Limiting metagame eligible mons can be done without nuking them from the game, though.
They have full control over which Pokémon are legal in competitive without having to remove anything from the game.
First balance wasn't their stated reason. They said when thinking which Pokémon to add back they needed to consider balance. That doesn't mean they dropped for balance
The scrutiny came from the fact that the graphics weren't exactly up to par for the amount of Pokemon that were cut from the game. I've said it time and time again, if Game Freak had simply left it at saying "too much Pokemon", people would still be mad but they wouldn't go off and scrutinize every single pixel to make them look like fools. So I do think Game Freak deserves some criticism if only because their claims did not measure up to reality. If not this translation, then it was the USGamer interview where Masuda said:
Additionally, I do think this is a symptom of a problem with the Pokemon franchise. When iterating the games, Game Freak never really had the foresight to think about rotating out a roster of Pokemon per game (even though the franchise pattern basically writes itself: feature the new region's Pokemon and select a rotation of returning Pokemon and leave it at that without enabling return of ALL Pokemon). The reason why Digimon gets away with the rotation is because they never stuck with the growing roster for every game. Not to mention, Digimon tends to do a great job at the amount of Digimon added based on nostalgia and newer At the same time, Digimon's battle system is a lot simpler than Pokemon's, so there's less focus on the series.
I've been saying this for a long time. Maybe by Gen 10 we'll get another Black/White-style "reboot." (And that will also be the gen for the B/W remakes!)
I literally said in my post that I understand it but don't like it?
The thing is, look at it like this like you said.
But what I'm saying is that futureproofing is irrelevant. It means they could feasibly use the same models for longer, typically using diffeent textures depending on the game's aesthetic. However, if something monumentally bad happens, it doesn't matter how well they futureproofed, they still may have to redo things.
I truly believe SWSH was intended to have all the Pokémon originally. However, an issue would have happened eventually down the line in the future or they'd come to the conclusion it's holding them back
That gen was bolstered by having enough new pokemon to fill the area. This is unfortunately something GF is shying away from right now.
That is not correct:
Now, it's certainly not the only reason they gave, but that only goes to emphasize how messy the communication around this was, and how much that unnecessarily exacerbated the situation.https://www.usgamer.net/articles/pokemon-sword-and-shield-interview said:
That reads to me like they are saying they are considering balance for the Pokémon bringing back not that they dropped for balance.
For some additional context, here is the question that was in response to:
https://www.usgamer.net/articles/pokemon-sword-and-shield-interview said:
Right? I thought the Galar pokemon were the strongest batch in generations and yet they were still second fiddle to Gen 1 pokemon. Leon having a Gigantamax Charizard is just so annoying, and so many gen 1 pokemon got Gigantamax forms.
Those things are only bad if you are not genwunner like myself and MANY MANY MANY others.
The thing that's different from then and now is the amount of work that is required to make a Pokémon
There is none. They made a tweet and newspost confirming it, then used the subdomain as evidence but it has been determined the subdomain is their proof. Their original article spoke about something called Pokémon Legends, and we found a subdomain from the same time as the diamondpearl one of legends.pokemon.com, which they then posted about as if it was confirming what they said.
Still can't believe people don't get this.
One would hope that they're making changes to their development process that will end up mitigating this sort of risk in the future, because the number of Pokémon wasn't the only aspect of Sword and Shield that was very undercooked.
I suspect Gen 9 will see a major improvement to their tools with the assistance of Nintendo and/or HAL. becoming building mates doesn't seem like a coincidence.
We can only hope. I do think they should take on more outside assistance, which they seem to currently primarily just use for localization
people want better animations. that's a big ask. it's hard to watch False Swipe Gaming's videos and not think "man that looks so much better". "but muh polygon counts!", as if people give a shit. hell, pokemon might have too many polygons for their level of detail.
Yeah, but my point is that outsourcing animations is done by every company in every industry that calls for animation work. There are tons of animators and Gamefreak, even from the share they get of TPCs profits, has large pockets. It shouldn't be an insurmountable issue just because GF is a relatively small company
and people made fun of me when I said Level 5 should be brought on as an assist company.
During the period they presumably should have started researching and working on the Switch they were still banking on the 3DS lasting and the Switch underperforming 🤷🏽♂️
I think they ended having a lot of trouble and ended up restarted development at some point
