"A Message for Pokémon Video Game Fans" - by Junichi Masuda (It's Nothing) [See Staff Post for Discussion Guidelines]

[PaultheNerd]

I may or may not have OCD.

Finishing the regional isn't good enough when I tab over and see "National Dex"

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That is a completely fair opinion and an interesting point of view for the whole situation. It is always interesting to see how people personally view the giant mass that is known as the national dex; I think I can resonate with that agonizing feeling of not having a complete national dex when I personally as a Pokemon player do not partake much in cross-gen transferring. It's a giant task to undertake and undeniably requires money to be put in if you haven't kept up much, so no one can blame you much for having that opinion, but obviously on the flip side people have put in A LOT of effort/money over the years with keeping a complete collection, so their opinions are valid as well.

 

[Soran]

"both sides"

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Yup, exactly, both sides. Trough I side eye the "side" defending a billionaire company.

 

[Apa504]

Yup, exactly, both sides. Trough I side eye the "side" defending a billionaire company.

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So calling out the harrasment is now defending a company. Jesus Christ.

 

[Deleted member 35077]

Considering that the models so far look basically the same as before, I feel like the supposedly-redone models were for the Dynamax forms (which, like you said, doesn't really make much sense). Gigantiamax forms looking different I can understand, but not Dynamax if they are indeed what was redone.

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That makes more sense, but it just makes me hate dynamax more. They should've just limit it to the final evolution of each pokemon, instead of creating new models for pokemon people won't used in competitive play. I doubt anyone is thinking of dynamaxing fucking Sunkern when fighting the Champion or someone online.

 

[lvl 99 Pixel]

Yup, exactly, both sides. Trough I side eye the "side" defending a billionaire company.

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get your priorities straight man

 

[Soran]

So calling out the harrasment is now defending a company. Jesus Christ.

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Kanmurukillua said his girlfriend was body-shamed and lvl 99 Pixel dismished it with a "both sides". Pretty sure insulting a person because their appareance is worst than calling the devs of a billonaire IP "lazy".

 

[lvl 99 Pixel]

Kanmurukillua said his girlfriend was body-shamed and lvl 99 Pixel dismished it with a "both sides". Pretty sure insulting a person because their appareance is worst than calling the devs of a billonaire IP "lazy".

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When your reaction to said behavior directed toward developers or fans is not to acknowledge said problem but rather a deliberate attempt to change the subject? that's not a contradiction of any sort and comes off like a dismissal.

 

[Apa504]

Kanmurukillua said his girlfriend was body-shamed and lvl 99 Pixel dismished it with a "both sides". Pretty sure insulting a person because their appareance is worst than calling the devs of a billonaire IP "lazy".

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And is horrible what was said to his/her girlfriend, but you dont condemn harrasment by just saying the other side does it too, you condemn ALL the harrasment.
And I wish people only were calling people at GF lazy.
People are telling Masuda to fuck off, to kill himself, the false rape allegation, photoshoping his face in clowns, etc. Masuda was a guy who tweeted a lot each day, and now are days without him tweeting, his lifestyle has changed because of this.
But it seems that you are ok with that because he is part of a company and cant have your virtual pet, disgusting.

 

[Absent Breeze]

This is never going to end. Everyone's just gonna be at each other's throats and then the next game is announced and we'll go back to rinse and repeat.

Brotheeeer, oh brother... 🤡

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It is funny looking through that old thread, seeing the same familiar posters debating over GF even back then. I will say though that back then discussions about pokemon seemed very much anti criticism. I remember being absolutely blown away when people were posting that they would be completely fine if gen 8 looked like the hd mods of sun and moon. Legitimate debates on whether the game would look better than an upressed 3ds game, I'd never seen a community have such low expectations lol.

At the time I think I even said I'd be massively disappointed if it didn't look better than Ninokuni on the ps3 and tbh I don't think SwSh do, but at this point there are so many other issues I have with the games that in the end that criteria for disappointment was really low balling it.

 

[Pokemaniac]

I recently read the famitsu interview and they actually said all the models were redone for sword and shield which is just mind boggling. We suffered through the horrible performance in the 3DS era for nothing, but what I think is worst is that they created another set of models for Dynamax for each and every pokemon in the region, instead of just scaling the models up. They could've used that time to first complete the transition for every pokemon.

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There must be some really weird translation thing going on with that article, because even the Dynamax models look exactly the same as the 3DS ones.

Either that or Game Freak's toolchain is deeply broken.

 

[Horohorohoro]

When your reaction to said behavior directed toward developers or fans is not to acknowledge said problem but rather a deliberate attempt to change the subject? that's not a contradiction of any sort and comes off like a dismissal.

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I mean, I wasn't trying to make a contradiction or dismiss anything, I was just sick of everyone always saying it was EVERYONE who wants the national dex back who was harassing people, and wanted to give an example of personal harassment someone I know has experienced from someone on the other side of the argument and how I think associating everyone with people who do the absolute worst is stupid.

 

[lvl 99 Pixel]

I mean, I wasn't trying to make a contradiction or dismiss anything, I was just sick of everyone always saying it was EVERYONE who wants the national dex back who was harassing people, and wanted to give an example of personal harassment someone I know has experienced from someone on the other side of the argument and how I think associating everyone with people who do the absolute worst is stupid.

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If anything it makes it seem more like Pokemon fans are not only shitty to the developers but to each other. Its all heinous.

 

[Soran]

And is horrible what was said to his/her girlfriend, but you dont condemn harrasment by just saying the other side does it too, you condemn ALL the harrasment.
And I wish people only were calling people at GF lazy.
People are telling Masuda to fuck off, to kill himself, the false rape allegation, photoshoping his face in clowns, etc. Masuda was a guy who tweeted a lot each day, and now are days without him tweeting, his lifestyle has changed because of this.
But it seems that you are ok with that because he is part of a company and cant have your virtual pet, disgusting.

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I'm against Masuda being called that, of course. But is funny how people are quick to react when people said even the slightly bad thing about him but your average user can get all the hate and no one said anything.

 

[Pokemaniac]

When your reaction to said behavior directed toward developers or fans is not to acknowledge said problem but rather a deliberate attempt to change the subject? that's not a contradiction of any sort and comes off like a dismissal.

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It's not clear why you even brought up harassment there to begin with. All I was talking about was why there was so much nitpicking of the animations in Sword and Shield.

 

[Toxi]

There must be some really weird translation thing going on with that article, because even the Dynamax models look exactly the same as the 3DS ones.

Either that or Game Freak's toolchain is deeply broken.

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It was probably talking about the Gigantomax models.

At least, I hope it was.

 

[lvl 99 Pixel]

It's not clear why you even brought up harassment there to begin with. All I was talking about was why there was so much nitpicking of the animations in Sword and Shield.

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"they made their bed and have to lie in it" sounded like this is their implicit comeuppance

 

[Horohorohoro]

"they made their bed and have to lie in it" sounded like this is their implicit comeuppance

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Considering the context, I'm assuming it meant "They said the animations and quality were the reason they cut Pokemon, so they're welcoming the criticism of those aspects of the game."

 

[lvl 99 Pixel]

Considering the context, I'm assuming it meant "They said the animations and quality were the reason they cut Pokemon, so they're welcoming the criticism of those aspects of the game."

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Fair enough. You'll have to forgive me for not knowing peoples intentions recently.

 

[WrenchNinja]

It sounds like you guys are responding to someone making silly arguments and defenses but I cant seem to see them. 😏

 

[Pokemaniac]

It was probably talking about the Gigantomax models.

At least, I hope it was.

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That was before Gigantamax was revealed. I guess it is possible that it was, in fact, referring to Gigantamax and the translation suggesting that they were saying that they literally rebuilt all the models for Dynamax was just super bad, but it still seems like sort of a weird quote given the context.

"they made their bed and have to lie in it" sounded like this is their implicit comeuppance

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Considering the context, I'm assuming it meant "They said the animations and quality were the reason they cut Pokemon, so they're welcoming the criticism of those aspects of the game."

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Yeah, it was exactly that.

 

[Omegamon]

I guess we will have to wait for the games to come out and then people to rip the models to see if they are the same

 

[GiantBreadbug]

It is funny looking through that old thread, seeing the same familiar posters debating over GF even back then. I will say though that back then discussions about pokemon seemed very much anti criticism. I remember being absolutely blown away when people were posting that they would be completely fine if gen 8 looked like the hd mods of sun and moon. Legitimate debates on whether the game would look better than an upressed 3ds game, I'd never seen a community have such low expectations lol.

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Because they were / are. About the time of USUM I was airing my grievances in what I believe to be a measured way, and was basically one of a handful of like-minded individuals. To see something like this bring forth a lot of criticism was honestly a little surprising to me given my experience with how people process negative opinions of GF's design philosophies and technical incompetencies.

 

[Uncle at Nintendo]

Someone managed to discover that some of Hop's animations are directly recycled from Hau.



It's one of those things that I would have missed unless someone pointed it out.

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This is a very minor nitpick. However in the current situation where we were explicitly promised better animations in exchanged for the cut Pokemon, along with the many other things wrong with this game, it's a pretty heavy straw on the camels back.

 

[Apa504]

I'm against Masuda being called that, of course. But is funny how people are quick to react when people said even the slightly bad thing about him but your average user can get all the hate and no one said anything.

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Again with both sides, anything to dismiss harrasment.

 

[Horohorohoro]

Again with both sides, enything to dismiss harrasment.

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Nobody is trying to dismiss harrassment here, I'm not sure why you're trying to act as though we are. All I did was bring up a personal example of harrassment. I have never once condoned what people do on Masuda's personal Twitter or toward other people, and I made certain to make that clear.

 

[Soran]

Again with both sides, anything to dismiss harrasment.

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When I said "average user" I do was talking about people on both sides being harassed.

 

[Apa504]

Nobody is trying to dismiss harrassment here, I'm not sure why you're trying to act as though we are. All I did was bring up a personal example of harrassment. I have never once condoned what people do on Masuda's personal Twitter or toward other people, and I made certain to make that clear.

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I am not talking about you here.

When I said "average user" I do was talking about people on both sides being harrased.

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Then good thing we agree thal all the harrasment is bad.

 

[ferroseed168]

Still largely uninterested in them. If I do ever play them, it probably won't be until a few years down the line and with the connectivity between games fucked for the foreseeable future, it'll just be a one and done playthrough without the hours upon hours I usually spend with the games once the main story is finished. I've pretty much entirely lost my passion for the series at this point due to this move, even to the point where it's effecting my desire to continue playing older games as well. I've given up on the shiny hunts I was working on because now all I think is, 'What's the point? They're just going to end up stuck in Pokejail anyway until GameFreak is gracious enough to put them in a game, if ever.'

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Pretty much how I feel too. The Pokedex news has poisoned the well for me with these games. And while some of the new stuff does look cool (I like the new trainer designs more than the new Pokemon designs tbh), it's not enough to get me interested in buying these games. Instead I'm considering finally picking up Let's Go this holiday for a quick Gen 1 playthrough

 

[ferroseed168]

Because they were / are. About the time of USUM I was airing my grievances in what I believe to be a measured way, and was basically one of a handful of like-minded individuals. To see something like this bring forth a lot of criticism was honestly a little surprising to me given my experience with how people process negative opinions of GF's design philosophies and technical incompetencies.

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I've had a lot of issues with Gamefreak since Gen 6 as well and I've routinely seen a lot of criticism from folks like you about Gens 6 and 7 (and I've agreed with a lot of it but I still bought and played Gens 6 and 7). However, this Pokedex decision is the straw that broke the camel's back for me (and for a lot more people as well)

 

[TheChungusAmongUs]

That is a completely fair opinion and an interesting point of view for the whole situation. It is always interesting to see how people personally view the giant mass that is known as the national dex; I think I can resonate with that agonizing feeling of not having a complete national dex when I personally as a Pokemon player do not partake much in cross-gen transferring. It's a giant task to undertake and undeniably requires money to be put in if you haven't kept up much, so no one can blame you much for having that opinion, but obviously on the flip side people have put in A LOT of effort/money over the years with keeping a complete collection, so their opinions are valid as well.

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Of course their opinion is valid, which is why I stated I was in a minority

 

[GiantBreadbug]

I've had a lot of issues with Gamefreak since Gen 6 as well and I've routinely seen a lot of criticism from folks like you about Gens 6 and 7 (and I've agreed with a lot of it but I still bought and played Gens 6 and 7). However, this Pokedex decision is the straw that broke the camel's back for me (and for a lot more people as well)

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Sure, I get that. I also played the 3DS games and have some nice things to say about them for all the gripes I have. I think I had just internalized a lot of the pushback to criticism or apparent apathy I was seeing and convinced myself that blowback against yet another shitty decision wasn't really possible or likely.

It's a pretty big thing for me too. I was pretty enthusiastic about the wild area and I like the new Pokemon, so I was really looking forward to the games prior to this revelation. But I really just can't be excited for the game now.

I've had my "moment" with the series's direction and it's a somewhat surreal feeling with which I have to come to terms. This was one of my favorite game worlds of all time, and such an integral part of the experience has not only be culled in SwSh, but it's by design and will be the norm going forward. I know this is just videogames we're talking about, but in a way it really has been kinda heartbreaking for me given my collection and how much I love(d) using my shinies in postgame shenanigans.

 

[Moltres006]

Sure, I get that. I also played the 3DS games and have some nice things to say about them for all the gripes I have. I think I had just internalized a lot of the pushback to criticism or apparent apathy I was seeing and convinced myself that blowback against yet another shitty decision wasn't really possible or likely.

It's a pretty big thing for me too. I was pretty enthusiastic about the wild area and I like the new Pokemon, so I was really looking forward to the games prior to this revelation. But I really just can't be excited for the game now.

I've had my "moment" with the series's direction and it's a somewhat surreal feeling with which I have to come to terms. This was one of my favorite game worlds of all time, and such an integral part of the experience has not only be culled in SwSh, but it's by design and will be the norm going forward. I know this is just videogames we're talking about, but in a way it really has been kinda heartbreaking for me given my collection and how much I love(d) using my shinies in postgame shenanigans.

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This the saddest part, Galar seems like a pretty cool region, but all these decisions of cutting the national dex and removing megas killed all hype I had for the games.

 

[Serebii]

So someone told me to check out the Famitsu interview again and Ohmori does say they had to redo the models from scratch. This makes sense due to different format and perhaps it being hard to port directly across

Now this made me think back to the animations thing. Even if they were able to convert the models, they would need to re-rig every single animation for every single Pokémon, test it and so forth. Like I said, assuming a dozen animations for each Pokémon model (1006 as stated before), that's a craptonne of animations to re-rig and test. Such a thing can't be automated.

I'm truly starting to understand the huge work load involved. This still sucks, but if people actually listened to the explanations rather than just assuming they're lying maybe they'd be less hostile. I dunno.

People are probably just going to respond "They're lying" anyway despite there being no reason to lie about this unless you just think they're out to get us

 

[Horohorohoro]

If they really did redo every model, that kind of makes Gen 6 and 7 more disappointing in retrospect considering we put up with the bad framerates and performance in battles because we all accepted that the models were futureproofed and were just too high poly for the 3DS to handle, lmao

 

[lvl 99 Pixel]

it wasn't worth having the trainer models in battles either way

 

[Soran]

So someone told me to check out the Famitsu interview again and Ohmori does say they had to redo the models from scratch. This makes sense due to different format and perhaps it being hard to port directly across

Now this made me think back to the animations thing. Even if they were able to convert the models, they would need to re-rig every single animation for every single Pokémon, test it and so forth. Like I said, assuming a dozen animations for each Pokémon model (1006 as stated before), that's a craptonne of animations to re-rig and test. Such a thing can't be automated.

I'm truly starting to understand the huge work load involved. This still sucks, but if people actually listened to the explanations rather than just assuming they're lying maybe they'd be less hostile. I dunno.

People are probably just going to respond "They're lying" anyway despite there being no reason to lie about this unless you just think they're out to get us

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You have to admit they look pretty damn similar, like to a T. If is true then is a wasted opportunity to make the models so identical.

 

[The Adder]

People are probably just going to respond "They're lying" anyway despite there being no reason to lie about this unless you just think they're out to get us

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We all know there is no incentive for them to lie whenever corporations make controversial decisions.

 

[TreeMePls]

You have to admit they look pretty damn similar, like to a T. If is true then is a wasted opportunity to make the models so identical.

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Also the animations too. If they had to reanimate the models from scratch, making it so that they looked ripped straight from the 3DS games wouldn't be the way to do it, especially if you're going to say that the reason for the cutting of Pokemon was due to the quality of the animations being better.

It also doesn't even make sense either since this is going to be the policy going forward. Why even put the effort needed to reanimate and remodel in vein when its possible it wont be used again for years. Just say that you needed to remodel/reanimate for the Switch and when all of them are done, that's when all Pokemon will be available again in a single game.

 

[Serebii]

You have to admit they look pretty damn similar, like to a T. If is true then is a wasted opportunity to make the models so identical.

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Chances are it wasn't that the models had to be manually rebuilt, but rather they had to be converted manually in some manner and doing so needs the animations to be rerigged, not redesigned.

We all know there is no incentive for them to lie whenever corporations make controversial decisions.

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Well when it's the basis behind the entire decision?

 

[ferroseed168]

You have to admit they look pretty damn similar, like to a T. If is true then is a wasted opportunity to make the models so identical.

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I've played all the 3DS games, Pokemon Go and have even seen the Pokémon models in Gen upcoming Pokémon Masters. They look like the exact same models. I've been staring at those Lucario and Tyranitar models for 6 years now

 

[ferroseed168]

Sure, I get that. I also played the 3DS games and have some nice things to say about them for all the gripes I have. I think I had just internalized a lot of the pushback to criticism or apparent apathy I was seeing and convinced myself that blowback against yet another shitty decision wasn't really possible or likely.

It's a pretty big thing for me too. I was pretty enthusiastic about the wild area and I like the new Pokemon, so I was really looking forward to the games prior to this revelation. But I really just can't be excited for the game now.

I've had my "moment" with the series's direction and it's a somewhat surreal feeling with which I have to come to terms. This was one of my favorite game worlds of all time, and such an integral part of the experience has not only be culled in SwSh, but it's by design and will be the norm going forward. I know this is just videogames we're talking about, but in a way it really has been kinda heartbreaking for me given my collection and how much I love(d) using my shinies in postgame shenanigans.

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Yeah I think Gamefreak is essentially saying (whether this is their intention or not) that when push comes to shove, it's dedicated fans like us (those who spend hundreds of hours in their games and appreciate the deeper mechanics) that are the most easily disposable to them. And yeah, I understand what you're saying completely. It's so hard to fall out of love with a series that we have so many memories with, that we've bought consoles to play. But I also think this is the best time to leave given I think the series will only get worse and more casual from here (this is just my speculation)

 

[Regulus Tera]

This video probably has been shared before, but damn, I didn't realise how basic some of the animations were.

OTOH I see no problem with reusing Hau's movement library, since that's actually a pretty decent animation all around.

 

[Horohorohoro]

This video probably has been shared before, but damn, I didn't realise how basic some of the animations were.

OTOH I see no problem with reusing Haru's movement library, since that's actually a pretty decent animation all around.

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Yeah, I'm fine with the Hau/Hop similarity thing because that doesn't matter as much to me, but the way most of those animations are just copied over exactly just kind of really sucks, especially considering how much more personality every Pokemon's idle animations gave them in Stadium, the Gamecube games, and Pokemon Battle Revolution.

 

[Fj0823]

So someone told me to check out the Famitsu interview again and Ohmori does say they had to redo the models from scratch. This makes sense due to different format and perhaps it being hard to port directly across

Now this made me think back to the animations thing. Even if they were able to convert the models, they would need to re-rig every single animation for every single Pokémon, test it and so forth. Like I said, assuming a dozen animations for each Pokémon model (1006 as stated before), that's a craptonne of animations to re-rig and test. Such a thing can't be automated.

I'm truly starting to understand the huge work load involved. This still sucks, but if people actually listened to the explanations rather than just assuming they're lying maybe they'd be less hostile. I dunno.

People are probably just going to respond "They're lying" anyway despite there being no reason to lie about this unless you just think they're out to get us

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What you're saying is that we went through terrible performance on the 3DS games because they were future proofing these models for future games.

Now they found out those future proofed models created for the sole reason of not having to work on models in future titles are no good, so they threw all of those assets out of the window and redid every single one of them, and they also redid every single animation to look exactly the same as they did before because the original ones couldn´t be ported.

If THAT is what you're saying, then I really hope they´re lying. Because otherwise they're the most incompetent developers of modern gaming.

 

[Serebii]

What you're saying is that we went through terrible performance on the 3DS games because they were future proofing these models for future games.

Now they found out those future proofed models created for the sole reason of not having to work on models in future titles are no good, so they threwall of those out of the window and redid every single one of them, and they also redid every single animation to look exactly the same as they did before because the original ones couldn´t be ported.

If THAT is what you're saying, then I really hope they´re lying. Because otherwise they're the most incompetent developers of modern gaming.

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How do you know it's down to incompetence? Are you an expert in development? Porting to different engines/devices does require existing stuff to get reworked. This is normal.

 

[Fj0823]

How do you know it's down to incompetence? Are you an expert in development? Porting to different engines/devices does require existing stuff to get reworked. This is normal.

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So every port just redoes every single model from scratch? Is that what you're saying?

That redoing the entire models and animations from 0 for every single character in the game is part of a normal porting process?

 

[Horohorohoro]

How do you know it's down to incompetence? Are you an expert in development? Porting to different engines/devices does require existing stuff to get reworked. This is normal.

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I don't know if I'd say it's incompetence, but I don't know how anyone is supposed to be okay with the fact that performance from X and Y to Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon tanked so hard in double battlea, they had to take out triple battles, and it could hardly handle weather or Moltres on screen, but we all accepted it because we thought the models were futureproofed and too high poly for the 3DS, but it turns out none of that matters because they had to remake those models to actually use them without scaling them down. Even if it isn't incompetence, it's silly to excuse something that harmed the performance for 6+ years of the franchise with the promise of future proofing.

 

[Serebii]

So every port just redoes every single model from scratch? Is that what you're saying?

That redoing the entire models and animations from 0 for every single character in the game is part of a normal porting process?

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Depends how much they redid. They probably just converted but converting still requires every animation to get re-rigged, that's what I've been saying

 

[Fj0823]

Depends how much they redid. They probably just converted but converting still requires every animation to get re-rigged, that's what I've been saying

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And what part of that excuses the terrible performance of the past games with the promise that it was so this would not happen?

How in the world was this not a problem they found during Let's Go's Development while they still could've done something about it? (For example not anounce the game for 2019)?

I'm sorry. I'm really missing the part where this translates to "Poor little Gamefreak"

 

[Apa504]

What you're saying is that we went through terrible performance on the 3DS games because they were future proofing these models for future games.

Now they found out those future proofed models created for the sole reason of not having to work on models in future titles are no good, so they threw all of those assets out of the window and redid every single one of them, and they also redid every single animation to look exactly the same as they did before because the original ones couldn´t be ported.

If THAT is what you're saying, then I really hope they´re lying. Because otherwise they're the most incompetent developers of modern gaming.

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So every port just redoes every single model from scratch? Is that what you're saying?

That redoing the entire models and animations from 0 for every single character in the game is part of a normal porting process?

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Chill for a moment.
No matter how future proofed you make something, you will always have to redo or retouch some things.
In this case, the models were not made with the intentions of being super sized, so they surely had to retouch the models, textures, and re rigged all of them.