2019/6/5 Pokemon Direct - I am become Mega

Nintendo just revealed new details about Sword and Shield in the latest Direct.

There's some pretty interesting concepts in there, including what appears to be some areas of the world that have visible wild Pokemon a la Let's Go in addition to the wild grass areas in other parts of the game. Probably the most interesting addition to me so far is the idea of multiplayer raid battles which seems like it'll be a fun addition for friends who aren't as into competing against each other.

And of course, they introduced the new battle mechanic which is hilarious and I love it.

What are your thoughts on the things introduced in the Direct? What was most exciting to you and what do you most want to know about next?

I was only skimming:

it looks like you have more traditional pokemon wandering in most places (towns and routes) and the wild area is more like a safari zone?

That just seems kind of half-assed. Like they started making a new battle/world system late in development and only got it working in a few places.

That being said: the max mode stuff looks entertaining. From my limited understanding of things like the mega modes in the past it sounds like this might be a lot more flexible. Mega seemed designed around planning ahead of time and figuring out who needs the super mode. Max seems to be about just giving one member of your team bath salts for a burst attack and not building the entire team around said bursting.

The raids seem neat and a controllable camera is what I wanted, but I'm feeling kinda meh about everything else.

The new designs seem uninspired, there's a new Mareep, Floette that evolves into Whimsicott, a Torterra and a Honchkrow. The legendaries are a mix between Gen 2 Legendary Beasts and friggin D-Dog, also they look too much alike and I don't like the color scheme.
But, you know, there's a lot of pokemon, and I feel like Game Freak has been struggling on the design front for a while. Last gen had some bangers though and I like the starters, so hopefully it won't all be bad.

Dynamax seems like another gimmick, there's not much to say there. "Pokemon be big" isn't that interesting to me. Hopefully this mechanic won't just be a 3-turn stat buff.
If they insist on putting these kinds of mechanics in future games, I'd hope they do the work and won't just make them stuff that's easy to copy-paste across all pokemon, more like Mega Evolutions, less like Z-Moves.

I wonder what they saved for the E3 Direct. Something that stuck out to me was the fact that there was a decent amount of mouth flapping, voice acting would be very much appreciated. At the same time, Pokemon's cries still sound like they're coming straight outta Game Boy, so...

It looks great. I'm glad they're finally moving towards having Pokemon be visible on the map. The characters and Pokemon shown so far look interesting, even if the Champion looks like a dork.

The Dynamax thing feels like they looked at Totem Pokemon from Sun/Moon and said "what about this but BIGGER". Kind of disappointing but maybe the co-op raid aspect will be cool enough to cover for it. I also had a moment where I hoped the soccer stadium would be for something other than Pokemon battles, but I guess it makes sense that it'd be for gym leaders.

I was originally planning on getting Shield, but that Shield Dog looks... Dumb as heck. I don't know if I can do it when the alternative is literally just Sif from Dark Souls.

The stadium looks great but exteriors, particularly outside of towns and cities look rough.

The legendaries look dumb. Reminds me of Suicune but with weird looking armor.

Also “Bite Pokémon?”

Nothing I’m seeing is exciting me that much. The idea of battling in front of a crowd is dope but everything else is pretty meh. I was looking to get back into Pokémon w these games but might just pick up Let’s Go and just go down memory lane.

When they first showed these games off, I was super disappointed. As someone who grew up with the franchise but just recently started getting into the games in a real way, I bought into the hype of the first big Pokémon game on Switch blowing us away, so I was gutted to see what essentially looked like a prettier 3DS entry. It felt like they weren't even trying because they knew they could slap Pokémon on Switch and make millions with no effort. They had even taken out the things that looked great about Let's Go, like random encounters (my biggest source of frustration with Pokémon) being a thing of the past.

Apparently, Game Freak listened to me because they came out this morning and did exactly what I wanted.

Roaming Pokémon throughout the game, with random encounters being optional! A giant area to explore with interesting locales, weather conditions and appropriate Pokémon for environments! HM-based exploration remaining in the grave where it belongs! Evolutions that you used to only get by trade (Steelix) are in the wild now! New mechanics for battles and a literal increase in scale (Kaiju Pokémon manage to be goofy and amazing at the same time)! Raid battles with other players that need strategy to overcome!

Sure, it's not perfect (Legendaries look lame, especially Sword), but it's something. They've communicated to me that there's some kind of effort involved and that they want to make this the best Pokémon game they can. It looks to me like they're on the right track, especially with axing mandatory random encounters. Went from skipping this to being super excited for it. Heck, maybe this is finally a gen my girlfriend and I can play at the same time.

It's been confirmed on the website that Pokémon are roaming around the world throughout the game, not just in the Wild Area.

Overall seems good? Except for the Dynamax thing.. that seems corny as hell.

I wish they'd stop doing these weird gimmicky transformations. It seems super unnecessary to me and, if anything, makes it seem like they feel like pokemon battles are boring and need these gimmicks.

Haven't played one since Pokemon Y I think so we'll see. This might be the game to make me get a Switch, but also.. I wish this wasn't on Switch so it could look better than a phone game.

I'm super excited about this game, but also I only played the first three generations (currently running gen 4 on an emulator) so I'm mostly just blown away by how far the series has come.

I thought dynamaxing seemed stupid at first, but after a day I've come to realise that stupid is also funny, so I'm okay there. The real disappointment is that I really don't like either of the legendaries. Wanted to choose Shield, but visually Sword is the lesser evil.

Lastly, I really hope that Wild Area is a decent chunk of the game. If a quarter of the game was that (like it looks on the map), I'd be happy.

I would still prefer 3d pixelted/pixel art sprites over the 3d models they have now they lack character IMO. I think i played every mainline pokémon game to completion, but let's go was the first i didn't complete as i felt a complete disconnect with this one as to me it did not feel like a pokémon game.

Been playing Pokemon games since the first generation, and I am fucking pumped for it. I was smiling through that entire video. I was always going to be all-in on this just like every other Pokemon game, but this made me very happy.

Also yeah Dynamax is totally just a gimmick but it's hilarious and ridiculous and I love it. I saw a picture someone drew of a Wailord bursting out of the stadium and it was fantastic.

Ookay, nothing really new at E3, just some details about already announced stuff.
And uhhh... You can only transfer Pokemon that are in the Galar Dex, also Dynamax replaces Mega-Evolutions and Z-Moves.
The sheer amount of Pokemon in these games is now catching up to Game Freak in a major way. They wanted to release a game this year, but didn't have the time to model and animate every Pokemon (that has to be the reason, right?). Dynamax was the writing on the wall, I guess. Highest grossing media franchise. Small indie company, please understand.

I'm pretty bummed that their jump from handheld to console is just mostly more of the same, probably gonna hold off on my purchase until they release the eventual third (and fourth) version. Or in perpetuity until they get their shit together.

@briarpack: it’s not that they didn’t have time to model and animate the Pokemon because they’ve been using, and continue to use, models and animations they’ve had since XY. At most they’d have to make new textures. It’s a really weird decision and it reeks of “buy the updated version next year for $60 and you can have all your old Pokemon back.”