By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
Frogger on 04 March 2025
Edit Thread
Darwinianevolution said:

Graphics is not the thing I prioritize the most about Pokemon, but if I see GameFreak cutting corners everywhere else (less features, less postgame, less battle modes, LESS POKEMON...), if I don't see an improvement in something, anything, to compensate, I will call them out. I was understanding with the jump between BW and XY, because the 3D jump was a big leap, so it was understandable at the time. Now, with the trend continuing for multiple generations and absolute no sign of improving (in fact, it's becoming worse), I am much less charitable.

They have no excuse: they have enough resources to make it work, they win enough money to justify hiring more staff if they need help (plus they could ask other Nintendo studios). The Switch is powerful enough to show absolutely gorgeous stylized graphics, so it's not a hardware constraint. Hell, I am one of the few people who would rather go back to 2D if we get enough worthwile content. GameFreak has been going on a downwards spiral ever since The Pokemon Co. hit gold with Pokemon Go, which has dwarfed their own profits for the company, and they are cutting corners to try to catch up to an impossible standard.

Plus, who thought having the entire game in Luminose City was a good idea?? Seriously, why?? At least Arceus had you explore a world, this is just putting mons randomly between buildings, I cannot believe how transparently lazy this choice is.

Oh, I totally agree on everything else. I'm just talking about graphics here. I just don't think ZA look like a cheaply made game at all. At least not for what it is, which is a Pokemon spin off. It doesn't look like a cheap Pokemon spin off, and it doesn't look like they were cutting corners graphically. I just don't see what People are talking about there at all.

I think the entire game being set in Lumiose is a great idea. The world in LA wasn't that big, and I don't see why anyone is seeing exploring one dense city as a downgrade to a small open world. It feels like criticizing GTA or Cyberpunk for not being the size of a country. Especially for a spin off series that hadn't built it's identity yet, I think it's fine that they're doing this. This will be by far the biggest and most complex city ever made in a Pokemon game, and quite possibly the biggest and most complex one they'll ever do. I just don't think that isn't ambitious, again, especially considering that this is a spin off.

SV totally eclipsed LA in scale, and SV will likely be way bigger than this game too. I just don't think a spin off being smaller than a main series game is lazy.

h2ohno said:

ZA looks good enough, but nowhere near great. Watching the trailer by itself in 720p it actually looks a lot better than it did during the Pokemon Presents. Either they were showing an earlier build in the Presents or the streaming feed caused it to look way more low-res and flat than it is.

That said, Xenoblade 3's characters and models are way, way higher poly than ZA's are. It's like comparing Mario 64 to Sunshine. And Ni No Kuni looks way, way better than ZA. Being a playable Studio Ghibli movie will do that even if the tech is better in ZA, which I see no evidence of it being.

What I have wanted from Pokemon on Switch is to have that feeling I get from Xenoblade games when I go into open areas and see all of that exotic and wonderous wildlife, including gigantic creatures, roaming and moving about. The only game that really gives that sense of wonder is New Pokemon Snap, though Arceus does do a lot in that regard even if the terrible visuals hold it back. If ZA is limited to 1 city as it looks right now it won't be able to do that no matter how good the graphics are. If on Switch 2 with its better than PS4-level hardware they make a Pokemon game that is as open as Arceus and S/V and looks as good as the original Wii U version of XCX at 720p or a high-level 360 open-world game at 720p, I'll be happy.

I think it looked great even in the presents. I think people were just looking for things to hate on.

I have to address the character model thing.

Ignore the art style for a moment. You cannot tell me with a straight face that XC3 looks like it has way more polygons than ZA. Especially not to the extent that it's a generational difference. We can not be looking at the same games.

The Ni No Kuni thing is an art style question, which I'm not here to discuss, but you mentioned that you see no evidence of ZA being technically more impressive than that game, which is absolutely insane to me. I don't even have a fair way to compare the games because NNK isn't open world. ZA looks at least as good as NNK2 graphically while having a wayyy larger area. Of course it's more graphically impressive.

Remember the system we're talking about here. The Switch is more powerful than a PS3, but nowhere near a PS4. This game doesn't have a generational leap of hardware to work with, and NNK 1+2 had the luxury of being able to have small areas to prioritize graphics. If NNK took place in one open world city, they'd have looked much, much worse than ZA.

To the last point, I'll just repeat the point I made to Darwinianevolution: the Legends games are spin offs. What's more, they're spin offs that didn't even have an identity yet. It seems obvious now that the Legends games are pseudo remakes that allow them to test out new mechanics and ambitions for the next generation. That seems to clearly be the relationship between LA and SV, considering how massively SV eclipsed LA in scale and borrowed some pokeball throwing stuff.

Being disappointed in the direction those games went is totally valid, but wanting ZA to be a different game is different from the game cutting corners. Legends never promised to be a series where you explore open areas. You did that for one game, and we've known for a year that this one wasn't going to do that.

If ZA is any indication, Gen 10 on Switch 2 will look incredible, but it won't be some graphically impressive PS4-level powerhouse. The world design of SV was incredible already. I think it's very likely you'll get your wish granted by then, as long as you're okay with the game not looking like TLOU2.