Animation quality or number of available pokémon

[lenticular]

When it comes to the next mainline Pokémon games (Gen IX, not remakes or spin-offs or anything) which of the two hypothetical situations would you prefer:

1. The game has a small number of total pokémon, let's say 150 total. There is no national dex, no way to transfer pokémon in from older games, no way at all to acquire other pokémon. Those 150 are all that we get. However, what we do get is full bespoke animations for every move on every pokémon. Gone are the days when we see a pokémon wiggle a bit, then a generic animation plays, then the enemy pokémon recoils a little. Instead, every single move that we see has an animation that is comparable to or better than the absolute best animations in Sword and Shield (eg, Pyroball).

2. We get the full pokédex. Every single pokémon that has ever existed is available to catch. Many of them are only in the post game (or via transfer or trade), but they're all there. However, this means that we get the most abysmally lazy and generic graphics and animations, comparable to or worse than the absolute worst that Sword and Shield have to offer (eg, Tail Whip).

Obviously, it would be nice to be able to have both, but that's increasingly unrealistic with every passing generation and every new pokémon. Honestly, asking for either one of them is likely a little ambitious. So if you had to pick one direction, which would you rather?

For me, personally, I'd prefer the first. I never transfer pokémon between games anyway (except transfering the Regis from Gen III to Gen IV so I could get Regigigas), and I don't really feel a need to have all the pokémon available. 150 of them would be enough for me to feel that I had plenty of choice and variety and I'd be able to pick a full team of six pokémon that I really like, which is all that I really care about. Though that's just me with my tastes and preferences. Which would you prefer?

[ciphertul]

I would have to take number 2, I like a lot of less liked pokemon and not getting them would turn me off.... unless option 1 comes with a version of the camp. I loved playing with the pokemon.

Edited January 3, 2022 by ciphertul

[vanguard333]

I think I'd have to pick option 1. I'm not someone who plays Pokémon to have every Pokémon; I played them for the adventure, the combat, etc.

[Eltosian Kadath]

I would take option 2 for certain. Catching 'em all was one of the things I always loved about the pokemon series, even from the start (heck I completed the yellow dex, official Mew and all), and was effectively dexit even in the gen 3 days. Plus these limited dexes tend to eliminate one of my favorite little challenge runs, the six Smeargle challenge. I played through the jank of gen 1(and still do on occasion), and was fine with its bare bones visual style there, so I doubt whatever bare-bones visuals they muster would dissuade me more than an incomplete dex would.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Between these two extremes, 2 easily. What that describes is just the 3DS era, which is at least better than the current "3DS era, but it's sixty dollars + DLC". Especially since Option 1 doesn't specify whether the 150 in question are all new (Black and White) or mostly returning (Diamond and Pearl) pokemon.

But realistically? Option 3: Hire more developers. Because the biggest multimedia franchise on the planet can afford more than ~100 staff on a project. You wanna know how other yearly release franchises (Call of Duty, Assassin's Creed, etc) manage so much higher polish despite a more frequent release schedule? They've got several studios across the globe, taking turns each year for their releases. They've got as much as 500 employed each, working their asses off to put that nonsense together. That's without getting into contract workers either. And those studios don't pull in the kind of money Pokemon does on their games, let alone the toys and other junk to supplement development costs.

This is a cute hypothetical, but producing a pokemon game of a much higher quality is only "unrealistic" when you're approaching it from the mindset of an indie developer. Especially when so much of the work rigging and animating returning pokemon is just copy pasted from other projects - that's a huge headstart to build off of. Tweak something just a little bit, and it's enough to fool people on the internet into thinking it was made from the ground up.

Edited January 3, 2022 by Zapp Branniglenn

[Lord_Brand]

Between the two, I'd take 2. I like having a large variety of Pokemon to battle and catch.

However, I feel there is a middle ground. Pokemon don't need individual animations for every single move. Take punches, for example; one punch animation + various particle effects will cover the vast majority of punch moves quite handily. Multi-hit move animations can reflect the number of hits the move will land; if Comet Punch hits three times, the user will throw three punches, alternating between different arms. The same goes for kicking, clawing, jabbing, etc.

I would also like to see different idle animations for different status effects.

Spoiler

Idle

• Asleep - The Pokemon is asleep.
  • Nightmare - The Pokemon is asleep and having a nightmare.
• Bound - The Pokemon is bound by a move like Wrap or Whirlpool.
• Charging - The Pokemon is charging up a move that it will use on its next turn, such as Solar Beam.
• Coiling - The Pokemon is coiled around another Pokemon.
• Confused - The Pokemon is confused.
• Defending - The Pokemon is protecting itself with a move like Protect, Detect, Endure, or Safeguard.
• Enraged - The Pokemon is enraged by a move like Rage, Taunt, or Torment.
• Infatuated - The Pokemon is infatuated.
• Paralyzed - The Pokemon is paralyzed.
• Recovering - The Pokemon is recovering after a taxing move such as Giga Impact or Hyper Beam.
• Weakened - The Pokemon is drowsy, poisoned, or low on HP.

Using Moves

• Beam - Used for beam moves such as Ice Beam and Hyper Beam.
• Bind - Used for binding moves such as Wrap, Fire Spin, and Sand Tomb.
• Bite - Used for biting attacks such as Bite, Crunch, and the elemental Fangs.
• Body - Used for bodily attacks such as Tackle and Slam.
• Charm - Used for moves like Attract, Charm, and Covet.
• Coil - Used for moves that involve the Pokemon coiling its body, like Coil and Wrap.
• Claw - Used for claw or talon-based attacks such as Scratch.
• Cut - Used for moves like Cut, Slash, and Air Slash.
• Dance - Used for dance moves such as Swords Dance, Rain Dance, and Dragon Dance.
• Grapple - Used for grappling moves such as Seismic Toss, Submission, and Vital Throw.
• Intimidation - Used for moves based on intimidation, such as Leer, Glare, and Mean Look.
• Jab - Used for beak or horn-based jabbing attacks such as Horn Attack and Drill Peck
• Kick - Used for kicking attacks such as Blaze Kick.
• Light - Used for moves that involve glowing or flashing, such as Dazzling Gleam, Flash, and Tail Glow.
• Leap - Used for aerial attacks such as Aerial Ace.
• Mind - Used for moves that involve the mind, such as Clam Mind, Meditate, and Mind Read.
• Punch - Used for punching moves such as Mega Punch, Focus Punch, and the elemental Punches.
• Rise - Used for Bounce and Fly.
• Roll - Used for rolling moves such as Rollout and Ice Ball.
• Shoot - Used for projectile attacks such as Bullet Seed and Aura Sphere.
• Slap - Used for slapping moves such as Double Slap and Wake-Up Slap.
• Spin - Used for spinning moves such as Rapid Spin.
• Stomp - Used for Stomp and for ground-based attacks such as Earthquake and Land Power.
• Summon - Used for moves that summon something, such as weather.
• Tail - Used for tail-based moves such as Tail Whip and Dragon Tail.
• Throw - Used for moves that involve throwing projectiles such as Fling, Rock Throw, and Strength.
• Wing - Used for wing-based attacks such as Wing Attack and Steel Wing.

Stat change

• Stat Up - Used when one of the Pokemon's stats is raised.
• Stat Down - Used when one of the Pokemon's stats is lowered.

Moves with unique animations

• Cross Chop
• Dig
• High Jump Kick
• Jump Kick
• Karate Chop
• Sky Uppercut
• Surf

In practice, not every Pokemon would need every one of these animations; in cases where a Pokemon uses a move it couldn't normally learn, it can use one of its programmed animations as a placeholder.

[Yexin]

2, because it's been like 10 years since i stopped playing Pokemon with animations on, they're already so hilariously bad

Edited January 3, 2022 by Yexin

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

#2. My main desire for Gen VIII was being able to transfer all the teams I'd built in Gen VII to the most modern game, and to be able to keep using them competitively. Since I learned that wasn't an option, I decided not to bother with Sword and Shield.

On 1/3/2022 at 3:02 AM, Zapp Branniglenn said:

But realistically? Option 3: Hire more developers. Because the biggest multimedia franchise on the planet can afford more than ~100 staff on a project. You wanna know how other yearly release franchises (Call of Duty, Assassin's Creed, etc) manage so much higher polish despite a more frequent release schedule? They've got several studios across the globe, taking turns each year for their releases. They've got as much as 500 employed each, working their asses off to put that nonsense together. That's without getting into contract workers either. And those studios don't pull in the kind of money Pokemon does on their games, let alone the toys and other junk to supplement development costs.

Nooo you can't place these expectations on small indie studio Game Freak. If you make the team too big, then how will they all fit into the Game Freak headquarters you find in-game?

Anyway, my personal answer? Start with Colosseum/XD. Those games managed to fit 386 Pokemon models onto a Gamecube disc. Sure, some of them were crude (particularly the leftovers from Stadium), but their animations were far more expressive than anything we see today. You can't convince me that they couldn't make a new game, on the Nintendo Switch, with three times as many models and similar-quality animations. Obviously I'd want the graphics to look a bit cleaner, say, Battle Revolution level - which itself fit 493 models on a Wii disc, including some of the best move animations we've seen in the series. It's definitely possible, just a matter of funding and priorities.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

2 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Anyway, my personal answer? Start with Colosseum/XD. Those games managed to fit 386 Pokemon models onto a Gamecube disc. Sure, some of them were crude (particularly the leftovers from Stadium), but their animations were far more expressive than anything we see today. You can't convince me that they couldn't make a new game, on the Nintendo Switch, with three times as many models and similar-quality animations. Obviously I'd want the graphics to look a bit cleaner, say, Battle Revolution level - which itself fit 493 models on a Wii disc, including some of the best move animations we've seen in the series. It's definitely possible, just a matter of funding and priorities.

GameFreak had no hand in the development of those three games, or the Stadium duology, but if the work is already done, why not use it as a basis? Genius Sonority's three games (Colosseum/XD/Battle Revolution) do prove the point I was making. This isn't like most franchises where the characters get new designs to stand out. Every pokemon looks exactly how they did in their debut game. All you need to do is touch up the hard work of other developers. The Pokemon company reserves the right to use all of that material. They don't even see a need to credit the individuals that made it. On a bizarrely related note I remember reading that citations are still sort of a foreign concept to the Japanese. If you don't want people stealing your material, you'd better patent or copyright it because plagiarism runs rampant.

Anyway, Google claims Genius Sonority now has just 22 developers. That is an exodus worthy of appearing in the Bible. Look at the credits of any of those three games and I'm sure you'd see at least 100 unique names in their hey day. I wonder why the shift away from console games? I can't deny that main series pokemon games are most profitable on handheld systems. But even by that logic it begs the question how we got as many of them as we did across ten years. They sold poorly compared to the main series, but pretty gosh darned well compared to other exclusive titles for the same system. Pokemon Stadium 1 and 2 are the 6th and 12th best selling N64 games. Colosseum clutched the 9th spot. Only Battle Revolution sits as low as #40.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

11 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

GameFreak had no hand in the development of those three games, or the Stadium duology, but if the work is already done, why not use it as a basis? Genius Sonority's three games (Colosseum/XD/Battle Revolution) do prove the point I was making. This isn't like most franchises where the characters get new designs to stand out. Every pokemon looks exactly how they did in their debut game. All you need to do is touch up the hard work of other developers. The Pokemon company reserves the right to use all of that material. They don't even see a need to credit the individuals that made it. On a bizarrely related note I remember reading that citations are still sort of a foreign concept to the Japanese. If you don't want people stealing your material, you'd better patent or copyright it because plagiarism runs rampant.

Anyway, Google claims Genius Sonority now has just 22 developers. That is an exodus worthy of appearing in the Bible. Look at the credits of any of those three games and I'm sure you'd see at least 100 unique names in their hey day. I wonder why the shift away from console games? I can't deny that main series pokemon games are most profitable on handheld systems. But even by that logic it begs the question how we got as many of them as we did across ten years. They sold poorly compared to the main series, but pretty gosh darned well compared to other exclusive titles for the same system. Pokemon Stadium 1 and 2 are the 6th and 12th best selling N64 games. Colosseum clutched the 9th spot. Only Battle Revolution sits as low as #40.

Maybe the next mainline game, or remake, could be a collaboration between Game Freak and Genius Sonority? With GF focusing on the mechanical side, and GS worried about the presentation. That could give us the "best of both worlds".

As for why Battle Revolution failed, I'd chalk it up to offering little as a stand-alone experience. The Stadium games featured a full Rental mode, plus party-style minigames. Meanwhile, Colosseum and XD each feature a full RPG-style campaign. As for PBR, there's no campaign, no minigames, and very limited rental options. You can only fully appreciate it in connection to a Gen IV Pokemon game.

That said, the presentation is top-notch. Pokemon actually move across the field for physical attacks. Stealth Rocks get put up, and they stay up. The backgrounds are the best we've seen in the series. Not only that, it was the first game to feature player customization. It was an incomplete game that did a lot of impressive stuff.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

56 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Maybe the next mainline game, or remake, could be a collaboration between Game Freak and Genius Sonority? With GF focusing on the mechanical side, and GS worried about the presentation. That could give us the "best of both worlds".

That's what I would suggest if GS were still at the strength they were in the mid 2000s, but they're not. It's like when they announced Retro Studios were being put to work on Prime 4, I wasn't reassured at all since pretty much all of the original staff have left the company for other projects in the many years since. Ditto if Rareware announced they were making a sequel to a beloved game. Microsoft has instead licensed their properties to other companies, and with usually great results. 

Quote

As for why Battle Revolution failed, I'd chalk it up to offering little as a stand-alone experience. The Stadium games featured a full Rental mode, plus party-style minigames. Meanwhile, Colosseum and XD each feature a full RPG-style campaign. As for PBR, there's no campaign, no minigames, and very limited rental options. You can only fully appreciate it in connection to a Gen IV Pokemon game.

I only recall renting the game and being disappointed in the lack of playing the DS games on the television. That was a big draw for me with the original Stadiums, that Transfer Pak peripheral that let you play your current file on the big screen. I live with someone who's not mechanically inclined enough to play Pokemon very well on a handheld, but Pokemon Stadium and the GS gamecube games allowed him to both watch and sometimes even play more comfortably. The DS to Wii wireless connectivity was impressive, but I guess not so much that it would allow for real time "streaming" of Diamond and Pearl. Pokemon Stadium's GB Tower works because (according to ROM hacking theorists) the N64 cartridge just has a mostly-functional Game Boy emulator crammed in there amongst the game code. But the DS was a much more advanced piece of hardware in 2007 than the ten year old Game Boy was in 1999.

[lenticular]

On 1/3/2022 at 8:02 AM, Zapp Branniglenn said:

But realistically? Option 3: Hire more developers. Because the biggest multimedia franchise on the planet can afford more than ~100 staff on a project. You wanna know how other yearly release franchises (Call of Duty, Assassin's Creed, etc) manage so much higher polish despite a more frequent release schedule? They've got several studios across the globe, taking turns each year for their releases. They've got as much as 500 employed each, working their asses off to put that nonsense together. That's without getting into contract workers either. And those studios don't pull in the kind of money Pokemon does on their games, let alone the toys and other junk to supplement development costs.

While I agree that GameFreak could and should do better, I think that "just throw more people at it" can only take you so far. Adding more people introduces new problems, like maintaining a coherent style across the team, communication between departments, etc. So there's diminishing returns on what you get out of larger teams. I think it's quite telling that both of the series you cite as good examples are also often accused of being formulaic and lacking creativity. (I last played Assassin's Creed back at AC3 and have never played Call of Duty, so can't personally comment on them, but I've heard the opinion enough to know it's hardly a hot take for either.) My own personal wish would be for them to take their time on the games and give themselves more time for polish, rather than being tied to a release cycle based off the anime, toys, etc. but I can't see that happening.

My point behind making this thread wasn't to defend Game Freak, Nintendo and The Pokémon company, though. Rather, my intention was to talk about how different players have different priorities. If you'd rather, consider it in these terms: out of all the things that you would like to see fixed about the Pokémon series, which would you want to see fixed first, and which are you willing to put off until later?

[Zapp Branniglenn]

17 minutes ago, lenticular said:

While I agree that GameFreak could and should do better, I think that "just throw more people at it" can only take you so far. Adding more people introduces new problems, like maintaining a coherent style across the team, communication between departments, etc. So there's diminishing returns on what you get out of larger teams.

Diminishing returns still implies returns in the first place. Yes, throwing double the people at a problem never equates to double the work done in a certain span of time. But the reasons for that is because it takes time for old employees to train new hires when they could be doing their normal job instead. New hires are an investment as much as they're a resource. The other issues are solved by just having good leadership and something for everybody to be doing. 

Quote

I think it's quite telling that both of the series you cite as good examples are also often accused of being formulaic and lacking creativity. (I last played Assassin's Creed back at AC3 and have never played Call of Duty, so can't personally comment on them, but I've heard the opinion enough to know it's hardly a hot take for either.) 

Have you...never heard somebody call Pokemon formulaic or lacking in creativity? Not even with the latest release? That is surprising. Either way whatever people say about a game doesn't impact what the game factually is. I haven't played a Call of Duty or Assassin's Creed title that doesn't display industry standard controls, accessibility, or graphical fidelity. Call them whatever you want but they're never as undercooked as your average tail whip animation or lacking in content to do.

Quote

If you'd rather, consider it in these terms: out of all the things that you would like to see fixed about the Pokémon series, which would you want to see fixed first, and which are you willing to put off until later?

And I've answered. I've answered the same answer as everybody else, so that's a pretty strong statement about priorities.

Edited January 6, 2022 by Zapp Branniglenn