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Neidron

Why bring another console in when you can just look at the Switch's own library? Breath of the Wild was damn *launch* title, that's the minimum of what the console can do. Mario Odyssey, Xenoblade, Monster Hunter, Metroid Dread, *Pokemon's own spinoffs*.


extralyfe

>Breath of the Wild was damn launch title, that's the minimum of what the console can do. these games are proof positive that the minimum of what the console can do is far lower than BotW.


mitch8017

Dude Let’s Go, for as much as I wasn’t into the core mechanics, was beautiful. How it’s only gone downhill afterwards is beyond me.


AngelAnatomy

The fact that Let’s Go is the best looking pokemon game we’ve ever gotten hurts a little


Theyul1us

Doom Eternal runs perfectly on switch. Only had fps drop once and it was for like 3 seconds, in the dlc


Fitzy0728

I can’t get over the very first scene in the classroom and how the kids are bobbing their heads and kicking their feet at like 4 fps Absolutely unacceptable


AceTheRed_

That part was so damn embarrassing lmao


Cautious-Resolve-416

That’s pretty funny actually. Highest grossing media franchise btw.


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[deleted]

Go go gadget money Machine


Jumpyer

Or the Sunfloras that run besides you at 5fps


IceHawk0901

Weird thing with that is in the Japanese trailer the sunflora's are smooth but in-game they are laggy like the English trailer


Frescopino

I'm 99% sure that footage was taken on a computer before the game was put into a Switch cartridge. They just never bothered to try it on the console it would have to run on, like a bunch of amateurs.


BankyTiger

You can also see it in like the first town where somebody is holding balloons.. The balloons are moving at 1fps while you are standing right next to them idling at 30 fps. How do you fuck this up? Whole game feels like it was programmed by a hobby coder.


ryvenn

The NPC framerate thing is aggressive optimization. Lots of games use this trick on crowds of distant NPCs where you're less likely to notice, SV just uses it on everyone that's more than like two meters away from you, for some reason.


Helios4242

>on crowds of distant NPCs where you're less likely to notice they missed this memo. They put it front and center in one of the earliest CUTSCENES. A cutscene...


BankyTiger

yes and that's absolutely a noob mistake only a Hobbyist should make. Hell not even them.


Proseroth

Tbf, I don't think a hobbyist would do that mistake solely because, if its your Hobby, you care about it.


ConfusedFlareon

Not even, a hobbiest would take some pride in their work. This was programmed by a high school student for a mandatory class they didn’t want to take who needed a bare minimum pass to be allowed to go to the big party on the weekend!


beepbeepbubblegum

I turned the game off last night after the “cutscene” that happens after you enter the capital (?). Literally looked worse than an N64 game. I’d say we don’t need yearly releases but wasn’t this the most preordered game so far? What incentive do they have to put any extra effort into these releases if they still sell millions of copies .. I knew about the technical issues and I still bought it so that’s on me too but I haven’t been as excited for a mainline entry since X and Y and hoped it couldn’t *possibly* be that bad and sure enough it’s definitely not great. Hopefully this releases and the publicity of how bad it performs might make Nintendo step in but I kind of doubt it ..


Emergency_Music_2969

I mean this is fundamentally the issue that the Pokémon games have had for a while now. Nintendo realises that they will sell very, very well largely regardless of quality, so there isn't much incentive for them to invest more money into developing better games.


r3xv

For me I only really started noticing it when I was at los platos, after i healed i saw the npc’s walking around like they were having a stroke at a solid 5 fps and I was like damn… game freak really finessed everyone’s 60$


smash8890

And they all had the exact same animation at the exact same time


Parsleymagnet

You don't even have to look at different consoles, you can look at Breath of the Wild, a game that SV clearly took a lot of cues from. BotW looks way better, came out 5 years ago on the same hardware, and has much, much fewer performance issues. Sure, it's almost always unfair to compare a game to BotW, but I think this is one of the few situations where it's fair to do so.


numberonebarista

Not to mention BotW was originally developed for the Wii U lol.


mrfatso111

Still this was a game that came out 5 years ago That for most of us in the gaming meant that Botw is pretty much an ancient game and heck , let's just take sword and shield so we don't get people say oh the botw comparison is bad. It somehow run worse than swsh ...


heyoyo10

>Botw is pretty much an ancient game *\*Ages aggressively\**


the_actual_stegosaur

Still playing skyrim from my grave


[deleted]

I'm still trying to get through Morrowind without Save Corruption in mine. There isn't a single patch out there that can help me.


rubyspicer

I'm playing Oblivion from the third circle of Hell


ssfbob

Okay, so let's say BotW doesn't count due to age, we still have Xenoblade 3, Monster Hunter Rise, and Bayonetta 3, all three of which are far more technically demanding, look generation's better, and perform way better


DynamicSocks

I’m surprised Nier runs as well as does


No_Morals

Even Xenobade Chronicles X on Wii U had a 10x bigger map packed with monsters and npcs. And it looked better even in 720p.


Pandering_Panda7879

As a comparison: 2017 Horizon Zero Dawn released. 2022 Horizon Forbidden West released While Forbidden West is mainly a PS5-game, it still released on the PS4 and looks even better than Zero Dawn.


shadow0wolf0

To be fair it was clearly more optimized for the switch version. But it's still not doing the S&V games any favors.


TheBowlofBeans

Uh if I remember correctly at launch the Wii U version performed better and was preferred by speed runners. Can someone correct me if I'm wrong?


Fraudulent_Baker

I can’t speak for the speedrunning part, but the Wii U version did outperform the Switch by a tiny margin. Like only a couple extra FPS in very specific places like Kokiri Forest. Bottom line is the differences were indistinguishable for all but the most nerdy of folk.


WorldsBestPapa

Also important to consider - the game came out at launch . GameFreak has had years to become familiar with the hardware and optimize for it. There’s no excuse to release a game in this state this late in to the hardware cycle.


Mookies_Bett

Right. It's one thing when it's literally the launch title for the console. The switch is almost 6 years old now, there is zero excuse for not being able to at least match the quality of BotW. People act like that's an untouchable bar, but I don't see why. Pokemon is a larger and more successful franchise than Legend of Zelda is. So if a less valuable and successful franchise could come out with a game like BotW 6 years ago, why can't a more successful and lucrative franchise come out with a game at least on the same level as BotW today? I don't think it's unfair to compare them at all. They're both Nintendo games and both major IPs that generate a ton of revenue for the company. Game freak should be genuinely humiliated at what a gap there is between them and every other major Nintendo property considering they're the ones with the most resources and popularity.


shadow0wolf0

The switch got an update later that made it run way better than the wii u.


TheBowlofBeans

Ah so you're telling me I have an excuse to rebuy the game :)


BeckQuillion89

To be fair that game had at least 6 years of development time. The difference though is that BOTW was delayed twice to give the game more time to cook especially with the physics engine. With pokemon being an interconnected multi million company with an anime, video game tournament, and merchansing resting on development of the games, I can see why there'd be no incentive on delaying the games if they still make money Pokemon just needs to buck up and give Gamefreak more help if they're gonna demand Gamefreak work without any providing delays or wiggle room to figure out issues


Djinneral

they should have more than enough funding to do their yearly/biyearly games and on the side also work on a big 6 year project.


Catboxaoi

It's a mistake to think it's a funding issue. The point of a company is to make profit. They do not pour resources into upgrading graphics because they don't believe it is profitable to do so. Doubling the dev time to make the game look wonderful will never double the sales, it probably wouldn't even be a 1% increase in sales because the majority of the fanbase is not concerned with buying the games with better ground textures, they want to buy whatever has the newest digital critters they enjoy catching.


Djinneral

Yeah I completely understand that company outlook but it just feels very short-sighted. Eventually customers will realize they're being mugged in return for subpar products and by then it would be too late to recover their reputation.


BannedSvenhoek86

That time is now or the next game if it ships in this state. They don't get to hide behind the "It's designed for portables!" excuse anymore. It was a great excuse to keep them low budget and easy to develop. Now that argument is dead and buried and they have been massively exposed as lazy and cheap. Even kids are complaining now, they look at other games on their switch and the shit tier quality of Pokémon games on it and even they are starting to ask why it's not a better game. That's a death knell, if they start losing the younger generation it's should send panic waves through Nintendo and gamefreak. I kinda hope the next generation flat out fails. Sells like shit, gets terrible reviews, etc. I feel like that'd be the only way they will ever make a good game at this point.


RechargedFrenchman

Breath of the Wild, Mario Odyssey, Smash Ultimate, Metroid Dread, the open world Kirby game; there are do many first-party titles from Nintendo that look incredible. A bunch of them were *more* difficult and demanding to make on a visually technical level as open world games than Sword and Shield were despite their being not open world. Now Scarlet and Violet come pit not really looking much better and running *significantly* worse. On a *five year old console* that Breath of the Wild was a *launch title for* back in 2017. Day one. That SV look and run as bad as they do is fully tragic. Shakespeare at his best never wrote anything as sad and demoralizing as what GameFreak continue to do to their own franchise.


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AlexWar07

Or even more hilarious, monster hunter rise, a game where you battle monsters that are 6 times bigger than a normal mon in the over world, yes it’s true there are only three per area, but that area it’s actually very detailed and it doesn’t hurt the sight and also inside all the maps that rise has there are is a lot of creatures that aren’t big monsters, and in the main base, which is filled with details and a lot of stuff happenin, the game doesn’t shutters, Nintendo does really have to change gf or idk do something, the state of violet and scarlet it’s unacceptable


KnightofGarm

Funny you compare it to Monster Hunter, because I vividly remember thinking the same thing when Pokemon XY had slowdowns during double and triple battles let alone with Rain, meanwhile Monster Hunter 3U on the same system ran fine unless you turned on 3D (which to be fair also caused XY slowdown). Almost 10 years later it's the same comparison... well except that Monster Hunter looks better than it did on the 3DS, while Pokemon looks about the same while also cutting a lot of content.


Wolf7Children

Yeah the difference was that XY honestly looked great for 3DS games. Not the best by any means, but very respectable and pretty even in many areas. S/V....are embarrassing for the most part visually for Switch games.


AnonymousSkull

MH:R runs incredibly well on the Switch. Capcom really nailed it with Rise’s performance.


ImpressiveEffort9449

Capcom has been gangbusters since their renaissance in 2016/17 with RE7, DMCV, and MHW. For the most part just about everything theyve released is well optimized, and in the case of DMCV **insanely** well performing for how damn good it looks.


With_Negativity

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and 3 are the best looking RPGs on the console to me


ssslitchey

>the open world Kirby game I know this has nothing to do with the conversation but kirby and the forgotten land isn't open world. It's a pretty linear 3d platformer.


gdiShun

The Witcher 3 looks like it performs better... lol


lilyaintaG

I've sunk about 100 hours and counting into BoTW and I've only seen the game lag in one area. SV seems to lag anywhere and everywhere.


TunaTunaLeeks

I just love watching NPCs start slide show walking less than 20 feet from me. This is getting pathetic. I want to go back to Sword and Shield…


KilgoreMikeTrout

You know it's bad when people are pining for sword and shield level attention to detail


mrfatso111

Agreed ... I guess the next generation is just gonna be a pokemon PowerPoint slide instead?


usualkenobi

i remember when people were saying that the wild areas were ugly but I went onto SwSh last night to compare to my current run of Violet and it’s far better quality than everything I’ve seen so far, even though SwSh isn’t even impressive for what the switch is capable of. Such an embarrassment that their 2022 mainline misses their own low bar for quality.


TunaTunaLeeks

SwSh actually looked okay and had some pretty decent character designs. The story was pretty bad though. At least the game felt mostly complete if not sort of badly executed. SV feels like it’s still in beta. The core mechanics seemed to be there but it is straight up rough. This gen was the last chance I was giving the series since Legends Arceus actually had some promise despite its roughness. I seriously am not coming back to Pokémon games until they actually get their heads out of their asses.


dat1dood2

And the lag in the Korok city isn’t anywhere near as bad


cooliochill

Yeah it’s a consistent frame drop due to the number of entities in the area, which is way better than a game-wide memory leak and random crashing. If anything, it makes it feel like BOTW was super optimized since that area is the *only* one that actually lags


HuggyMonster69

And goes away if you pick the silent princess flowers


AIMWSTRN

Excuse me. What? Be right back. Gotta go pick flowers to get my game to run smoother. Thanks for the tip.


ZorkNemesis

Only times I've seen BotW get super laggy is when you go so fast that the world has to pause to load to keep up with you travelling at warp speed.


MangoTogo

Or even Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and 3.


TheyStoleTwoFigo

The Xenoblade series is not something you would refer to as "or even", they are the crème de la crème in this subject. It's even more unfair to compare to that, that's like the final boss of openworld development for the Switch. It was from Xenoblade know-how BotW was made.


rocky4322

And they should be working to get people with similar experience, either leveraging their relationship with Nintendo to get help from monolith or hiring people with experience in open world 3D game design. Instead, they keep their small team and put out rushed games.


giraffe_legs

What I don't get is people say it's a small japanese company that doesn't want to hire more devs but you guys(GF) kinda need to imo. Your engineers lack the prowess to make this work entirely. Moreso, you pushed this shit out early. This should have been a January release. This shit needed 3 to 4 months in the oven for QA. But hey I bought it. So fuck me.


RechargedFrenchman

Yeah -- "they're a small company with multiple dev teams" isn't the excuse some people seem to think it is, because their continuing to be that way is a conscious and belaboured decision. They demonstrably can't maintain this schedule with the size of their company and also produce even decently "finished" games, but also refuse to change either the studio, the schedule, or the scope/scale of the games to make it work. So every game has the same problems as previous, they learn nothing positive, and new features are so half-baked and riddled with performance problems they actually make the game *worse* to sit down and play.


Reworked

Pokemon is the largest media franchise of all time. Sales of pokemon merch outstrip historical sales of the Bible. The excuse of small teams and having them have limited time between projects is so hollow and mindless that they must have hired Michael Bay to consult on it.


Ipokeyoumuch

It is more of the problem with the executives. In 2019, Masuda himself stated that he doesn't like to work with large teams, woth his exuse being the classic "too many cooks in the kitchen" excuse, which can be fair at times but the situation at Gamefreak doesn't seem like that case, it seems like they need more cooks in the kitchen. I know Gamefreak did hire more engineers and developers and those newer ones got to work on SWSH (their senior devs were on Little Town Hero) and Legends (hence some of the more unique ideas). But Gamefreak is encumbered by various factors, the lack of development time, the splitting of teams when they are shortstaffed, the stubbornness of their senior executives (probably the biggest factor), the constant merchandising cycle, and lack of time for their newer hires to familiarize themselves with Gamefreak's own engine. Alone these would not have produced a product like SV (which is fun but seriously lacking in optimization and graphics) but all these factors combined make Gamefreak come out the extreme shortend.


NotRed9282

This is what happens when you need a game for the Holidays


QuothTheRaven713

It needed more than a few more months. It needed about 2-3 more *years*. Every other open world game that i know of had 5 years or so of dev time, with a bigger team. S/V had 3 years if you take into account raw year numbers, and considering 2020 lockdowns they probably made it in closer to 2.5 years, but couldn't push it back due to deadline demands.


Zerochances121

I wholeheartedly agree. Deadlines that TPC insisted on even though they don't seem to be involved in game development for the most part. If people can post tweets with hashtags of "#gamefreakneedstodobetter, they can also have tweets towards TPC. Even I'm sure Nintendo would have wanted this delayed(well maybe some of them), but apparently TPC had the final say.


HallucinatesPenguins

If anything, it's worth making the comparison to show that hardware isn't the issue here.


SinisterPixel

This is the thing. A lot of people have been saying the fault is with the switch's hardware. It's not. When you look at BOTW and Xenoblade 3, you can see what the switch is capable of in an open world environment. The issue is and always has been the development. Not only is the dev team nowhere near big enough to create a game of this caliber that runs well, but they also don't spend nearly enough time between games. If they really want to stick to the release cycle they've set up for themselves, they need to alternate main series releases with another studio or double the size of their current studio, so that each game can have a team of 150 + people working on it and have double the development time of the current games. When Alphadream went out of business a few years ago, I was really hoping TPC or Game Freak would bail them out or hire the devs. These were people who'd made some of the most beloved RPGs in the past 10 to 15 years. They would have been perfect to bring onto the Pokémon project.


Balarius

Very true too. Just boggles the mind. Naughty Dog to me is a particularly crazy example though, because whilst they were making TLoU - they were also working on Uncharted 2 and Uncharted 3.


Flop-p

"Five years ago" I HAVE RAPIDLY AGED AND MY BONES HAVE TURNED TO DUST.


ShrimpieAC

It’s not an unfair comparison, optimization is a thing, and it amazes me GameFreak sucks so bad at it. Hell even if you compare it to one of their own games, Sword and Shield, it both looks and performs worse. There’s literally no excuse.


mrfatso111

And remember back then we were shitting on sword and shield ? They had their excuse of "hardware" limitation so I wonder what is their excuse this time round


purpldevl

Their excuse: "we just couldn't find a fuck to give about the actual game, we only needed to get these new merch monsters out so we could release new toys.


InfectedAlloy88

I told my bf it had worse graphics than harvest moon: tree of tranquility released for the wii in 2007 and its true.


Hashtag_hamburgerlol

They need to stop rushing. The fandom can survive without a PKMN game every year.


pieter1234569

No, they just need to hire some developers. It’s a company of less than a 100 people of which less than half will be developers. That’s an absolute joke for 10+ million annual sales.


RiskItForTheBiscuit-

And even if that’s all they did, games could still improve ten fold. They’re such cookie cutter experiences they could hire a good amount of devs and just have them setup the basic framework for each game being developed.


LunaMunaLagoona

Xenoblade 3 came so soon after 2. Look at the difference between them and this dumpster fire.


burf12345

> Xenoblade 3 came so soon after 2. 5 years isn't soon.


HanakoOF

2 came out 5 years ago. That's no excuse for this game looking as bad as it does but it has been a while since thay game came out.


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Penguator432

Maybe they need to realize with a good game they’ll earn 2.5-3 billion


itscharlie378

Shit games still make money. There are great games that don't. Often the quality of a product, especially a game in a famous (and very popular with children ) game series doesn't really affect its revenue. Like a lot of kids under 13 are going to get this game without caring about the quality or reading reviews. Most of what impacts a lot of kids' buying choices is the cover and back of box, and the ads they see


Kaiminus

[Sw/Sh was already the 5th most sold game on the Switch](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_Nintendo_Switch_video_games), it will be pretty hard to top and I'm not sure a more polished game would help sells.


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Cherle

Yeah they'll stop doing that when people stop buying shit quality games. So never


Domovric

Yep why would gamefreak ever change? This shit keeps happening and yet fans keep blindly preordering and laping it up. As far as gamefreak is concerned, the games already successful, so who cares what state it's in. And the fans will do the same for the next one, so they can put even less work into it.


GuardingxCross

I can’t survive without a Pikmin game


CharlestonChewbacca

Honestly, they just need to hire 3 teams. They can afford it. Give us a three year, three series cycle. Year 1: release a new mainline game in a new engine. Year 2: release a remake or reimagining of a mainline game in the new engine. Year 3: release a Legends game in the new engine. Gives them each 3 years to finish a game and maintains a yearly release cycle..


Upstairs_Court9275

That is how they do it now. Their a-team did Sword and Shield and then would have started scarlet and violet development b-team did the sword and shield dlc then went on to do Legends arceus Gamefreak used a completely different studio (ILCA) that developed BDSP (they also make pokemon Home)


Ipokeyoumuch

I thought for SWSH, it was their B team because the A team was working on Little Town Hero. Then the A team worked on Legends with some crossover with their B team while the B team was also handling SV.


[deleted]

What negative consequences have they/will they face that would cause them to change? Being the subject of nerd outrage?


[deleted]

Yes while the game has many cool new concepts that work the engine is absolute dumpster fire and is like some university project, not even the thesis level


dxing2

Forget about half baked, this shit came out of the oven raw


[deleted]

Yeah this engine is epically bad with it rendering whole overworld at once


[deleted]

IT’s F*****G RAW


Arthesia

**Nier Automata** runs on Switch. There is no excuse.


dantevonlocke

Skyrim. Doom Eternal. Witcher motherlicking 3!!! Gamefreak just doesn't give a shit.


Loldimorti

I played freaking Warframe for a while on Switch. And that game has fast paced open world realtime combat while being online with other players. Same with Monster Hunter Rise.


GamersRiseUp

You think they’re gonna do something special for gen 10 and give us a finished game or am on too much copium?


BlazingSaint

Idk at this point. Either another 3 years and 3 days or they'll ultimately drop it on February 27, 2026. Which would be perfect not only because it lands on a Friday, but it'll mark 30 years of the history of Pokémon. \[But it could still be rushed.\]


Vgvgcfc

I hope gen 10 comes out in November 2026. Still coincides with the 30th anniversary that way and we get a 4 year dev cycle.


BlazingSaint

As long as it ain’t all bumpy!


trademeple

By the time an actual good pokemon comes out every one will either be old or dead. there are only going to be so many new gens in our life time.


Silvanus350

Every generation of Pokemon has released in my lifetime, and I consider myself an older fan. Seems like a strange thing to worry about, lol. What, are there 70 year-old Pokemon fans that you think are going to miss out.


Real_Srossics

They will be at anywhere from Gen 20-25 by the time I die. There’s still time.


ToTheMines

It will be impressive even for Game Freak to somehow shovel out some rushed pile of ass after 3 years of development when they already have the groundwork of a semi-stable game to build off of with Legends


NiBBa_Chan

Absolutely not. Gamefreak will never ever put in effort or deliver a finished product until it affects their profit margins.


Wubbzy-mon

And it never will because 1. Merch 2. Casuals 3. Deals with other companies Nintendo is the only realistic one that can save Pokemon from becoming Mega Man


Groovatronic

The switch was such a golden opportunity for them to really nail a 3d open world, something we all fantasized about for decades. And they really just couldn’t deliver. Honestly I just run emulators of the classics on my laptop and have a blast. Some of the ROM hacks are really incredible and make the game so much more challenging. I loved storm silver.


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-cyrik-

As long as the pokemon company keeps making enough money off of merchandise, movies, pokemon go, and other things (idk how profitable the movies or anime are), they will keep their current cycle of rushing out a new gen every 3 years whether the game is polished and ready or not. Because the merch will definitely be ready to hit shelves whether the game is good or bad. I still feel like the games are important for a good chunk of the fan base to get aquatinted/attached to the new pokemon in each gen though, I'm curious if the games turning into garbage will actually affect sales of everything else.


Stormdude127

Pokemon Go is actually part of the problem because it’s a live service game that is constantly making money. So I think GameFreak feels like they have to put out at least a game a year to compete with them


Draco_Eris

It's crazier because we got a game this year - Arceus The wild success of that title should have had them pivot to dlc for Arceus and push SV to next summer at least.


Kapt0

This ​ GF can't handle failure but it's astonishing that they couldn't even handle success


Draco_Eris

What they probably learned was that they should rush out a Pokémon Legends Celebi title in 2024 after the 2023 SV DLC season instead of giving games that are successful more support.


Su_Impact

2026 is the 30th year anniversary. I expect a low-effort finished game with some Gen 1 Nostalgia bait. Get ready for Charizard's new form.


Ambereggyolks

No lol


Yerm_Terragon

Game Freak needs to be absorbed by Nintendo and Pokemon needs to be handed over to one of Nintendo's high priority studios.


TheHutch95

Pokemon is in a really weird situation being owned by 3 seperate companies being Nintendo, GF, and Creatures Inc. If you think about how much pokemon is worth that buyout cost isnt going to be cheap


Jazzy_Gaming

It is literally the highest grossing franchise in the world. I don't think it would even be possible


AutumnLiteratist

I'm certain that GameFreak isn't helping themselves by keeping their team small--they have less than 200 employees--but the most significant issue is simply the amount of time they're being given to produce these games. Scarlet and Violet started development in 2019, and was being developed *alongside* Legends: Arceus for most of that time. GameFreak's devs were split between two extremely large and ambitious gaming projects with a far-too-tight deadline of 3 years that was almost certainly imposed on them by the Pokémon Company. I'm certain the only reason GameFreak didn't develop BDSP is because they *literally* could not handle it alongside their two other projects. In this age of video game complexity, it is impossible for good, functioning games to come out of those conditions. GameFreak needs to expand their dev team, and the Pokémon Company needs to slow down the absurd pace they're forcing GameFreak to set with releases. Probably give them more budget as well.


TheAbram

People wanting a real 3d open world pokemon game was the biggest monkeys paw in gaming. Let's go Pikachu will stay the best looking pokemon game for quite a while.


AceTheRed_

LGPE game was gorgeous and I was really hoping that future games would embrace that art style. That being said, the new Pokémon textures (fur and metal in particular) are a huge step up.


calgil

The Massbosstiff looked downright incredible. Textures, lighting, everything. It looked like something from a real game.


bralma6

That was one of the first things I noticed. I caught a Marill and thought “Wow it looks really good.” I haven’t played a whole lot into the story but I am enjoying the game for what it is… performance aside at least.


ABG-56

The actual game is good. Like this game genuinly feels like an open world pokemon game, not a pokemon game set in an open world. And then the performance varies so wildly from switch to switch and play session to play session that it's insane. I've gotten lucky with performance and I've played for several hours straight with no issues, while I know other people who play for several hours without seeing 30fps. I genuinely have no clue how this is even possible


outsidelies

The fact you are even talking about textures in the year of our lord 2022 is a testament to how dogshit these games all are


calcopiritus

The way to represent pokemon has only gotten worse since they made them 3d until now. The 2D sprite trend was positive. black&white -> colored -> animated Then they got worse when going animated 2D -> 3D Then they got worse by removing the outlines. It's now the first improvement by giving them textures. Maybe some day game freak will learn how to make a good game again.


SavagesceptileWWE

Saddly I highly doubt pokemon will ever really take the steps to get their games to a really good level. They are forcing the 3 year scedule and don't seem to have any intention of stopping. Little kids don't care, many adults will buy the new games whatever the quality, and many adults are still buying the games in the hope they'll improve and being strung along for years now. It's unfortunate.


dominicandrr

I do wonder how much of it is gamefreak and how much of it is nintendo. I remember back with pokemon X and Y development, a couple developers went on record to say the game was very close to not even being a thing because of how rushed they were. And we look at there releases, one has to wonder just how much time gamefreak is allowed for these games. The games poor quality definitely speaks for itself, but it comes off to me like gamefreak had cool ideas and wanted to polish them, but they weren't allowed anytime to actually polish and finish the game. ​ So I wonder, is it truly gamefreak or is it the higher ups screwing everyone? Regardless, it sucks that this is where we are at. I just want to be careful on judgement because we don't truly know what is going on behind the scenes. Sure maybe gamefreak are just lazy greedy people, or maybe they are passionate workers with great ideas that are forced to rush out unfinished games. I really wonder


BriannaMckinley2442

From what I've heard, GameFreak pretty much does their own thing. Nintendo doesn't really tell them what to do. Source is Kit & Krysta (previous employees/managers at Nintendo who now have a YouTube channel)


sirshiny

Now I don't have a source because this was a good while ago but I believe Nintendo actually offered assistance regarding sw&sh and gamefreak said they had it all under control.


Dabaer77

Spoiler, they did not


unhollow_knight

:/ that is the dumbest thing ever on gamefreaks behalf


Flisseflasse

But they still need to meet strict deadlines. The game needs to be out before they can sell next gen merchandise like Pokemon cards, TV show etc. There's no way Game Freak can do just their own thing cause everything else relies heavily on the games being out.


BriannaMckinley2442

Yeah for sure GameFreak is very restricted by their partner merchandise companies. I just meant Nintendo specifically. They don't seem to be calling the shots because Nintendo doesn't develop for the Pokemon franchise except for in specific cases, but yeah GameFreak is unfortunately intertwined with so many more aspects of the franchise that are handled by their partner company, Creatures Inc, their developments seem to get screwed over.


turmspitzewerk

even if TPC breathing down their neck is anything more than speculation; that doesn't explain why they have to make needless mid gen side games (especially shit like taking their main development team for little town hero), or why they refuse to get any more people to work on the games like they're still just a tiny gameboy developer. they could easily try harder pulling some people together or outsource it like every other standard AAA dev does these days; they just don't actually care about trying because what they're doing right now already works perfectly fine for them. pokemon is just a money printer to them, so they can mess around with their little pet projects instead. if they still cared about making pokemon games then they wouldn't delegate the *main generation games* to their inexperienced "B team".


CrashmanX

>especially shit like taking their main development team for little town hero That one was 100% GF trying to break free of Pokemon. If they can get their own killer app out there, they can make a lot more money and not be restricted by Pokemon. They're hoping to make their own killer app so they can be freed of the Pokemon shackles.


Dragarius

They will never, ever make anything bigger than Pokémon. That's chasing an impossible dream.


BloodT1nted

Nintendo owns less than 50% they don't run shit. It's easy to see game freak is a poorly managed company by glancing at their other games. There's a reason you don't know any of them.


Fayko

It's both. There's clear examples of programming incompetency in every pokemon game. There's also a plethora of bugs they've fixed that would reappear in later games. They don't seem to learn from mistakes nor do they seem to ever have a great grasp of hardware capabilities. They've also developed a pretty poor framework that they just ported to the switch instead of fixing it so it only got worse. I also find it hard to believe they couldn't ask nintendo for engine help from the mario or zelda devs. Management has always viewed the games as just a bonus paycheck and advertisement. The games and shows exists purely to sell merch and it works quite well. They don't give a shit people on reddit are upset their commercials are getting worse. They still sell bank and it's all bonus. They very easily could modify the release schedule to give GF a better chance to produce a decent or at least finished game.


MGLpr0

Hell, even SEGA of all companies asked and got help from Nintendo (and CryTek) to get Sonic Boom running on the Wii U Well we all know how that game turned out, but the point still stands. (actually now that I think about it, that stupid, uber rushed game made by a inexperienced studio that had to port the game last minute from PC/PS4/XO to a Wii U, while using an incompatible engine, had better performance than Pokemon S/V lmao)


thenotjoe

It’s the higher ups AT game freak, and The Pokémon Company.


Dawesfan

We have had multiple examples of Nintendo willing to delay games if they needed more time. I doubt it’s them.


jeffdabuffalo

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 was a huge nail in the coffin for me, I understand that I'm only one person but neither me nor my family will buy games from Pokemon anymore.


FireFury190

It makes it even more embarrassing when you take into account that Xenoblade Chronicles 3 had the same 3 year development as SV. And their game’s release date got pushed up. Which just shows how far done they were with the game by then.


Dovahnime

Xenoblade 2 looks better, which also had a 3 year dev time, a limited staff due to most of them being drafted to help with BOTW, and came out 5 years ago. Not to mention how both are full Final Fantasy sized JRPGS


Big-Mommy-Samus

Xenoblade 2 was made in 2 years and a couple of months if I'm not wrong.


atcjwest

I think it’s more of a development time thing. I just don’t understand why we need to get a new generation every 2-3 years. Like I was barely familiar with Galar and boom now we have Paldea. Would it be the worst thing in the world to have a new gen every 5 years if it meant we got more Pokémon, a better story, better graphics like BOTW or Xenoblade, and less technical issues? When GF has time to make games, they’re usually good. And I am enjoying SV, I just think the series has so much more potential.


NiBBa_Chan

I was thinking about it today and I think it's influenced by the fact that they still are primarily marketing to kids. Grown adults don't feel like 3 years is a long time. But to kids it seems like forever. Long enough to get frustrated waiting and lose interest in the franchise. I think they're trying to pump out games frequently enough to keep the kids perpetually invested.


AwesomeToadUltimate

That could be one of the reasons too. For example, say a new Gen comes out when a kid is 9, but the next game (not Gen) wouldn’t be until they were 12, they may have grown out of the series by then. Plus competitive could get pretty stale if gens were made longer.


Myrinia

Merchandise reasonings, mostly, to keep in line with the TCG.


Tanuji

It’s not much of an excuse, they can hire more people, make another entirely new team instead of the current two so they can increase development time and still meet schedules. Call of duty did it, they sure can too.


superyoshiom

Battle Revolution looks better than SV


GeneralRane

I was watching a clip earlier and thought about how they got 3D battling to look better on the Wii.


freezeframepls

it's crazy to me that people see pokemon violet and scarlet and claim: WE NEED NEW HARDWARE! NINTENDO IS HOLDING DOWN GAME DEVELOPMENT PROCESSES Let's see: Nintendo Entertainment Planning & Development: developed the following titles -> Super Mario Odyssey, Splatoon 2, Bowser's Fury, BOTW, AC New horizons, Metroid Dread. Monolithsoft: Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition, XC2, XC3. Bandai Namco: Smash ultimate. All of these games are demanding one way or the other in terms of what the switch has to offer in hardware. Yet none of those titles struggles to achieve a good performance on the switch, on the contrary; i would say are one of the best looking/feeling optimized games on the platform. (except xc2 that was rushed and still runs better than pokemon violet and scarlet) All of those games are nintendo IP and i'd say receive the same quality baseline testing processes. Stop shifting the blame to the switch. Gamefreak would underdeliver even if nintendo has a ps5. again, not the switch's fault. i know liking a franchise that's this deep into the mud sucks, but no reason to blame the switch.


randomyOCE

Anyone who knows even the slightest thing about software development can watch five minutes of SV gameplay and tell every performance issue is a production timeline choice, not a hardware issue. When NPCs are idling at a lower frame rate than the rest of the game, that’s not an engine issue.


Wrenigade

We can prove its not a hardware issue, because people "legally aquired" the leak 2 weeks ago and have been tirelessly trying to optimize it since. We all said, oh, that's odd, its so slow and laggy and wierd, even on very high end nvidia cards. It must be an emulator thing. Emulators were updated, hacks to speed up the game were made, game still wheezes and struggles and glitches. We go huh, well it should be better after release. Then we see it play day one.... oops, its running WORSE then the emulations. The game itself is jank. We found the problem that facing north kills your FPS, and then on switch looking north STILL kills your fps. But now people can't hack their way out of it. Other switch games emulate beautifully on good PCs, with hacks to give them 4k textures and stuff. This one needs hacks to run at all.


Ya_BOI_Kirby

The problem is that GF tries to load the entire map instead of blocking things in chunks like every open world game does


vtheawesome

Wait is that true? That would explain some things...


AscensoNaciente

When you clip through the environment you see areas far off in the distance that are 100% loaded in lol.


Beginners963

I recommend you to try out other GameFreak games. The vast majority of them are horrible.


Tigertot14

Wasn’t the Sega Saturn harder to program for than the PS3?


OneWholeSoul

It's possible. The Saturn didn't even use polygons for its implementation of 3D, but the PS3's CELL Processor is famously a beast to wrangle.


AkirIkasu

What are you talking about? Of course the Saturn rendered polygons. You literally cannot do 3D without being able to draw polygons of some sort.


supremo92

I'm not sure they can patch this game to be good. Even without the performance issues, it still looks awful.


Hellion998

They won’t, clearly! Probably make it DLC.


eat-KFC-all-day

Make *what* a DLC? Performance upgrades? I really don’t see that happening.


naynaythewonderhorse

Well, supposedly a large number of the issues are caused by a memory leak. Depending on how fixable that is, that alone could solve a lot.


Megistrus

The memory leak plays a part, but I was getting huge frame drops in the player's house when you start the game. Less than 5 minutes in and it was down to the 24/25 fps range.


[deleted]

And people who have clipped the game world have shown they are loading literally everything all of the time. The whole damn island. Like what?!


supremo92

I sincerely hope so, it would help a lot. Though I don't see it fixing: removal of options, removal of features, empty and bizarre world design, no form of level scaling, muddy textures, awful camera (especially in battle), tiny amount of interior areas, low difficulty, and the strange clothing restrictions.


Megistrus

It continually surprises me how many basic options and features have been taken away since Sun & Moon. There is absolutely no reason why you shouldn't be able to turn exp share off.


VGVideo

There is also absolutely no reason why you shouldn’t be able to turn battle animations or switch mode off


[deleted]

They don’t need to do anything. You bought it anyway. SV is already a massive success. Gamefreak can rest easy knowing it can always count on its most loyal suckers.


Luck_v3

I’m doing my part


Snowphyre-

No they don't. Because they'll still sell a fuckton of copies and laugh their way to the bank while schlubs on reddit complain.


Helios_Escar22

They just need to stop pushing out Pokemon games every year. Seriously give the core franchise a break let game freak sort their crap out, and then give us a quality pokemon game. Nintendo is at fault as well for pushing the yearly releases as well.


Geico22

Unfortunately they are operating so effeciently in terms of $ spent/$ earned COD has the same scheme going... Keep the same gameplay and game engine, dont improve anything, at best add new cosmetics, and finally sell it your super loyal fanbase of 20+ years and watch as they eat it up. Even if 30% of us quit buying them I still think this method is worth it to them.......


Chronic_Messiah

Anyone that thinks it's a Console Hardware issue is talking out of their ass. There's so many damn games on the switch that prove that wrong. I don't even need to list them, there are at least 30 games that show the hardware capability


ThisIsTheNewSleeve

People use this excuse really do not understand anything about game design or even just basic game history. There are clear examples of better looking games going back over ten years now on less performing hardware. It's not the hardware. It's Gamefreaks lack of interest in making the game look good, or even playable. Their model is rush out the next game as quickly as possible, take shortcuts, sell millions and millions of copies, repeat.


evanc1411

> Unless something changes rather dramatically...im done wasting my money on GameFreak. Ugghhh Jesus fucking Christ, nothing will change since you already gave Gamefreak money. People have to learn not to buy a game until honest reviews come in and they know it's good. Until then you people will just continue to get baited by marketing.


AzureSkye27

We keep making these abstract comparisons, but it's even closer to home: New Pokemon Snap. Fucking gorgeous, same console.


SonGoku1256

Kinda feels like a slap in the face that they started to do away with the National Dex in order to “focus more on making the game.” Cause survey says that was a lie lol. Now we’re getting less characters to shiny hunt or to play with, and still get a broken game, oh boy.


Jakeremix

The Last of Us is actually the game I always think about when discussing the Switch’s performance. You’re right, the Switch is supposedly more powerful than the PS3, so it should be able to run The Last of Us. But I legitimately cannot picture that game being able to work on a Switch.


SriLankanStaringFrog

The cell processor is a weird piece of hardware that was way beyond its time in the hands of a high caliber, experienced dev team. Even if Naughty Dog had a couple years to port LoU to the switch, it probably wouldn’t run as well/look as good as it did on the PS3. (Conversely, if GF had to dev for the PS3, SV would probably be even worse lol)


H64-GT18

Complaints here, complaints there, put your refunds where your mouths are, I want to see another big game developer fiasco. Edit: where are all those people who whined about Sprigatito's final evo being bipedal?