
Nintendo Announces Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield - occamschainsaw
https://swordshield.pokemon.com/en-us/
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Someone1234
It looks nice.

I'm still waiting for an "open world" style Pokemon game. For example take the
Zelda: Breath of the Wild game/engine as a starting point and make a Pokemon
game.

There's nothing inherently wrong with an on-rails game, and Pokemon games are
well known for it. But it feels like the type of theme where exploration being
a cornerstone would be fantastic.

I was hopeful after Pokemon Go's success (a game pinned on exploration) and
Breath of the Wild, that that would be a natural progression.

~~~
izzydata
The open world style of Breath of the Wild seemed amazing at first, but I
failed to get into it like I had every other Zelda game. It didn't feel like a
Zelda game to me.

It may be more successful to make that style of game, but it would alienate
fans of the traditional style of the game like myself.

~~~
fixermark
It's an interesting take. For me, I felt BotW was a return to the original
form: the first game clearly had a path of progression in mind, but didn't
technically stop you from picking up (or refraining from picking up) the
wooden sword and tooling around on Death Mountain right from the start if you
wanted (granted, you couldn't actually challenge Ganon unless you did beat all
8 dungeons, unlike BotW).

As of approximately Ocarina of Time (if not Zelda 2), Zelda games have been a
lot more "on rails" in the sense of a well-defined path of progression that is
difficult to break (generally because of the need for some artifact or some
plot-point to develop that opens the next path point). BotW gave me a clear
directional hint (key for modern game design; we're well past the point where
most players lack patience for "Here you are; I won't explain the rules; try
not to die" game design), but if I wanted to ignore the hint and go run off
into the sunset or try to rodeo a Lynel in my shorts with three hearts, I
could.

~~~
eganist
Context for those who haven't played:

> or try to rodeo a Lynel

Taming one of the toughest non-boss enemies in the game, starting at 2,000 HP
and ranging up to 5,000 HP.

> in my shorts

No equipped armor/clothes, meaning no reduction to damage if hit

> with three hearts

Early-stage, just-started Link. In tandem with "in my shorts," every hit from
a Lynel in this condition would be a one-hit kill. Beyond that, it's implied
that Link in this condition might only have access to the most primitive
weapons (around 25-30 HP per hit before meal/potion bonuses), though even
assuming the absolute maximum damage doable from even the best weapon with the
best consumable bonus (~110 HP), you're looking at landing 19 hits on the
weakest of these guys _without being touched._

It's doable on speedruns by advanced players who've gotten a hang of all of
the game mechanics. Fixermark's point is more that BotW _gives you the option_
of embracing this sort of masochism should you choose, but it includes a
predefined soft-path should you not.

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Slippery_John
I'm really disappointed that they're re-introducing the random encounters
system. Let's Go was such a breath of fresh air with being able to see them
walking about. I would often find myself hurrying off somewhere but stopping
because I saw a pokemon running about that I hadn't caught yet.

~~~
izzydata
I do like the visible Pokemon, but the Let's Go style of catching wild Pokemon
prevented me from buying the game. It seems like they could have had visible
encounters plus wild Pokemon battles.

~~~
joshschreuder
Yeah it's not like they couldn't have the best of both worlds. It's like they
heard the backlash over the wild battle system and threw out the whole lot
instead of considering which parts really work.

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dmix
It'd be nice if I could "rent" a Nintendo Switch to play this, like they used
to have at Blockbuster. I wouldn't want to buy the whole system otherwise.
Although it _is_ pretty cheap.

~~~
zolthrowaway
Not to sell you on something you don't want, but I adore the Switch. My
favorite aspect of it is that I hit the power button and I am instantly in my
game. I feel like it's easy to play in 10-15 minute chunks when I have a
little bit of free time available. I play in handheld mode probably 80% of the
time and I find myself taking it with me more than I did when I had the
original DS. On top of that, this system has the best 3rd party content of any
Nintendo console since the 64. I'd really recommend it if you have interest in
it at all.

~~~
deskamess
Overall I love the switch. I do dislike two things.

-Left joycon drift

\- Parental control scheme... it is console based rather than user/mii based.
So it is very hard to cordon off a game like SkyRim to the teen/adult mii
account. You cannot restrict playing hours bu mii - you have to restrict the
whole console.

~~~
dorchadas
Doesn't Nintendo generally do well with replacing/fixing left joycon drift,
though? I hope so, as mine's starting to get too annoying to use when I'm
playing Smash with my roommates.

~~~
excalibur
You can recalibrate them in the settings, it usually does the trick.

[https://en-americas-support.nintendo.com/app/answers/detail/...](https://en-
americas-support.nintendo.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/22340/~/how-to-
calibrate-the-controllers)

~~~
merlincorey
When that doesn't work, try a can of air, or if you are hardware and
electronics savvy, take it apart and give it a real good cleaning.

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anth_anm
Pokemon is recycled garbage and I WANT IT NOW.

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smush
Pokemon set in Industrial Era England, eh? Better than it could have been. I
just hope this one's mechanics lean closer to XD than, say, Moon.

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uodtl
Looks like they will keep sacrificing playability and enjoyability for
graphical greatness.

~~~
brootstrap
I feel like they should be able to pull off a nice looking pokemon game. Think
Breath of the Wild but pokemon! This looks pretty close to that no?

~~~
uodtl
Why should BOTW be the objective? It was a pretty meh game. And dungeons were
terrible.

Explaining myself to the user below: weapons breaking too often, combat is
crap, very limited amount of types of enemies, etc.

~~~
adamch
Probably because many people loved BOTW and it was wildly successful, both
critically and financially. So there's clearly a market for that style of game
among Switch users.

~~~
uodtl
Sure, but I'm interested in getting a good Pokémon game. I don't care what the
market wants. Of course, the market will win, that's how all franchises get
ruined.

~~~
chimeracoder
> Of course, the market will win, that's how all franchises get ruined.

"The market" is how all franchises _become_ franchises in the first place.

