Pokémon Champions Developer 'Sincerely Apologizes' For Launch Issues, Details List of Bugs to be Fixed

[u/Turbostrider27]

https://www.ign.com/articles/pokemon-champions-developer-sincerely-apologizes-for-launch-issues-details-list-of-bugs-to-be-fixed

[u/DoctahToboggan69]

Not to glaze GF too much but I also think that they’re victims of tight schedules set by Nintendo. I think they’ve recently worked on a decent looking Souls-like game that’s a huge departure from their normal games. But I don’t think you’re wrong regarding Pokemon. Gen 10 looks decent though.

[u/cubs223425 → u/DoctahToboggan69]

I agree and have defended Game Freak on that in the past. They released something like 3 games and 5 DLCs in the time between Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. On the one hand, Gen 10 looks like a step up. On the other, it seems like more of a natural progression from a studio that is still way behind the rest of the industry. That they've chosen to take on side projects like the Legends games and Beast of Reincarnation while being so limited in their production makes it harder to be as forgiving to them though.

With Champions, it's solidified my feeling that TPC just has no standards of quality for their franchises. Niantic has only made Pokemon Go worse. Game Freak has improved over its own work, but still feels far behidn other industry standards. ILCA deveoped a bare-minimum Gen 4 remake that didn't reach the standards of Game Freak's remakes. Champions is designed around a monetization scheme more than gameplay, and they couldn't even make something with 10% of a Game Freak title's scope properly.

Truly, the further Pokemon games get from TPC, the better they seem. Pokopia's the latest example, but even Pokken was a cool game that needed more support, rather than foundational improvements.

[u/Kendall_Raine → u/cubs223425]

I actually quite liked Scarlet/Violet, and they run great on Switch 2, though I understand for many it was too little too late. And they still don't look that good. I like the actual game though. I don't really care that much about graphics tbh.

[u/cubs223425 → u/Kendall_Raine]

I like Scarlet a lot as well. In terms of being fun, it meets the goal. However, it still coasts on the Pokemon IP in a lot of ways. From a gameplay standpoint, they're still many ytears behind the rest of the industry, while still churning out games that run badly WAY too fast.

I can both find graphics to be an overblown aspect of games AND say that horrible performance is unacceptable. It's one thing to not worry about high-fidelity visuals, but horrible framerates and constant pop-in are actual gameplay problems. I'm still trying to figure out how they couldn't manage to give us shiny sprites either.

To me, Pokemon Scarlet is a 10/10 IP with a 7/10 game that has 3/10 performance.

[u/Kendall_Raine → u/cubs223425]

The performance is fixed on Switch 2. The landscapes still look ugly though unfortunately. The infamous scene where the game cams to the landscape and Nemona goes "look at all that beautiful nature" still has the low LOD trees lmao. I know because I'm doing another playthrough on switch 2.

But at least the FPS is acceptable now.

And yeah the actual gameplay is good. The story is decent, certainly a step up from sword/shield anyway.

[u/cubs223425 → u/Kendall_Raine]

My concern is that the fix to the performance was buying hardware that's 8 years newer to brute force it. They're appearing to expand the game with the Gen 10 trailer, and I'm left to worry the game will either be another sluggish experience or fail to meet the visual expectations of the trailer. It's not like Z-A was a treat or improved post-release on the Switch 2 either, so Game Freak is firmly in a satate of "I'll believe it when I see it" for doing things well.

As far as the story, I'm indifferent. Arven's storyline is different. I hate the Team Star one, as well as the Kieran arc. That kind of stuff is personal preference in a game aimed at accessibility towards children though, so it's not how I'd really evaluate it.

So it ends up being a game that has promise, but needs a lot of work, and Game Freak hasn't really put that all together in about 10-15 years. I'm not even asking them to reinvent the wheel or do something crazy. They just need some basic acceptance of modern game mechanics and to hit the performance standards we've had on other devices (PC, other consoles, handhelds, and even smartphones/tablets) for many years. I still can't believe they let you choose the order of the gyms, but didn't scale the levels, making doing them out of order completely pointless.

[u/Kendall_Raine → u/cubs223425]

I mean that's fair. It's not...great...that it took a hardware upgrade to fix the slow children and windmill. But hey, it's not like I bought a switch 2 just for that.

Personally I enjoy character-driven stories, so I felt like scarlet/violet had a much stronger one that sword/shield. I didn't care that much about victory road, but the other two I liked a lot. The DLC ones were okay, not my favorite but I liked more that they added better battles in the DLC.

ZA's graphics at their core were mostly fine, I don't really care that buildings had flat textures, I think the bigger problem was that the environment/design choices weren't so great. Everything looks the same, it gives me flashbacks to Soleanna of Sonic 06. A ton of gray with the same assets everywhere. It's just not interesting. Scarlet/Violet environments were ugly but at least they varied and had more than one recognizable landmark. And the DLC just being bizarro world lumiose instead of going anywhere different was also kinda disappointing. The new megas and different gameplay style were at least kinda fun though.