As someone who grew up playing Red and Blue as a child, Pokemon holds a special, nostalgic place in my heart. But since the days for the original 151, I haven't followed most of the games in the franchise, and have only played a couple over the years. I've continued to love the aesthetic though.
It was with this in mind that I picked up Shield, thinking this would be a good onramp back into the series (I also played Let's Go). But a feeling has struck me 6 or so hours into the game. There are too many pokemon. Seeing all the conversations about the national dex and the cuts, I kept coming back to the idea that this would not bother me because frankly, I probably recognize about 200 pokemon at this point, and most of them are gen 1, so 400 sounded like a lot. But now I feel like 400 might be too many.
As I wandered through the first wild area, I found myself presented with myriad pokemon walking around. Before I knew it, I was looking at a box of 20-30 pokemon, almost all of which I really didn't know the first thing about. Sure, I could look at their stats, and types, but would they be good long term such that I should keep them in my party? Will they learn interesting moves? Will they evolve into something fun? As I understand, unless I'm looking at playing competitively (Which I guess I'm not, because I'm not going to go look up the best min-max approach to this game 6 hours in), it doesn't really matter; I can pick whatever, level it up, and I'll be able to make my way through the game. But it really just feels like I have this massive pool of characters and I'll never know anything about the majority of them. It seems like I'll be lucky to know 30-40 of them well by the end of the game.
Beyond the learning curve though, there are times I just wonder, "Did they really need another pokemon that looked like this? Was this the most interesting, differentiated thing they could come up with?" A couple early examples:
Chewtle - Another water-type turtle? Ok. That design too... The horn, the unibrow, the tooth that looks like a dumb smile. My wife walked into the room and immediately remarked, "Ooh, I do not like that thing," when she saw it on screen. Regardless of me thinking the design is pretty bad though, it really does seem repetitive to have another water-turtle pokemon.
Yamper - My first thought was, "Aw, a cute dog!" But the more time I spend with Yamper, the more he just looks dull. The derpy look on its face is funny at first, but just starts to look vacant as time goes one. It seems largely constructed of simple shapes and colors too that look rather dull, especially when they lack shadows. It likewise doesn't have any interesting dog-like animations which would have gone a long way to lending it personality. On top of that, an hour or so later, what do I find? Another electric dog pokemon!? Electrike. Frankly, why? You wanted to make a corgi design, which is great, but you chose to make it electric when you already had an electric dog? And then you put both of those pokemon in close proximity to each other in the game? I don't get it. Did no one raise this concern?
I've also already seen three or four "flower" pokemon. And don't get me wrong, I like flowers a lot, and I generally like their designs, but once again, it felt like maybe some of these shouldn't have made the cut. Same with many of the "fish" pokemon; many of them just have not looked interesting and unique.
So, unpopular opinion time; so far my impression of Pokemon Sword and Shield is that there are too many Pokemon, and of those pokemon, many of them feel repetitious. I'm wondering if I might be enjoying the game more if there were maybe 200, and all of them felt like unique creatures that all offered something interesting in their own way. Perhaps as well we could see more animation and personality added to these designs. As far as I can see, so far, more is not better.
It was with this in mind that I picked up Shield, thinking this would be a good onramp back into the series (I also played Let's Go). But a feeling has struck me 6 or so hours into the game. There are too many pokemon. Seeing all the conversations about the national dex and the cuts, I kept coming back to the idea that this would not bother me because frankly, I probably recognize about 200 pokemon at this point, and most of them are gen 1, so 400 sounded like a lot. But now I feel like 400 might be too many.
As I wandered through the first wild area, I found myself presented with myriad pokemon walking around. Before I knew it, I was looking at a box of 20-30 pokemon, almost all of which I really didn't know the first thing about. Sure, I could look at their stats, and types, but would they be good long term such that I should keep them in my party? Will they learn interesting moves? Will they evolve into something fun? As I understand, unless I'm looking at playing competitively (Which I guess I'm not, because I'm not going to go look up the best min-max approach to this game 6 hours in), it doesn't really matter; I can pick whatever, level it up, and I'll be able to make my way through the game. But it really just feels like I have this massive pool of characters and I'll never know anything about the majority of them. It seems like I'll be lucky to know 30-40 of them well by the end of the game.
Beyond the learning curve though, there are times I just wonder, "Did they really need another pokemon that looked like this? Was this the most interesting, differentiated thing they could come up with?" A couple early examples:
Chewtle - Another water-type turtle? Ok. That design too... The horn, the unibrow, the tooth that looks like a dumb smile. My wife walked into the room and immediately remarked, "Ooh, I do not like that thing," when she saw it on screen. Regardless of me thinking the design is pretty bad though, it really does seem repetitive to have another water-turtle pokemon.
Yamper - My first thought was, "Aw, a cute dog!" But the more time I spend with Yamper, the more he just looks dull. The derpy look on its face is funny at first, but just starts to look vacant as time goes one. It seems largely constructed of simple shapes and colors too that look rather dull, especially when they lack shadows. It likewise doesn't have any interesting dog-like animations which would have gone a long way to lending it personality. On top of that, an hour or so later, what do I find? Another electric dog pokemon!? Electrike. Frankly, why? You wanted to make a corgi design, which is great, but you chose to make it electric when you already had an electric dog? And then you put both of those pokemon in close proximity to each other in the game? I don't get it. Did no one raise this concern?
I've also already seen three or four "flower" pokemon. And don't get me wrong, I like flowers a lot, and I generally like their designs, but once again, it felt like maybe some of these shouldn't have made the cut. Same with many of the "fish" pokemon; many of them just have not looked interesting and unique.
So, unpopular opinion time; so far my impression of Pokemon Sword and Shield is that there are too many Pokemon, and of those pokemon, many of them feel repetitious. I'm wondering if I might be enjoying the game more if there were maybe 200, and all of them felt like unique creatures that all offered something interesting in their own way. Perhaps as well we could see more animation and personality added to these designs. As far as I can see, so far, more is not better.
