Pokémon Main Series and Spinoff Rumors, Leaks, Speculation and Discussion Thread (SPOILERS)

[Serebii]

Man, i know i am way too early for this but the thought of a Gen 7 Remake with every Island being a fully explorable open Area gets me very excited.

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It's like I've said before, starting with SM you can see them experimenting with open areas

SM

Then you have one open area amongst various traditional routes in SWSH

Then in the SWSH DLC you have more open areas, including the ones with the first towns and the first caves in open areas

Then you have Legends: Arceus that had four very large open areas to explore

Then finally SV and its DLCs which were only large open worlds including cities

They can easily expand on it in a SM remake. My thought though is that Game Freak don't want to do remakes, they want to do new stuff.

I am just curious as to how they're going to expand these open areas even more. Like PLZA is going to be a big open city which is totally new. If Gen 10 can match the big open experiment of SV with more town/city exploration, they've nailed it.

 

[Aleh]

Man, i know i am way too early for this but the thought of a Gen 7 Remake with every Island being a fully explorable open Area gets me very excited.

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It is my biggest dream. I just LOVE Alola. My #1 hope for it would be having extensive underwater exploration and also Ultra Space exploration, with seamless integration via wormholes in the overworld (think Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart). And with all the towns intact lol

 

[PSES]

I mean I never said it didn't have performance issues?

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I know, I just wanted to say that although it had performance problems and critics penalized it a lot, I think the same as you and that problem did not affect my opinion of the game, which is very good.

 

[Bardoon]

Man, i know i am way too early for this but the thought of a Gen 7 Remake with every Island being a fully explorable open Area gets me very excited.

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It's crazy to me that after Z-A releases Alola will be the next in line for a revisit. It only feels like yesterday all the SM promo stuff was going on.

The Gen 7 roster is great, I just wish there wasn't so many single stagers. From Pyukumuku onwards (iirc) it's all just single stage stuff until you hit Jangmo-o... which is just a small break that then leads into the legendaries and UBs most of which don't evolve either. So it feels like half the new Pokemon added in Gen 7 don't evolve which I think misses a lot of the fun of the series in seeing what they are going to turn into.

I expect an Alola revisit would either expand on UBs with new ones (pls yes, really want to see ones for the types we didn't get like Ice and Water) but they should also give the UBs a Poipole-Naganadel situation with a pre-evo. That bamboo shoot baby Celesteela from the anime needs to be a real thing in the games and it makes me wonder what the other weirdos would get as an earlier stage too.

 

[klastical]

Tbh my biggest complaint about SV (performance aside) is that the cities are all soulless and boring af with no interiors so a game where they get to remember how to make cities again is great.

Really though I don't understand how black and white have a more expansive metro area (even if it's just a few streets with lots of internal buildings) then SV.

 

[Hercule]

Tbh my biggest complaint about SV (performance aside) is that the cities are all soulless and boring af with no interiors so a game where they get to remember how to make cities again is great.

Really though I don't understand how black and white have a more expansive metro area (even if it's just a few streets with lots of internal buildings) then SV.

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Towns in SV feel like they are made with RPG Maker 2000. It's something that is bothering me in recent JRPG but Pokemon SV is a really bad example of boring towns. This isn't a technical problem but a design choice.

Yakuza 5 for example had multiple towns and every town felt like its own character, Dragon Quest XI also had a lot of of towns that felt alive. Even older Tales games all had towns that are fun to explore

 

[TheGamingNewsGuy]

Random Thought:

The idea of a Space Whale/Shark is something I am surprised they haven't done yet. Maybe it could work as a Legendsry.


View: https://x.com/AMAZlNGNATURE/status/1798921841173815404

 

[Fendoreo1]

I wonder when we will hear about about TCG Pocket, feels like we should hear about it soon if its launching this year

 

[klastical]

Towns in SV feel like they are made with RPG Maker 2000. It's something that is bothering me in recent JRPG but Pokemon SV is a really bad example of boring towns. This isn't a technical problem but a design choice.

Yakuza 5 for example had multiple towns and every town felt like its own character, Dragon Quest XI also had a lot of of towns that felt alive. Even older Tales games all had towns that are fun to explore

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Yes, it was a clear decision to make it so that you can't enter any building that doesn't have a specific purpose. There's also a distinct lack of npc's who arnt critical to the story but just exist. It would have been amazing to be exploring out in the wild and come across a little cottage with someone raising pokemon on a farm, have a little garden of berries that we can pick up via sparkly spots, a random culinary school since food is so important in SV. Idk give me somethingggg

 

[t67443]

The DLC for SV had scaling levels right? Maybe that's the new thing coming into the next generation?

 

[Trakan]

The DLC for SV had scaling levels right? Maybe that's the new thing coming into the next generation?

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No, not really. It was more like a set of levels before beating the game and upscaled to a set level after, which was still way lower than your party would be at that point.

 

[Serebii]

I wonder when we will hear about about TCG Pocket, feels like we should hear about it soon if its launching this year

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I'd say August

The DLC for SV had scaling levels right? Maybe that's the new thing coming into the next generation?

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I don't see scaled levels for wild Pokémon ever being a thing. However, I can see them doing Gyms etc. on a scale of 8 different possibilities based on your progression

 

[Trakan]

I'd say August

I don't see scaled levels for wild Pokémon ever being a thing. However, I can see them doing Gyms etc. on a scale of 8 different possibilities based on your progression

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That's like 8 different teams for 8 different gyms, can't see them ever doing it even though I'd like them to.

 

[t67443]

I don't see scaled levels for wild Pokémon ever being a thing. However, I can see them doing Gyms etc. on a scale of 8 different possibilities based on your progression

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That's what I was expecting for the gyms going into SV. I wanted the option to take my Fuecoco and battle the grass gym first. Turns out that over leveled me when I swung back to the bug gym near the end.

 

[Leo]

I don't think people really know what they're asking for when they say they want scaled battles. The scaling would mean all the battle would be ridiculously easy again, instead of some of them being hard ish as it was in SV.

 

[Homura]

I don't think anyone is arguing for level based scaling, but rather badge based.
Making a total of 64 different teams for the gyms wouldn't take any resources/time at all.

 

[Trakan]

I don't think people really know what they're asking for when they say they want scaled battles. The scaling would mean all the battle would be ridiculously easy again, instead of some of them being hard ish as it was in SV.

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Can you elaborate on how scaling would make things easier versus being able to overlevel and how it was hard in SV?

 

[Sheentak]

Really hope Pokemon has less story. Been playing the older games really enjoying the lack of story and jts
More of just an adventure. Also I kinda miss legendary Pokemon being less intwined in the story, prefer them being side quests.

Legendary Pokemon don't feel legendary anymore due to the amount of them same with mythicals maybe we need a cull. Like delgendary and demythical a chunk

 

[Acidote]

Legendary Pokemon don't feel legendary anymore due to the amount of them same with mythicals maybe we need a cull. Like delgendary and demythical a chunk

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I'm ok with that as long as they only "demythical" and "delegendary" the ones I personally don't like.

 

[Leo]

Can you elaborate on how scaling would make things easier versus being able to overlevel and how it was hard in SV?

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In SV you could go straight to gym 8 with your level 5 starter if you wanted.

If they scaled the game according to how many badges you have, you would have all the leaders being under leveled in comparison to you as it's been the rule with Pokémon for several generations now.

 

[Astrogamer]

Towns in SV feel like they are made with RPG Maker 2000. It's something that is bothering me in recent JRPG but Pokemon SV is a really bad example of boring towns. This isn't a technical problem but a design choice.

Yakuza 5 for example had multiple towns and every town felt like its own character, Dragon Quest XI also had a lot of of towns that felt alive. Even older Tales games all had towns that are fun to explore

Click to shrink...

Towns in SV feel more like Fortnite towns. They are clearly designed with an architectural style that varies between the towns and they look decent enough but the inability to enter most buildings and the NPCs being sparse/not fully loading in and boring makes the towns feel lifeless closer to an amusement park facsimile of a town than a place when people live.

 

[grand]

Really hope Pokemon has less story. Been playing the older games really enjoying the lack of story and jts
More of just an adventure. Also I kinda miss legendary Pokemon being less intwined in the story, prefer them being side quests.

Legendary Pokemon don't feel legendary anymore due to the amount of them same with mythicals maybe we need a cull. Like delgendary and demythical a chunk

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I don't think your hope is going to come true considering the story, characters & intertwining of legendaries to the plot are some of the most positive features people talk about when it comes to S/V and Legends Arceus.

 

[Trakan]

In SV you could go straight to gym 8 with your level 5 starter if you wanted.

If they scaled the game according to how many badges you have, you would have all the leaders being under leveled in comparison to you as it's been the rule with Pokémon for several generations now.

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They've never scaled the game like how I'm discussing now. When I say scale I mean it scales to your highest level Pokemon, not how it's worked in any past game.

Sure, you could take on the first gym with your level 5 starter and have that one hard battle, but every battle after that was easier, so what's the point?

 

[KillstealWolf]

I want to make a thread on how to make catching pokemon more interesting in pokemon again, it's something that I feel the series has been struggling with... since arguably Gen 5 at this stage to be honest (I dare say Gen 4 even). I'm trying to think of the main points to talk about with it. Key points being...

Original Methods
Ball Power Creep
The Shiny Hunt
Pokemon Go
Raids
Legends Arceus
Challenge VS Zen

Anything else to specifically look into for this topic? Something people would want to suggest in advance?

 

[grand]

I assume they didn't scale S/V because they didn't want to get into a Kingdoms of Amalur situation where players could accidentally scale everything way too weak by rushing through areas. So instead they scaled the game from south to north in difficulty to mirror your trek northward on either the western or eastern side.

People have to remember that developers don't make game design choices like that on accident. I wouldn't be surprised if testing showed that kids got frustrated if a gym they skipped got harder than it was the first time they tried.

There's a way to do level scaling but I bet Game Freak incorporates it into the story the first time they try it. For example, I could totally see the areas & challenges scaling being a part of Z-A's storyline & setup.

 

[Charlie0108]

I never really understood the point of being able to do the story events in 'any order you like' when they clearly had a set order based on the levels.

 

[Leo]

They've never scaled the game like how I'm discussing now. When I say scale I mean it scales to your highest level Pokemon, not how it's worked in any past game.

Sure, you could take on the first gym with your level 5 starter and have that one hard battle, but every battle after that was easier, so what's the point?

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What you're proposing is never going to happen. This isn't a scale x don't scale problem, it's just GF not willing to make their games challenging. If they chose to scale the next game (which I think they might, just to prevent little Timmy to stray out of the intended order and get frustrated), it would still be designed to be easy.

Legends Arceus was a way better balanced game, so maybe the Legends sub franchise is what they're designing with their older audience in mind.

 

[grand]

I want to make a thread on how to make catching pokemon more interesting in pokemon again, it's something that I feel the series has been struggling with... since arguably Gen 5 at this stage to be honest (I dare say Gen 4 even). I'm trying to think of the main points to talk about with it. Key points being...

Original Methods
Ball Power Creep
The Shiny Hunt
Pokemon Go
Raids
Legends Arceus
Challenge VS Zen

Anything else to specifically look into for this topic? Something people would want to suggest in advance?

Click to shrink...

As a heads up, such a thread would become 55% people talking about how everything should be Arceus style, 45% complaining about unrelated tech issues and 5% about Sword/Shields dynamax adventures.

 

[t67443]

Really hope Pokemon has less story. Been playing the older games really enjoying the lack of story and jts
More of just an adventure.

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I entirely agree with this. The story in most the games are so miserable and get in the way too much. I tend to just button thru the story to rush to explore more. I think it would really help if they did more of a 'less is more' approach.

In SV you could go straight to gym 8 with your level 5 starter if you wanted.

If they scaled the game according to how many badges you have, you would have all the leaders being under leveled in comparison to you as it's been the rule with Pokémon for several generations now.

Click to shrink...

They have set up mechanisms in the past to throttle the level of your pokemon or at least the effectiveness of them. Why is that a limitation? Also what's the concern about being overleveled? That's just an arbitrary rule that people have put in place. Can't tell you the number of times I've steam rolled Erika by leaving her as one of the last gym I battle. Also Whitney deserves my overleveled power.

 

[jankuza]

I think the only thing that GameFreak hasn't done from my "Pokemon Future wishlist" on Switch is that the didn't dub the dialogs.

-Going real 3D (Third Person Cam). Check
-Going Open World. Check
-Doing DLC with worthwhile new Content without buying and playing the same game twice. Check
-Creating a new Subseries of the Mainseries with Pokemon Legends (okay that's something I didn't wish for, but imo it's the best and most innovative Pokemon Game on Switch)

Sure graphics and performance must get better, and I think on Switch 2 that will be the case. But I think Pokemon is on a good course.

 

[Trakan]

What you're proposing is never going to happen. This isn't a scale x don't scale problem, it's just GF not willing to make their games challenging. If they chose to scale the next game (which I think they might, just to prevent little Timmy to stray out of the intended order and get frustrated), it would still be designed to be easy.

Legends Arceus was a way better balanced game, so maybe the Legends sub franchise is what they're designing with their older audience in mind.

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I don't think it will happen either, but that's what I'd like.

 

[Tabaxi]

I'd prefer badge based scaling for gym leaders in the next game over what we got in SV. I get the challenge of battling high level gym leaders early on, but the early gym leaders end up feeling pointless if you sequence break even just a little in SV.

I wouldn't mind if they kept the equivalent of titans/alphas/totems static so that type of challenge remains though.

 

[Sheentak]

Can we get a stat rebalance? So many Pokemon are unviable due to bad stats or been power crept unnecessary.

Mixed attackers for example pre physical special split were in abundance in gen 3. They don't even need evolutions just stats re adjusted.

 

[Richietto]

Can we get a stat rebalance? So many Pokemon are unviable due to bad stats or been power crept unnecessary.

Mixed attackers for example pre physical special split were in abundance in gen 3. They don't even need evolutions just stats re adjusted.

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Still waiting for them to right the wrong that is purposely making bug types bad. What an ass design decision. 3 large type rebalancings and big is still exactly the same.

 

[LightBang]

I never really understood the point of being able to do the story events in 'any order you like' when they clearly had a set order based on the levels.

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I guess technically you couldn't go to the last gym in other games(might be wrong about this).

I went blind and for the most part had even/easy gyms with one exception that forced me to train for it.

 

[bloopland33]

It's not really a shonen anime like the others, aside from a handful of episodes here and there - it's far closer to a slice-of-life comedy.

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That's neat. Is the dub good? I bet my kids would like that eventually. So instead of Ash having to save the day every week and/or being driven forward by a goal (e.g. get 8 badges to enter the tournament) it's more SOL drama?

 

[t67443]

Can we get a stat rebalance? So many Pokemon are unviable due to bad stats or been power crept unnecessary.

Mixed attackers for example pre physical special split were in abundance in gen 3. They don't even need evolutions just stats re adjusted.

Click to shrink...

I agree in general. There seems to be way too much power creep and sometimes tanky pokemon don't feel tanky. It would be interesting to see a refresh on more of the stat ranges.

 

[Fendoreo1]

Idk why people act like PLA is remotely balanced or harder than anything mainline, if anything PLA is the easiest game I'm the franchise outside of Volo it just appears harder than it is by virtue of how bad it's battle system is since you are never actually rewarded from playing well and just trade back and forth for the most part til you win.

I'd go as far as to say PLA is easily one of the easiest pokemon games and the trainer battles are almost fully jokes. Like comparing it to SV any endgame or DLC battle clears easily

 

[Glio]

Idk why people act like PLA is remotely balanced or harder than anything mainline, if anything PLA is the easiest game I'm the franchise outside of Volo it just appears harder than it is by virtue of how bad it's battle system is since you are never actually rewarded from playing well and just trade back and forth for the most part til you win.

I'd go as far as to say PLA is easily one of the easiest pokemon games and the trainer battles are almost fully jokes. Like comparing it to SV any endgame or DLC battle clears easily

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Yep, except Volo, most of the game is very easy, because the focus is not in combat. The game assumes that you can avoid almost all the combat in it, it's just secondary to the catching mechanic

 

[Fendoreo1]

Yep, except Volo, most of the game is very easy, because the focus is not in combat. The game assumes that you can avoid almost all the combat in it, it's just secondary to the catching mechanic

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Right I agree, which is why seeing praise for its combat always baffles me. Beyond being easy the system is just not good imo

 

[DevilPuncher]

Can we get a stat rebalance? So many Pokemon are unviable due to bad stats or been power crept unnecessary.

Mixed attackers for example pre physical special split were in abundance in gen 3. They don't even need evolutions just stats re adjusted.

Click to shrink...

If they released a generation with no new Pokémon, but rebalanced every previous Pokémon, I'd take it in a heartbeat. That's not necessarily stating they should do one over the other, I just imagine it'd be such an ordeal to do so and would take a lot of time.

Honestly, it must be a nightmare trying to balance a game like Pokémon; there are so many moving parts. I think the only thing comparable would be, like, a CCG.

 

[LightBang]

If there's something Pokémon doesn't need touching is it's battle system. I just wish they would highlighted it in the games instead of needing PVP to see it's full glory.

Now I'm wondering what they'll do in Z-A.

 

[Glio]

Right I agree, which is why seeing praise for its combat always baffles me. Beyond being easy the system is just not good imo

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People like that it's snappy and you can move your character, but the system itself is just worse

 

[Richietto]

Yeh I loved my time with Legends but holy shit that combat system was straight ass. What were they thinking? Next legends, just give me regular type battles but make all trainer battle double battle. I'm tired of GameFreak being afraid of double battles despite them making it the default for competitive. Games would be infinitely better if they dropped singles entirely for trainer battles.

 

[Wil Grieve]

Legends took a step in the right direction by removing a lot of the wait screens during battles. Which IMO is the main thing Pokemon needs. There shouldn't be several seconds of loading into a battle. Several seconds of loading a battle animation (which we cannot turn off anymore, wtf SV). Several seconds after a battle ends where it tells you "Rattata has fainted! 5 seconds...Charmander has gained 20xp!...5 seconds...You have defeated trainer! 5 seconds...?"

 

[Joe]

Every time I open up Scarlet to do the latest Unrivaled raid, it's a fun little game trying to figure out what the hell each button does. Truly, the control scheme over the last couple Pokemon games has been bonkers.

 

[Serebii]

Can we get a stat rebalance? So many Pokemon are unviable due to bad stats or been power crept unnecessary.

Mixed attackers for example pre physical special split were in abundance in gen 3. They don't even need evolutions just stats re adjusted.

Click to shrink...

I mean

Pokémon X & Y - Updated Stats

www.serebii.net

Pokémon Sun & Moon - Updated Stats

www.serebii.net

Updated Stats- Pokémon Sword & Shield

Updated Stats in Pokémon Sword & Shield for Nintendo Switch. Lists updated Updated Stats for various Pokémon

www.serebii.net

Updated Stats- Pokémon Scarlet & Violet

Updated Stats in Pokémon Scarlet & Violet for Nintendo Switch. Lists updated Updated Stats for various Pokémon

www.serebii.net

There have been adjustments, both up and down

However just because something was mixed in Gen 3 before the split doesn't mean they should readjust

 

[Anth0ny]

I don't see scaled levels for wild Pokémon ever being a thing. However, I can see them doing Gyms etc. on a scale of 8 different possibilities based on your progression

Click to shrink...

Yeah this would be ideal imo. Also would give the games some great replay value.

That's like 8 different teams for 8 different gyms, can't see them ever doing it even though I'd like them to.

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Is it really that hard? lol. These games sell 20 million copies I think they can think of 64 different teams for the gym leaders.

 

[t67443]

I think Legends battle system was good because it barely shows up. It did seem like a start for adjustments and the early battles felt like early Pokémon battles in RBY. Maybe Legends ZA will be a stronger version with lessons learned from it.

I mean

Pokémon X & Y - Updated Stats

www.serebii.net

Pokémon Sun & Moon - Updated Stats

www.serebii.net

Updated Stats- Pokémon Sword & Shield

Updated Stats in Pokémon Sword & Shield for Nintendo Switch. Lists updated Updated Stats for various Pokémon

www.serebii.net

Updated Stats- Pokémon Scarlet & Violet

Updated Stats in Pokémon Scarlet & Violet for Nintendo Switch. Lists updated Updated Stats for various Pokémon

www.serebii.net

There have been adjustments, both up and down

However just because something was mixed in Gen 3 before the split doesn't mean they should readjust

Click to shrink...

I think they can be a bit more aggressive with some of the adjustments they're trying to make. They have refined stats more than do consistent balance adjustments.

 

[PokémonSpears]

I think Legends battle system was good because it barely shows up. It did seem like a start for adjustments and the early battles felt like early Pokémon battles in RBY. Maybe Legends ZA will be a stronger version with lessons learned from it

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Maybe so, because what other purpose could Mega Evolution have in the game?

But I also wonder how different it will be, like, how far can they push it before it turns into something completely different. I guess it's part of the whole mystery of what makes a Pokémon game a "Legends" game.