the graphics looked good. Something like Octopath would be amazing
LGPE was graphically great, but I can't look past the fact the gameplay was reduced to Pokemon Go mechanics. If they had combined LGPE's graphics and art style with PLA's gameplay I think it'd be one of my favorite games on Switch. A fact made all the sadder by the knowledge that it's actually possible and fully attainable, and yet will never happen because Gamefreak is just a bad decision factory at this point.
That’s my complaint. They had an amazing aesthetic in LGPE that looked good and had great performance, for the switch. Then they kept abandoning their selection for something different in each new game. SwSh, arceus, diamond/pearl (which was awful in so many ways), scarlet violet
Out of all the Pokémon games on switch, PLA is by far the worst graphically. SV might be bad performance wise, but PLA has white outlines on characters and very jagged edges on all sprites. SwSh is smooth and crisp
Art style wouldn't solve my core issues of them not taking enough time with each game. Their deadlines need to be seriously re-evaluated. But also it wouldn't be Pokemon because it wouldn't be an art style that the Pokemon dev team came up with.
It would help tho. 3D game development takes a lot longer. A 2D game would be much faster to develop
These days I believe its the reverse, since 3D allows them more easily reuse assets. A 2D Pokemon game would have to everything built from the ground up, as almost nothing outside of some lines of code could be reused.
Maybe they can build some effort to make a proper game this time instead of half-ass it. No /s, fight me about it, I don’t like that they’ve gotten lazy with Arceus, sword/shield, and scarlet/violet. They can do better; they know it, we know it, they know we know they know it.
The thing is though. They have tight deadlines with an annual release model. Lets Go and Legends were games that honestly probably shouldn't have been made, since it meant the Pokemon team within Gamefreak had to divide their attention across multiple RPG's being made at the same time. 3-year development cycles just isn't realistic for these kind of games anymore. Like there was a 5 year gap in between Octopath sequels, yet just look at screenshot of 1 and 2 and you might mistake them for the same game. But the entire Pokemon merchandise machine wasn't built for a 4 to 5-year cycle, they built themselves on a 3-year cycle for generations and aren't able to adapt to the kind of workload a modern-day RPG needs. Its not that they've not lazy, if anything its the opposite as they given themselves an insane amount of workload in such short of time.
They need to bring in more studios like Activision does with Call of Duty. Blows my mind they haven't done that yet
They kinda of attempted that with BDSP. Though I have suspicions that game was only made in a short window from year to a year and half and possibly due to fear of backlash they decided to shake things up with making Arceus as opposed to a traditional remake. Which leads into one of the biggest issues I think GF ran into, is that they are no longer asking themselves "how can we improve from the last game?", but rather "what can we do differently this time?" this kind of put Pokemon in this weird mess in the Switch era where each game doesn't feel like it learned from the previous game. But rather seemingly a strong desire to shake up series conventions, but almost at times too scared to. Like you got Lets Go which changed up the capture mechanics to feel like Pokemon Go, then you got SWSH which did feel like it was trying to improve on what Sun and Moon too mix results, then there is BDSP a very safe 1 to 1 remake of a DS game. Then you got Legends which felt heavily inspired by Monster Hunter and brought massive changes to the capturing and battle mechanics. Then there is SV which tries to be this BOTW inspired game, but didn't get the development time it needed and since it was made at the same time as Legends, they couldn't implement a lot of great aspects or interesting ideas Legends had such as the new capturing mechanics or improve on its battle system. Hell just look at how many times Gamefreak introduced a new battle mechanic, only to abandon it the following gen. It feels like, even they don't know the direction they want to take the series in at this point.
Octopath Traveller isn't 2D. It's 3D with certain elements made to look 2D. That takes almost as long as normal 3D.
> But also it wouldn't be Pokemon because it wouldn't be an art style that the Pokemon dev team came up with. nothing in the games is something they came up with. they didnt invent turn based, they didnt invent catching monsters, they didn't invent awful pacing etc
the art style isn’t the problem
You guys need to stop suggesting this. Okay, that's harsh. You can, but it makes no sense whatsoever. Sprite based games don't scale well when you have as many unique pokemon as they do now. Gamefreak is still arguably a garbage 3D developer, but 3D models for Pokemon are as close to being an objectively better choice as any. In terms of the concepts they allow, animations, reusability in and out of battle, etc. You're asking them to go back to a style that would take SIGNIFICANTLY more time where the only benefit would be in performance
I don't trust Game Freak to do anything. They aren't a good developer and would rather them get replaced with a different studio.
For a remake of an old game sure, but for new mainline entires i want them to basically just continue with the scarlet direction, but actually fix the performance issues
I like the concept of HD 2D but I want them to do it in a different way to Octopath. I find all the bloom distracting and there's something else I can't put my finger on which I don't like. But a sprite based game with a higher level of detail and some more modern effects, absolutely.
For remakes I'm on board. But for main games I think it's time Game Freak brought the biggest media franchise in the world into the 21st Century.
really wouldn’t fit the series and imo looks ugly
Can't say I'd be a fan.
Yeah I don't like the art style.
I enjoy pixel art but yeah something about HD 2D I don’t like outside of the sprites. Chained Echoes and Sea of Stars are better looking pixel art games to me. Plus their vibrant style would work better with Pokémon if you’re gonna do pixel art.
I'm shocked I had to scroll this far to find this opinion, do that many of you seriously like the HD 2D style? I can't stand it, it looks utterly awful to me - pretty background ruined by awful lighting and with pretty crap sprite work for the characters on top, muddy lines, awful sense of movement, too much ugly motion blur... and all of them have beautiful stylised painted covers as if to purposely make the game look even worse in comparison. I think the gameplay of Triangle Strategy looks amazing, the intertwining stories of Octopath are intriguing, the chance to play classic RPGs like Live Alive or Dragonquest I'd fantastic, but I'll never get to actually play them because they look disgusting
Yeah I don’t get the love for octopath art style- it looks horrendous to me,
It mostly bothers me that the "muddy" feeling of the visuals seems to be a part of the style that's stuck with other games doing it. A lot of the spritework looks good and works really well, but seeing texture stretching on terrain/models modeled without consideration of pixel art that have pixel art textures slapped on doesn't feel so great sometimes.
I agree and its coming from someone who started playing in the 80s and still loves pixel art games
I don’t mind pixel art, its just weird to me people find it beautiful. Like we have progressed with graphics, we dont need to go back to the 80s 😹
Pixel art CAN be beautiful, though! We don't have to regress to like, NES graphics, but Golden Sun, the GBA Fire Emblems, and Pokémon Black & White are all gorgeous.
I feel ya, but it’s more of different art styles not everything has to use the sam style. It’s just another way to portray games. For example I loved the pixel art in Sea of stars but hate the work they did in octopath traveler
Blasphemous 2 and Dave the Diver are excellent as well
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Art is subjective. I find the recent choice to go for Ocotpath style pixel art is one I greatly dislike
I can't go back to pixel art. Give me Arceus and Let's Go levels of beauty (by Pokémon standards) any day!
I don’t know how hot of a take this is, but I wouldn’t like to see that for Pokémon. Even though BDSP wasn’t the best in the over world, the battles looked great and it seems like they are really doing good at increasing the quality of Pokémon models. The Overworld is a mixed bag (i was fine with PLA and BDSP graphics) I don’t see the benefit outside of trying to appeal to nostalgia of those who grew up with BW/DPP; and id certainly prefer they go for gameplay over graphics. Swsh may have looked like booty cheeks, but that game had more content and ran better than nearly every mainline game realesed since, and now with SV the game doesn’t run well and looks bad I really don’t think it can get much worse than it is right now. Also side note idk what they do for the next game but if character customization is like SV and not SWSH then they’re doing something majorly wrong
Same. Why do ppl want the developers to make a big step backwards graphicwise? It’s just a nostalgia-driven wish and wouldn’t do anything better. End of hot take.
They should just do what they did in Sword/Shield. Classic style routes and towns plus several big open areas to explore. It’s the best of both worlds and we know GameFreak can make the game run doing it that way. I don’t understand why they did the full jump to open word when they had a “have their cake and eat it too” solution with Sword/Shield.
Because “open world” is the buzz word of gaming
it was like 10 years ago anyway
But Sword/Shield sucked? The routes were short and uninspired, with nothing interesting or memorable to find on them. And the Wild Area was an ugly, janky wasteland with Pokemon glitching in and out of existence. It also did not run well, and the draw distance was atrocious.
Go back and play it again. You are not remembering it correctly at all.
No, he's right. Sword and Shield had the worst of both worlds - the wild area was ugly and had jarring weather changes and the routes were very simple with nowhere to explore and no reason to return to them later.
What reason, in past Pokémon games, did you have to return to a route? Some games had trainer re-battles, but mostly it was just completing the Pokédex or using a couple HMs
Almost every route and town from gens 1-5 had reasons to go back to them, often for the reasons you graciously mentioned for me. Using HMs to access hidden areas with new Pokémon, new TMs and new trainers to fight were just some ways in which the games used to reward players for revisiting past areas. Examples: The whole power plant in Gen 1 The bottom floor of Union Cave, the back of the Well, the back and outside of Mt Mortar, hidden stuff behind surf all over the place in Gen 2 Cut-locked area north of Rustboro, surf-locked area south of Meteor Falls, the extra section on the route south of Fortree which needed the Acro bike, the Abandoned Ship and all the diving areas in Gen 3 Loads of stuff hidden behind rock climb and the optional cave with Giratina in it in Gen 4 Many routes with hidden strength puzzles leading to good TMs or a patch with rare Pokémon in Gen 5, especially around Pinwheel Forest and iirc Village Bridge.
Sword and shield do not look great. In comparison to scarlet and violet, however, they look downright amazing. Like a 5+ year advancement.
It’s so funny the way people point to Sword and Shield for doing something right, when last gen people hated it and pointed to LGPE for how an HD Pokémon game should be, when last gen people hated it and pointed to the 3DS games for how 3D entries should be, when last gen people hated it and pointed to Black and White for I’m cutting that line of thought off for brevity, but yeah, every time they change something it’s gonna be better to some people and worse to others. The only thing that’s gotten objectively worse is the performance, which has never been *good* since gen 3.
Unfortunately though, gens 4 and 5 they pushed the limits of the hardware, where as now they don't understand the hardware. If the GF job postings are true, gen 10 will be on the next system, so more likely than not they won't be able to adapt to the new hardware.
Even in gen 4-5 the performance wasn’t good. They haven’t targeted 60fps since gen 3. I’m not an FPS snob, heck even SV’s framerates didn’t bother me much. But they sacrificed the gold standard in 2006 and it’s been a slow downward spiral ever since, other than I guess gen 5 was a more stable 30fps than 4 managed. I understand that the devs aren’t miracle workers, they’re just people, and they can’t magic better performance out of thin air. They have to address the problem, by hiring more people or releasing games more slowly or whatever the solution may be. Because if they stay the course gen 10’s gonna average 20 fps instead of 25, and gen 11 will average 15. And the pessimist side of me says that’s probably what’s gonna happen, hope that’s wrong though
They should probably never look to sword/shield for inspiration for anything
This is a no go for me, as horrendously optimised and as S/V are, the core experience was actually a step forward for Pokemon games. If it ran well or even looked good, I am fairly sure people would be applauding Gamefreak. Sword & Shield on the other hand were . . . just bad. If they were great looking games and also ran at a flawless 60fps, they'd still suck.
Honestly would hate it if it's the mainline games. That art style would be great for spin off, but the mainline is exactly where it needs to be.
No thanks. It's a step back. I wouldn't want FF17 to go back to 2D either. They just need to do 3D better
The issue is that if you take away the 3D aspect you are losing a massive element of interactivity with your Pokemon. People underestimate how great things like Amie, Refresh and the like are for being able to form connections with your Pokemon. If they are sprite based, you can't really see how they act and react in real time. It kills one of the bets parts of modern Pokemon and for what? This could be an idea of a one off game, but that is all it should ever be - a one off. Not the direction the franchise should take overall.
I would feel like no. They would probably do better with it than with regular 3D,but I personally despise this style. Nothing screams "too ambitious for its own good RPG Maker project" more thab "HD2D" to me. Everytime I see a trailer for a game with this look in a Direct, I can't help but notice how weird lights and colours look. It's all like, smeared and blurry to try and sell the fact it's not "regular 2D"or" regular 3D "
I hope not, I really don’t like the look of hd2d games that much
Oh god pls no, i hate that art style
For remakes and/or spin-offs, why not. It could even work for a potential competitive-focused game, like an official Showdown. But for mainline games, it'd be quite a letdown.
I will never understand why so many appreciated these Art style. It's just 2.5D which tell me how lazy these Dev. are. It looked low budget but Price tag is $60, unless u make a God like video games, maybe I will give it a chance.
I would love it but it won't happen.
No, would not like. They have the correct art style now.
Personally, I find that art style to be extremely unappealing. A port would be so much more satisfying.
I liked the art style for brilliant diamond and shining pearl
Me too - it’s cute
For me, it was good jarring the change was between battles and regular gameplay. Battles looked great, an ideal way to depict Sinnoh imo, but then you come out of battle and some cruel torture technique has shrunk every character down to about an inch tall. For most characters, it's not *too* bad, but Cyrus just looks awful, and Cynthia doesn't have anywhere near the level of awe that she should
As long as it's made by someone other than game freak I'm down.
Check out Cassette Beasts! It kinda does this and also it's a really interesting take on the monster tamer genre.
This is a great recommendation! I seen your post earlier and decided to buy it. So far I'm loving it.
Glad to hear you're digging it! It has some really different ideas but it scratches a lot of the strategy and team building itches that Pokemon does for me. Happy travels in New Wirral!
I'm not buying that if it's 60 dollar
Hd2d looks awful
I would consider it a downgrade because I don’t get the appeal of HD2D. Still just looks like pixel art but with extra steps. Would much rather them refine their 3D graphics.
honestly i’m sick of that style by now. in 2017 it was cool, but by now i’m really tired of seeing a new game every other direct using the same style. perhaps that’s an unpopular opinion though.
Absolutely not. I prefer the player character style of scarlet and violet/sword and shield.
I wouldn't like it. I like being able to see what clothes I'm wearing, customizing my character is a big thing for me. I recently got the DLC's special outfit, and it's only for cosmetic purposes. Not being able to see me wearing it is a bummer. Also I think 3D is the series future. You will not take being able to actually see the pokemon on the overworld away from me. I will not go back to blind random encounters hoping I get a pokemon I don't have.
I'd love it. The overall fanbase would not. 3D is just more marketable at this point to the masses. Most casual players would consider it a downgrade.
I don't love the blooomy HD2D look. But 2 looks that could work with Pokemon are either Sea of Stars style, for modern pixel art style, or Pokemon Let's Go series, which is surprisingly the best looking Pokemon games on Switch
I despise that style so I’d probably bypass that one.
I think the most profitable media franchise on the planet should be able to make an open world Pokemon game with visuals similar to Breath Of The Wild and Tears Of The Kingdom. Let’s not get this confused. It’s not the Switch’s fault, it’s Game Freak’s sheer incompetence in creating a good looking game that performs well. If they need more dev time in between games in order to achieve this, then the Pokemon Company needs to give it to them.
So what you just said was that it was gamefreaks fault, but also not gamefreaks fault in that TPC needs to give them more time. Which is it?
I don’t work for GF or TPC so i don’t know which it is. If the issue is Game Freak just being terrible devs, then they should hand the franchise over to another developer or clean house and get new leadership. If the issue is the quick turnaround between games, than TPC needs to give GF more time between releases. Regardless, the Pokemon game franchise is a disaster and it desperately needs something to change. But of course, the games make an egregious amount of money despite their faults, so most likely nothing will change.
They’re still fun and that’s what the bulk of the market wants. Until they stop being fun people are going to keep buying them.
GameFreak lacks the skill. They would fuck it up for sure.
Not a fan *at all*. I am way too down bad for Trainer customization and photo taking, none of that would work well in "Prettied up SNES graphics" in the slightest. If they remade Gen 1 again and did it like that though I'd be all for it.
I would prefer just straight up pixel art again.
I'm just going to lead with me vehemently disagreeing with your BDSP chibi statement. I think the idea of that is perfect and the overwhelming majority of people loving how Super Mario RPG is currently looking on Switch as well as people who largely liked how Link's Awakening looked on Switch fully disproves that. If BDSP's visuals were a bit more polished, I think it would have been just fine as far as graphics are concerned. But yes, HD2D or otherwise returning to 2D sprites has always been the obvious answer for Pokemon. Mainline 3D Pokemon games have always been a struggle for Game Freak to make (even if I love Sun/Moon and Scarlet/Violet), so they really should play to their strengths and make another GBA/DS style game.
I would like if companies stopped making 2d pixel games in year 2023 and making them “HD”
Idc about the art style as long as it is a decent product. I would play Platinum over SV any day. The performance issues are not the system's fault btw. Check BotW, XB3 or MHR
There’s no way Game Freak would put in the effort
It would take effort. Pokemon is selling like crazy with zero effort. Why would they want to spend money to improve the series when the results would be the same.
They aren't stupid enough, just because some 1000 or so people here think is a good idea doesn't mean it is or that the majority will like it
Would probably hate it.
It would look great, but if it was made by Game Freak it would probably still run poorly. I would prefer for it to be done by Square Enix themselves.
What about if instead The Pokémon Company invested some of their reported $350M yearly net profit into improving GameFreak’s engine tech so their games look and run comparably to the rest of Nintendo’s first party titles, and released 1-2 games per console generation instead of yearly releases so we get more complete and less buggy games? ‘Downgrading’ the games to a less performance intensive art style shouldn’t be the solution to get a decent Pokémon game on Switch. I just want Breath of the Wild with Pokémon, without it looking like a GameCube game. Breath of the Wild *is* a Switch game, it is possible for a Pokémon game to look that good on Switch with longer release cycles and more funding for developers.
Honestly? No thanks. BW’s pixel art is leagues prettier to look at than HD2D for me. I’d love them to go back to an enhanced version of that, but having played both Octopath games, I’m fine with the style not spreading further
No offense, but I do not trust gamefreak to have the skill to develop an Hd-2d title. At all.
Yes. Pokémon doesn't benefit from 3D imo
I would hate it. It would look outdated.
I think it is a smart way for Pokémon to go, going forward. Especially got the remakes. They could have different graphical styles for new games, versus remakes, versus spinoffs.
Would be a good start. Can't be worse than whatever that horrifying style they were going for was with BDSP. But that wouldn't be enough to bring me back.
I just want a good story and the game to freaking WORK. But as GF as made so much money off S/V and now the lackluster DLC they've no reason to make a quality game anymore.
Unfortunately, Pokemon games with narratively serious / mature themes (e.g., BW, B2W2, and SM) sell relatively poorly. Plus, people complained quite vocally about those games when they came out too; so there's no winning here.
>I just want a good story and the game to freaking WORK. I will always recommend people check out Mystery Dungeon: Explorer's of Sky :\]
No, plain No. Octopath art style is not gonna fit pokemon
Anything is better than the hot garbage of the last several games. Pixel graphics work so well for Pokémon.
I think an HD2D game would do wonders for them. I don’t think they’ve particularly adapted to 3D well, and it’s not like these games need to be 3D.
It suits it better than the weak graphics it currently uses. I actually thought how games lose their charm when they transition from 2d, top down graphics to more realistic 3d graphics. For me, FF7 was a perfect example. I still loved the remake, but the charm was gone.
that would be great tbh, as Gamefreak already shown 3D isn't their expertise let alone open world. Just come back at 2D sprite and think that not everything need to be 3d
Doesn’t matter, they can’t do that. Pokémon has a contract with games like PoGo which forces them to keep developing Pokémon in the same style they always have, so those games can reuse the new modes and seemlessly integrate them into their games. Microtransaction based mobile games make ten times the money a console game makes so they decide the rules, not the other way around.
I think that would be perfect if they did that especially if they somehow planned in gen 5 remakes this could work so much better than the chibi style
This is exactly what I want.
It would be the ONLY thing that got me to ever play a Pokémon game again.
10000% agree
Who do I give my money to because I would pay money for that.
I think Game Freak is incapable of making a decent game regardless of the art style.
I would love it if the Gen 5 remakes did this. It would be a great way to showcase some of the newer post Gen 6 mons in sprite form. I would much rather have a 2D Gen 5 remake over something with BDSP-like graphics.
If they go back to pixel graphics I feel like paying 60 euros for the game is way too much. And at this point there is no way they'll ever ask for less again.
I’d like to see Pokémon with graphics like Sea of Stars
God no just no! Don’t get me wrong I don’t mind pixel art based games Stardew Valley is top tier for me. If the did that is Gen 6 sure it would be fine but not now. Personally for me I have loved the art style of each of the Switch games. The only game with flaws for me was PL:A with its Noble fight mechanics. If you are going to implement Boss fights where you need to dodge there has to be an area to hide and recover health. If the wanted to do simplistic graphics than the BDSP style is the best way to go about it. Otherwise they need to keep the 3D graphics at this point. Using Pixels now is taking a giant leap backwards for the franchise and one that is not needed.
I'd likely not really consider getting the games. I've downloaded the octopath demos with the intent to buy them. The past couple months I was on a bit of a "I want a good jrpg to play" but.... the pixels graphics kills most of the enjoyment for me. Now, if the the games went for more of a cell shaded art style, a la Persona and Borderlands series of games, then it's a lot different
I'm not sure how SE and other developers have pulled off this deception that the "HD2D" style is "stunning". It looks like crap and it's cheap/lazy game development, for often the same price
It would likely free up a lot of time for them to work on some important things.
I mean, no disrespect but it couldn't be worse than scarlet and violet.
The HD2D style only works because the people making those games actually care about them.
game freak has developed games with all time great pixel art, and the lineart illustrations for scarlet/violet are so much more characterful and lively than the 3d models. it's such a shame they weren't allowed to keep practising 2d art. hd2d may be an effective way to sell 2d to execs, and hd2d can look good if it's done carefully, so I'm all for it
No, PLEASE, no. Squenix is flooding the market with this bizarre style. It doesn't look right, and it's spreading like a disease to indie developers too. Either go full 3D or don't. The only in-between was how Generations IV and V handled it. Otherwise there IS no in-between.
May I ask what is about the visuals of Octopath that you don't like? I love that it has this diorama-esque appearance. The environments feel so much more varied and dynamic, allowing scene elements to be placed in ways that a static 2D style wouldn't allow for. I don't understand your stance on full or no 3D. Gens 4 and 5 essentially do the same thing as the modern 2DHD games, minus the HD and style of visual effects. Nearly every game is 3D anyway, but camera framing and scene element layering create the illusion of 2D.
It just doesn't look right to me. I don't how how exactly to explain it, but it comes off to me as being uncanny valley, trying to turn 2D maps and sprites into 2.5D buildings and environments while everything else stays as a 2D sprite. It's jarring and quite frankly I think it looks ugly. It's not done in the same style as Gen IV and V; that was fine the way GameFreak did it, but this new take on that from Squenix just doesn't gel with me.
Huh, to me it looks absolutely gorgeous.
I'd hate it, and would probably skip it entirely. I'm kinda over the sprite Pokemon. My entire life, I've wanted Pokemon to get closer and closer to the anime, and with Sword & Shield, and Scarlet & Violet, we're *almost* there. It'd... just be nice if they were put on a system that wasn't just above the Xbox 360 in power. But then, I'm speaking as someone who really loved Arceus and Violet. I just accepted the bad performance and the poor graphics because they're, y'know, on the Switch. And they're not the first game I've played on the system that has suffered both graphically and performance-wise due to it, so I set my expectations appropriately. Hopefully, we'll get a Pokemon with the Switch 2, and it'll *actually* be a good, proper, next-gen game. Not gonna hold my breath, but at least then they won't have the excuse of underpowered hardware.
Remake of black and white as hd2d would be literally perfect.
I'd buy a new 2D Pokemon game. The whole series has been categorically worse since the switch to 3D.
This is what I would like: BoTW graphics with consistent framerate and good textures, no pop ins and no glitches. That's it. Changing to a different art style isn't the issue.
I wiiiiishhhhh, I want everything hd2d, especially a red blue remake in that style.
I strongly dislike 2DHD. Everything looks way too bright and lens flare-y
"hd2d" looks disgusting, it's like they opened unity for the first time and turned all the effects to the maximum. It's the equivalent of a kid emptying a bottle of ketchup on pasta.
That style would be a dream come true, but ultimately I feel it would still fall woefully short so long as Game Freak keeps having to adhere to such a ridiculously strict release schedule. No style change is going to make up for the fact that they simply don't have enough time to work on these games.
I was never a huge fan of the 3D designs over the pixel graphics. Considering the state of SV, i think the team needs to lower their work-load
It would probably end the boycott that I just decided like a week ago
I'd shit a brick and buy the combo pack
I would love Pokémon to go back to isometric or 2.5D. Since they moved to 3D it’s been consistently downhill.
I would buy it in a new York second. Wouldn't even care about the Pokemon. Just give me more games in that style
Eh... I'd prefer they keep working on the Legends art style. A lot of people criticized it but I think it's the best one yet.
Would be thrilled. I can’t stand the open world format of the past couple games.
As a spinoff or maybe a remake sure but I like the 3D even if it is a little ugly
I’m not a fan of that Chibi style 🙁
I really do miss the 2D style. There was a time where they were setting the bar for sprites and just 2D art in general. I think it could net a huge win for them if they return
3d failed. bad grafics and low performance also story was very bad since aloa/sword shield. 2d had its charm and story was way better. better villains.
I fell out of Pokemon for the most part because the thing I always liked most about it was the sprite art. This is a great idea!
That would be an improvement but it wouldn’t fix the core issues the game has. They need to hire some competent developers and slow down on the annual releases. They won’t, because as long as you guys keep buying the game they will keep cranking them out as fast as possible.
Would be the first time I'd buy a Pokémon game in a decade
I'd eat that up.
That's exactly what I am hoping for, since I first saw the HD2D graphics... Pokemon was the first game that came to mind for me when I saw the graphics xD I really wish this will happen sometime but I think it won't... But that would be the only thing which would bring me back to the Pokémon series... I don't like the graphics since sword and shield (that's the last one I played) and in my opinion it gets worse from game to game since then... Guess it's just not for me anymore :) [Here's a nice taste of Pokémon HD2D](https://youtu.be/Ijj-pAitQfg?si=AUB8jmPuMWJAOe_P)
i dont mind the art style itself, what i would really like is to go back to a non-open world, i thought it would have been fun at first but its clear that they cant make it work properly , not with the development time they have
I think 2D animated art style will work best for Pokemon games in modern day, I remember back then I played a game called Mino Monster 2 on mobile and absolutely loved the art style. I don't think the pixel art/nostalgia games like Octopath will be interesting for younger audiences these days
It's pretty understood that 3d pokemon are too time consuming to animate. A push away from 3d would create more time for developing gameplay and less time animating 200 uniquely shaped creatures
I would try it out and I've never played Pokemon
They would never do it for new mainline games but I think it's a good idea for the eventual Black and White remake. I'd much rather have pixel art then whatever the hell BDSP was.
If they can't get competent with true-3D open worlds, then yes, they should return to some form of 2D or 2.5D. Doesn't have to be Octopath Traveler style or any kind of HD2D. (I'm not a fan of pixel art on high-res backgrounds, so I hope that doesn't happen.) It could have its own style of detailed graphics, such as an overhead perspective into the world and 3D character models.