I'm just saying that art style doesn't fit in with Pokemon and people expecting it to be like that are just putting unrealistic expectations on the franchise.
-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
I feel like the criticisms of the graphics in Pokemon Sword and Shield are kinda... insincere?
- Thread starter Lant_War
- Start date
It's a very good looking game BUT it's inconsistent with the battle backgrounds and some specific assets. Also it doesn't get enough credit for the high resolution it runs at. No game of its scope runs even close to 1080p on the Switch.
Interiors and some of the routes and cities look just gorgeous in every way though.
Interiors and some of the routes and cities look just gorgeous in every way though.
I put the first screenshot I found on Google Images. But if you're really saying a game that came originally for the Wii looks better than Pokémon, you need to go to the eye doctor asap.
These are both reminiscent of those screenshots. Also I said Pokemon looks better.
You can cherry pick bad shots too:
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/63136112/pokemon_sword_and_shield_runes.0.png)
Also, if people have been playing games on other platforms, and statistics say that they do, they're used to games looking more like this:
So it's not too difficult to see where the criticism is coming from. S&S looks very dated no way around it. It might be a huge step up for the Pokemon team, but other teams (Monster Hunter) made a huge step too with way better results. Even BotW looks better and that's a WiiU port.
We don't even need to go to the PS4/XBOX
...................
This is blatantly missing the point that post you quoted. They never said realistic graphics were needed. They said more NPCs.
I don't think it looks great and I think it's missing something that gives the world life and often ends up looking extremely sparse and empty.
And I find plenty of the Nintendo offerings on Switch to be a visual delight.
And I find plenty of the Nintendo offerings on Switch to be a visual delight.
Mario Odyssey looks better, runs at twice the framerate, and has a plethora of NPC/enemy characters running around the game world.
i don't know how you can say this is one of the best looking Switch games when even other Nintendo first party content puts it to shame. Nevermind that stuff like Doom and Witcher 3 are also up and running g on Switch.
i don't know how you can say this is one of the best looking Switch games when even other Nintendo first party content puts it to shame. Nevermind that stuff like Doom and Witcher 3 are also up and running g on Switch.
I'm giving an opinion on that art style in comparison, also they've added more NPCs since the pics in the op so maybe check the new shots out?
We don't even need to go to the PS4/XBOX
...................
Pretty sure that BOTW screenshot is using an emulator, but im not surprised with the dishonesty that happens.
It takes seconds to find something hideous looking for a BOTW screenshot, but you know that's not a good representation of the whole game.
You think id use this, this , this or this as a good indication of how the game looks? nah. The majority of Pokemon is not specific aspects of the Wild Area yet that's being used as the metric for how bad the game looks.
yep looks gorgeousWhen the game hits hard, it hits HARD:
its really only the wild area that looks bad whose screenshots keep being regurgitated when people want to point out the ugly
The Wild Area should have never looked this bad. This is one of your key environment where so much of the marketing is focused on, and it looks completely flat and underdeveloped. The bad trees are still there, the other berry trees still look completely out of place, the ground textures are blurry, the terrain is uninteresting, the body of water just clashes with the rest... It's so weird how primitive it looks.
It looks okay. I don't think it looks bad, but I wouldn't exactly say the game looks great or anything like that. Hopefully, it'll run smoothly!
To be fair, Xenoblade 2 had staff taken off of it to work on BotW. It also came out roughly 2 years ago. Torna ran better, especially docked.
To be fair, Xenoblade 2 had staff taken off of it to work on BotW. It also came out roughly 2 years ago. Torna ran better, especially docked.
Some aspects of it look artistically fine but kinda bad otherwise, but I went into this thread with an open mind and....... those screenshots are not convincing me of anything. Those screenshots remind me of mid-tier Wii games running on Dolphin with graphical enhancements or something.
weird how much of a difference a little splash effect can make. Even just a bad one can change a lot, like how a bit of dust can make up for the distinction between a model just clipping through the earth and creating the illusion of something actually digging
They didn't post Xenoblade X to say Sword and Shield should have graphics or an art style just like that. They were just saying they think it should look as lively with the NPCs. So you comparing art style is a complete non sequitur.
All of the marketing showed the Wild Area, which is the most bland looking, samey, pop-in heavy area in the entire game from what we've seen so far. I feel like it's kind of TPC's fault for not showing any of the beautifully crafted towns or routes we've seen in the previews recently. They actually look good, while the Wild Area looks... eh.
Looks fine to me. I've only played Y and Let's Go Pikachu and didn't think the graphics were anything special in those either. It's a Nintendo game and I'm not a lover of cartoony graphics. So I'm not playing these games for the graphics anyway so I'm quite forgiving vs PS4 or PC games I'm playing with high end graphics as a part of the appeal.
I literally used the best screen I could find of the wild area.
The 3 images I picked were not cherry picked, they were a quick google search away.
This still looks loads better. The scope is not even comparable to what sword and shield is doing and it still looks better, and for what I was comparing (the open world of each game) it is a completely valid, honest comparison.
But whatever, you do you mate.
This, every other franchise that made a similar shift seems to have gone further. Of course I'll wait till release for full judgement, I'm excited regardless.
EDIT: Turns out the game runs at a dynamic 1080p, so nevermind. Yeah, this looks fine. Thanks, Aleh.
That said, I gotta say, as a someone who hasn't played Pokemon since Red (I've been on the ancillary of it since then, as a game enthusiast, with cameos and spin-offs and Go and such), the Pokemon fan base has already exhausted the everloving hell out of me. I can hardly recall a more negatively vocal group of fans in recent years; they really seem to be having a contest to see if they can out-shithead Star Wars fans. From a relative outsider's perspective, it seems like Game Freak can't do right for trying -- you'd think they were EA or something if you listened to Pokemon fans.
So I'm unfortunately not surprised that people are complaining about the visuals, because the visuals are a thing in the game and of course they are.
I think it's funny you dig up shitty looking BotW shots, that still look better than the Pokemon shots, which are fucking hand picked by Game Freak to show off. Imagine the shit shots that you'll be able to dig up in that mess.
It's interesting to note that pop in only affects NPCs and basically 0 environmental assets. It's actually quite impressive how the game always has even small patches of grass loaded in the far far distance. Compare it to something like DQ11 which has bushes and trees pop in right in front of you as you run, it's night and day.
Only NintendoLife reported the 720p resolution, and we've known it's actually dynamic 1080p for a while, so they're wrong.
I literally used the best screen I could find of the wild area.
The 3 images I picked were not cherry picked, they were a quick google search away.
This still looks loads better. The scope is not even comparable to what sword and shield is doing and it still looks better, and for what I was comparing (the open world of each game) it is a completely valid, honest comparison.
But whatever, you do you mate.
"The open world of each game"..... so the entirety of a game vs one area? completely valid and honest...
If you used that BOTW shot to sell the game id tell you Wind Waker looked a lot more appealing. If you can't tell the difference between a CEMU screenshot and Switch then maybe you're not qualified to judge.
"dig up" as in front page of a google search for "Breath of the Wild screenshot" ?
You're welcome to think they look better, but I think they make the game look hideous, with textures invoking memories of Tribes 2
Yep, that's exactly the preview I was thinking of. Thanks for the clarification.
Not only am I glad to hear that, as 720p would've been kind of a let down, but wow, it really drives home my feelings on the "outrage." I don't think any of the games folks are comparing it to in this thread run at a dynamic 1080p. This is totally fine, sure it'll look nice and clean.
Pokemon Sword and Shield is in a weird position where I simultaneously feel like the art and overall designs are pretty great, but also that the way they have presented the world so far is very ... bland. It looks very appealing at times, and also incredibly ugly at others. I think Nintendo is generally pretty good at hiding textures that might otherwise look ugly up close with things like art direction (aside from maybe some Kingdoms in Odyssey), but I don't know if GameFreak has that talent really, which is probably why you see things like the tree textures pointed out all the time (though I'd guess Nintendo's tree textures are also just better in general). Early impressions are very important too, and it's obvious the game has seen some pretty decent graphical updates since it was first revealed.
As for being one of the best looking Switch games? Yeah ... I really don't get that. In a year with Yoshi's Crafted World, Astral Chain, Link's Awakening, and Luigi's Mansion 3 ... I don't think it really makes the cut. We're getting to a point where even a lot of the 2D games on the Switch are pretty impressive. Though, Yoshi's Crafted World does suffer from a bit of a resolution problem, and Link's Awakening has framerate issues (which will probably be updated out, since it seems to be an issue with loading the environment rather than the graphics being too good). Games with simpler graphics also just look "better" than SwSh by the merit of how they're crafted.
Worse than Xenoblade 2 though, as mentioned in this thread? Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Maybe Torna, which supposedly fixes the ugly resolution of XC2. But honestly, I think I might prefer the cleaner less dense approach of SwSh over Xenoblade 2's really bad blurry visuals, even if those are technically superior. Still, wish some of those environmental textures could be covered up better in SwSh.
As for being one of the best looking Switch games? Yeah ... I really don't get that. In a year with Yoshi's Crafted World, Astral Chain, Link's Awakening, and Luigi's Mansion 3 ... I don't think it really makes the cut. We're getting to a point where even a lot of the 2D games on the Switch are pretty impressive. Though, Yoshi's Crafted World does suffer from a bit of a resolution problem, and Link's Awakening has framerate issues (which will probably be updated out, since it seems to be an issue with loading the environment rather than the graphics being too good). Games with simpler graphics also just look "better" than SwSh by the merit of how they're crafted.
Worse than Xenoblade 2 though, as mentioned in this thread? Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Maybe Torna, which supposedly fixes the ugly resolution of XC2. But honestly, I think I might prefer the cleaner less dense approach of SwSh over Xenoblade 2's really bad blurry visuals, even if those are technically superior. Still, wish some of those environmental textures could be covered up better in SwSh.
The graphics are more than just static screenshots, and based on watching the reveal trailers it looks visually quite unappealing to me. Not literally every scene looks bad, but this has not broken the trend of "wow Pokemon looks shit since they dumped the sprites" in my mind, and the game looking far more visually appealing to me on an original DS than it does on a Nintendo Switch speaks volumes in my opinion.
I got a really good preorder price so I'm going to give the game a fair shake, but I'm very much doubting this will turn me around on the series.
I got a really good preorder price so I'm going to give the game a fair shake, but I'm very much doubting this will turn me around on the series.
It just still doesn't look like a grand Pokémon adventure. People will stop complaining when GF actually make it look like a living, breathing Pokémon world.
Like others have said, most of the areas just look bland.
Ultimately the main thing for me is:
If I were to look at this like it's just any new video game, knowing nothing about Pokémon at all, I'd say: looks neat, looks pretty cool.
But I can't look at it like that, because it isn't that. I can only look at it as yet another underwhelming video game entry in the highest grossing media franchise ever. An HD Pokémon game should wow people, not just mildly enthuse people.
If you think that's an unfair expectation, I can understand that. But it is not insincere.
Like others have said, most of the areas just look bland.
Ultimately the main thing for me is:
If I were to look at this like it's just any new video game, knowing nothing about Pokémon at all, I'd say: looks neat, looks pretty cool.
But I can't look at it like that, because it isn't that. I can only look at it as yet another underwhelming video game entry in the highest grossing media franchise ever. An HD Pokémon game should wow people, not just mildly enthuse people.
If you think that's an unfair expectation, I can understand that. But it is not insincere.
DQXI prioritizes lesser NPC and monster pop in for more field pop in. And it is correct to do so. Patches of grass popping in can break immersion, but are otherwise irrelevant to gameplay. Not being able to see an NPC until you're 15 feet away from them is very relevant to gameplay, and will likely become annoying when you have to scour every corner of the Wild Area to see if an NPC you missed might pop up out of nowhere.
More reason you're giving me... If it's only one area they can add way more detail than the other that is full on open world since the area that you need to populate is that much bigger.
But okay, you think it looks good, I get it.
I will agree it's stuck in an uncomfortable middle zone where it somehow feels like a mid-budget game despite every game selling 50 hojillion units.
I didn't say it looks good, I said its the weaker part of the game visually. If you're trying to get away from dishonesty maybe don't put words in others mouths.
Is it me or does the game look like a higher resolution X/Y? I think that's what's throwing me off about the game's graphics. It feels like Switch should be pumping out something better.
For one of the single most profitable franchises in the world it sticks out quite a bit when they plead poverty or say it's too hard to do better.
Basically where I'm at. It looks fine, but also the least they could probably get away with, which isn't exactly how you'd imagine the biggest franchise going.
Dude...whatever, I don't care for your judgement. Nothing of what I said was dishonest, and good that we agree on something then.
Btw people saying GameFreak never made impressive looking games are forgetting Gold and Silver, HeartGold and SoulSilver, Black/2 and White/2, and especially Sun and Moon. It just so happens they're always the second generation on the same hardware. They have now finally caught up to decades of technical improvements, going forward things will be much more consistent with the rest of the industry
it looks okay.
but considering pokemon sells 15 million per game, it couldve been better.
mario odyssey runs circles around sword and shield. Not only does it look better, but it runs at 60 fps at the same time.
but considering pokemon sells 15 million per game, it couldve been better.
mario odyssey runs circles around sword and shield. Not only does it look better, but it runs at 60 fps at the same time.
I like the art direction and the pokemon models look really good, but I can also understand people wanting more.
A lot of people are complaining about a lack of NPCs or whatever when Gamefreak have shown that they purposefully remove them when showing off certain areas as shown with that ice city.
I agree OP, I think the game looks stellar aside from some textures that I've seen.
I agree OP, I think the game looks stellar aside from some textures that I've seen.
I've always kinda thought it looks nice, but I do feel like Arlo made a good point in one of his videos in that it could look better. We're talking about Pokémon here, one of the biggest money makers in the industry, and the way they develop it, you'd think they were working on a small budget. It could be so much more if they actually put the effort into it, but it always seems like they're content with "good enough"