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DF: Pokémon Sword/Shield - Switch's Next-Gen Pokémon Doesn't Quite Deliver

Deleted member 31092

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- Engine is an evolved version of Let's Go.
- Wild Area is big, surprisingly high foliage density and nice bloom effect.
- City design more in line with Sun and Moon's standard than Let's Go "grid based" design.
- Locked camera in city helps performance.
- Shadows improved over Sun and Moon, now proper shadows are present outside of battles too.
- Over 400 Pokémon cut, Z-moves, Mega and many online features are removed to increase quality...
- ... but environments are mostly static ("window dressing"), huge repetition of rooms and decorations.
- Texturing is generally of poor quality highlighted by the low camera angle.
- Dynamic shadow system is impressive, but it has a lot of flickering. It can look rough.
- Pop-in is a huge issue, rendering range is extremely limited and almost comical.
- Human character higher detailed than ever, but contrary to Game Freak's pre release statements the Pokémon models were not reworked.
- Lighting and material interactions are sensibly increased over the 3DS, but it does not explain the huge cut of Dex. Why are Pokémon from Let's Go missing if they were already reworked?
- Compared to BotW and Xenoblade 2, the game is "in a lower league".
- Docked res: 1080p indoor, dynamic res outsidide (864p worse case scenario). Game is more demanding than Let's Go so it justifies the lower res.
- Portable res: 720p dynamic, drops at 576p outdoor worst case scenario.
- Zero AA
- No graphical differences beween portable and docked.
- Performance is 30 fps and it's stable most of the time. Switching into battles momentarely drops the framerate in the 20s and dynamax battles can drop too.


> Positives: enviroments, engine cutscenes
> Negatives: emptiness of the world, pop-in, removal of many Pokémon

+ Overall: a step forward, but the pop-in is a glaring issue and it doesn't fully matches the expectations of a next gen Pokémon game, and the Pokédex cut is a big limitation.
 
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chusetto

chusetto

Member
Oct 31, 2017
650
Krista
Impressive art design but technically challenged... I really hope Pokémon 9G to have great graphics (no just the art) and being made by Nintendo EAD (this is a joke)
 
Hanbei

Hanbei

Member
Nov 11, 2017
4,089
Uncle at Nintendo said:
Game Freak really needs to be a support company. Transfer Pokemon to EAD...
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GameFreak right now:
giphy.gif
 
Pancho

Pancho

Avenger
Nov 7, 2017
1,976
I'm still shocked that euch a huge franchise is tied to such a small dev team. But I guess that as long they make money, they won't spend more than they have to.
 
Moara

Moara

▲ Legend ▲
Member
Oct 25, 2017
23,861
Yeah, as soon as I got to the wild area and the frames TANKED as soon as I turned online on, I knew this game wasn't going to be well optimized.
 
Suikodan

Suikodan

Member
Oct 25, 2017
861
Sincerely, GameFreak took a drop for me when they announced that they were developping "something" for the Switch. I remember the presentation in a Nintendo Direct if my memory is right.

Instead of looking confident in what they're doing, it looked like they were confused by the new hardware and where everyone were (probably) expecting Pokémon Stars and confidence from GF, it seemed all the opposite.
 
Zornack

Zornack

Member
Oct 29, 2017
1,134
Man seeing Zelda, XBC2 and Pokemon back to back is just sad.

CoD can put out good to great looking games every year with sweeping changes to systems. Why can't Pokemon?
 
OP
OP

Deleted member 31092

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I've updated the OP.



Also Dark1x, can you please have a look at Wild Area with online on? I'm personally experiencing HUGE frame drops. An example:

 
Jonneh

Jonneh

Good Vibes Gaming
Verified
Oct 24, 2017
4,538
UK
Very well balanced video from Tom, it absolutely isn't pushing boundaries and the pop-in is unfortunate but as he says it still takes small steps to push the series forward and at times can look quite pleasant

One thing I don't see discussed too often is how powerful the more dramatic attacks look now, there's some fantastic details in a lot of them
 
808s & Villainy

808s & Villainy

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
42,700
I've said before Gamefreak has always been an extremely poor company, technically speaking. I know they've invested tons of time developing their current 3D engine, but they seriously need to scrap it and find a more suitable middleware or another engine because it's garbage and always will be
 
Cjdamon042

Cjdamon042

Member
Oct 28, 2017
2,322
Edinburgh
Joseki said:
I've updated the OP.



Also Dark1x, can you please have a look at Wild Area with online on? I'm personally experiencing HUGE frame drops. An example:

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This. It stalls massively when it is loading in another player. One time I was picking up an item off the ground and while doing so it loaded in several other players causing my character to be stuck kneeling down for several seconds before it did anything.
 
exodus

exodus

Member
Oct 25, 2017
9,951
Considering the 99% locked 30fps and very responsive controls, this still beats out several other beloved graphical Nintendo Switch showcases for me.

It does what it needs to do, and it doesn't try to push beyond its limitations. It emphasizes playability and consistency over pushing itself past the breakpoint point.
 
OP
OP

Deleted member 31092

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Jonneh said:
Very well balanced video from Tom, it absolutely isn't pushing boundaries and the pop-in is unfortunate but as he says it still takes small steps to push the series forward and at times can look quite pleasant

One thing I don't see discussed too often is how powerful the more dramatic attacks look now, there's some fantastic details in a lot of them
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Game Freak was already exploring the boundaries of drama in Sun and Moon with the Z-Moves, the Necrozma exclusive Light that Burns the Sky was great

 
Trrzs

Trrzs

Member
Oct 29, 2017
1,131
Sadly, the least of the problems of this game is its graphics... don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying the game cause I freaking love RPGs and Pokemon, but it is not really an evolution in the franchise, it feels the same as we saw in 3DS just with a bit more graphics in HD. Of course it tries to innovate in some aspects, such as the open world, but fails, neglecting much more important aspects.

After playing games with big and stunning worlds like Breath of the Wild and Dragon Quest XI S, performing great on the console, to enter the barren wild area with the fan desperately trying to cool down the console is just... depressing.
 
Aleh

Aleh

Member
Oct 27, 2017
16,298
I think it's important to at least mention the draw distance for the environments themselves is really good. Everything renders no matter how far it is, with the exception of the berry trees for some reason. A stark contrast compared to DQ11 with pop in out of the wazoo for literally everything.
 

Deleted member 32018

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Nov 8, 2017
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I thought that RPG Site guy said it was 720p docked? Wait I'll find the post.

Edit: Here it is...

Theswweet said:
Played for 5 hours, first impressions in spoilers.

What the hell went wrong?

I didn't want to be negative about the game heading in, despite all of the complaints, but it's impossible for me to ignore this games' faults. Visually, it legit looks like an upscaled 3DS game in a lot of places. Textures are bad by last-gen standards. Don't even get me started on how embarrassing these shadows are. Despite the game absolutely not looking demanding at all, it runs at 720p/30 in docked mode and still manages to have framerate dips.

The wild area, so far, is the only truly interesting part of the game. Routes are incredibly short, lack trainers, and the trainers that they do house tend to have 1 or maybe 2 Pokemon in their parties. That doesn't matter though, because if you're actually catching Pokemon you're inevitably going to be many levels above their Pokemon just by the virtue of EXP Share. I'm fine with easy, it's a kids game and I understand that they want everyone to be able to play, but this is absolutely, ridiculously, overtuned. The game constantly hands you healing items like potions and revives, EXP Share overlevels you if you decide to actually engage with the game's early Pokemon variety, and routes are absolutely filled with NPCs that will restore your party's health+PP.

Again - easy is *fine*, but Sw/Sh overcompensates to the point that unless you're rushing through the plot, you're going to be so overleveled that the combat loses any of its depth and it just becomes boring. Then to make matters worse, it seems that the rumors about the game being super short are indeed true. 5 hours in, I hit Route 5, and there's 10 of them in the game, total. My Pokemon are already in their mid 20s. I just don't understand.

On an unrelated note, I don't know who told Serebii Joe that there was a day/night cycle everywhere in the game, but that's demonstrably false. I've been playing starting at 10PM and most of the game's areas have the sun shining. The Wild Area has a proper day/night cycle, but so far that is it.

I want to hope it gets better, but even forgetting "dexit" the game has issues.
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For the rest it's good that it holds at 30fps most of the time and the issues people are having with performance are most likely online related.

Obviously the graphics themselves could be better (textures, pop-in etc) but it still looks good on my 58 inch TV even without AA (something a lot of Nintendo games seem to not have too).
 
Zeroth

Zeroth

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Member
Oct 25, 2017
790
exodus said:
Considering the 99% locked 30fps and very responsive controls, this still beats out several other beloved graphical Nintendo Switch showcases for me.

It does what it needs to do, and it doesn't try to push beyond its limitations. It emphasizes playability and consistency over pushing itself past the breakpoint point.
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The pop-in effect is not exactly something that falls in what you said, I feel
 
DrMoguera

DrMoguera

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Oct 27, 2017
432
Jonneh said:
Very well balanced video from Tom, it absolutely isn't pushing boundaries and the pop-in is unfortunate but as he says it still takes small steps to push the series forward and at times can look quite pleasant

One thing I don't see discussed too often is how powerful the more dramatic attacks look now, there's some fantastic details in a lot of them
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Not really a big fan of how Tyranitar seems to just stand there and the beam effect is edited in like a bad movie or something.
 
808s & Villainy

808s & Villainy

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
42,700
exodus said:
Considering the 99% locked 30fps and very responsive controls, this still beats out several other beloved graphical Nintendo Switch showcases for me.

It does what it needs to do, and it doesn't try to push beyond its limitations. It emphasizes playability and consistency over pushing itself past the breakpoint point.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Like what?! The only Switch game by Nintendo is looks better than in Three Houses. And the video literally shows it isn't consist. There are graphical issues/hiccups and framerate problems in a number of places
 
noyram23

noyram23

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Oct 25, 2017
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2/3 of the video is mostly negative lol, game is just a mix bag technically. Looks really ugly at times even, that horrible textures on open area, low resolution and no aliasing. The best thing you can say that it's the best looking Pokemon game, which is a low bar by itself. They should probably ask assistance from Monolith
 
Bomblord

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Jan 11, 2018
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"Glaring visual visual issues but the best looking game of the series"

Game seems to be a majorly enhanced Let's go Engine

Resolution dynamic with no AA.
1920x1080<->1536x864 docked
1280x720<->1024x576 portable
30fps

- Resolution consistently hits the highest target indoors or out
- minor framerate drops in battle transitions and rare 20fps drops in split-screen dynamax battles.
- upgraded material work over old Pokemon models but similar if not the same models
- Pop-in is minimal for environmental objects but characters are glaringly bad.
- Accurate dyanamic shadow casting on characters/Pokemon but with obvious cascading
- Changing weather states, bloom lighting, and volumetric fog
- Restricted window dressing towns
- low res texture mapping all over the place
- reflections can look odd with no relationship to the surrounding environment
 
RockmanBN

RockmanBN

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Oct 25, 2017
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Jonneh said:
Very well balanced video from Tom, it absolutely isn't pushing boundaries and the pop-in is unfortunate but as he says it still takes small steps to push the series forward and at times can look quite pleasant

One thing I don't see discussed too often is how powerful the more dramatic attacks look now, there's some fantastic details in a lot of them
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Beam is cool. The static Tyranitar not doing anything not so much
 

Deleted member 50540

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Dec 6, 2018
574
DrMoguera said:
Not really a big fan of how Tyranitar seems to just stand there and the beam effect is edited in like a bad movie or something.
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Exactly what I thought too. For all the coolness of the animation it gets instantly ruined for me when you see Tyranitar just standing there, not even in another animation, let alone having the beam come from the space in front of its stomach randomly
 
Oregano

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Oct 25, 2017
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Interesting that in docked it maintains a higher resolution than Breath of the Wild but in portable it dips lower.

The game looks clean but very.... basic?
 
OP
OP

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noyram23 said:
2/3 of the video is mostly negative lol, game is just a mix bag technically. Looks really ugly at times even, that horrible textures on open area, low resolution and no aliasing. The best thing you can say that it's the best looking Pokemon game, which is a low bar by itself. They should probably ask assistance from Monolith
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Some textures are really bad yeah.

Also sometimes the camera angles they chose are horrible, like this example

HtRfOfw.png


This looks like a mid 00s RTS map.
 

Deleted member 32018

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noyram23 said:
On houses, it can go lower than 900p outside, while docked
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Which is still not 720p.

Oregano said:
Interesting that in docked it maintains a higher resolution than Breath of the Wild but in portable it dips lower.

The game looks clean but very.... basic?
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I actually don't mind it too much because the art style helps out. It's nice to have more games that are clean and not Vaseline smeared on the Switch honestly.
 
Spork4000

Spork4000

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Oct 27, 2017
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exodus said:
Considering the 99% locked 30fps and very responsive controls, this still beats out several other beloved graphical Nintendo Switch showcases for me.

It does what it needs to do, and it doesn't try to push beyond its limitations. It emphasizes playability and consistency over pushing itself past the breakpoint point.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Pretty much every Nintendo made switch game has consistent performance though. What "several" is it above?
 
Ohnooni

Ohnooni

Member
Oct 27, 2017
289
Iam fine with how the game looks and I enjoy my time with it but performance really takes a hit when playing online and running around the Wild Area.
The drops are really frequent and noticable, Links Awakening plays smooth as butter in comparison.
 
HaremKing

HaremKing

Banned
Dec 20, 2018
2,416
One of the worst things I've seen from streams are the backgrounds for trainer fights. Especially when they didn't bother to have any background whatsoever and you're just in this weird white void for no explicable reason.

Like, how does that ever make it in a professional game release?
 
808s & Villainy

808s & Villainy

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Oct 27, 2017
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Jonneh said:
For sure, unfortunately that's always been a problem with the series. I guess there's a massive amount of moves & models to work with while being under time contraints
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I'm not sure it's mainly a result of time constraints. I think they believe the animation is just fine. They made a bunch more animations for the camping feature after all

NovumVeritas said:
It seems the budget was very limited with this?
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These problems have been fairly consistently in every 3D game they've made. They need to either aggressively hire some better technical leadership or have another company develop the titles along with them.
 
SlothmanAllen

SlothmanAllen

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Oct 28, 2017
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Shame. Not Pokemon person, but I was hoping moving to console would give them a chance to change things up. I'd love to see an open world Pokemon done right.
 
Keyouta

Keyouta

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Oct 25, 2017
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I've been having a pretty horrible time with frame rate especially in the wild area. Seems like this is partially due to the online connection since it's loading and removing trainers from time to time. Anyone else getting this?
 
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