Yeah I know graphics aren't everything, and it at least looks less offensive than Scarlet/Violet, but still, its shameful that the games still look so bad.

This is Soul Calibur, from 1998

And this is Pokémon in 2025:

I'm increseangly worried about the growing mobile focus of the Pokemon series. Other than Legends AZ, everything was mobile, does the Pokémon Co. and Nintendo not let the license to other studios to make Switch games? There's only been four proper spinoffs on the Switch: the mystery dungeon remake, the Pokken port, Snap and Detective Pikachu. The rest are mobile games that were ported to the Switch because why not? Also, if Champions is an actual battle simulator, then I fear they will try to shut down Pokemon Showdown to avoid competition from a fan game. As for Legends AZ, GameFreak has yet to iron out a good deal of the glitches from Scarlet/Violet, so they jumping so soon into another Legends game bodes ill about its eventual quality (or the quality of the next core installment).

With that said, Pokemon Concierge still looks wonderful, I'm so glad we're getting new episodes.

I'm usually shitting on Pokemon, but I think the fanbase has gone overboard with the critique. ZA doesn't look bad, even a little bit. I mean aesthetically. It's a good looking game. I think the lighting is a little flat, but I think the lighting has been flat in other Pokemon games who's looks I enjoy, like the DS games.

The character models look good, the colors look good. It doesn't look as amazing as a Mario Kart 8 or something, but it looks close.

I personally like the idea of this game taking place only in one city. I consider the legends games spin offs to test features to be added to main games. We got a lot of that with legends to SV. I'm hoping for a lot of that with ZA to gen 10. I hope this version of Lumiose is amazing so that that becomes the norm for cities in Gen 10. I want one Gen 10 city to be like Lumiose City in ZA. Some of SV's biggest issues were its terrible towns, so I'm happy Pokemon is taking their time to make what is effectively GTA Pokemon to fix it.

Also, SV were the best 3D Pokemon games so far, and by a mile. They are getting better. Best looking, decent story, best over world, etc. I'm all for shitting on Gamefreak because they're ruining my favorite franchise, but people are going overboard. I miss the days of XY when it wasn't popular yet to shit on Pokemon so it didn't feel like bandwagoning yet.

I agree somewhat, but I do feel that this is more of a symptom of GameFreak resting in their laurels for many years rather than the actual quality of Legends AZ. Releasing more games faster while cutting corners, taking away features and mons and not even bothering with polishing S/V at launch, it's been happening since the Sun/Moon days. If there were less controversies and the quality of the games were higher and more consistent, nobody would complain about AZ's looks (the Pokemon community is shockingly lenient about that), but many fans have become more cynical about the series and the Pokemon Co.'s and Nintendo's direction for it. Considering they are becoming worse and worse and the sales keep going up, many are just jaded at the future, the series will be milked dry until something changes.

I think if no one would would be complaining about AZ's looks, it's because there isn't really anything to complain about. I don't think GF's past issues are justification for nitpicking the looks of this one.

Maybe this is me, but I don't remember SM having polishing issues. Like I said, I think SV are the best Pokemon games since BW. I genuinely don't know what anyone is talking about when they say Pokemon is getting worse ever release when SV are the example of the worst ones. I feel like I'm in a dream world lol.

My critiques of the newer Pokemon is that they're designed worse in key ways every game, but that got better with SV for the most part. The towns are worse than they've ever been in some ways, and the post game is still as bad as it's been since BW, but it's all getting a lot better since LA. Gamefreak are improving a LOT, and ZA seems the same.

The reality is that Pokemon is pretty much a mobile franchise at this point. Nintendo is probably Ok with this as long as no Pokemon game comes out on PC, PS and Xbox. The console games they make is no longer the big priority, the priority is the mobile stuff, while the console games are probably just made to make Nintendo happy.

This was a terrible presentation

The more I think about it, the more exciting this direct seems. I'm ready for my hopes to be crushed in the future.

The potential for this to be an attempt at replacing Showdown, if it's actually a good attempt, is so enticing. I love showdown, but obviously it doesn't have the budget of an official game. If Champions let's players just make whatever pokemon they want (and restrict them to Champions of course), and if they add the historical element of Showdown, allowing players to replicate old gen mechanics, typings, and stats, I can't even imagine how amazing that would be.

But it would also let Pokemon do something I really want them to do, which is to make the mainline games have a more active battle system. Whatever the battle system in ZA is, I'm sure it will be too simple for me. If you can't hold items or have EV and IVs, I'm not interested in it long term. But if ZA is just testing the mechanic for Gen 10 where the battle mechanics are fully fleshed out, the prospect of real time battles having a competitive metagame along side the turn based one is sooooooo enticing to me. I don't want the turn based battles to ever go away, but having a battle simulator game along side a real time battle game, if they're both good, sounds like a dream.

It also reminds me of how Pokemon Adventures conveys battles. Where the battles are real time, but the pokedex shows the pokemon's health and stuff on the screen as the battles in the games they represent. That's cool.

EDIT: Oh and can we PLEASE move on from the rotom phone, already???? It's been 3 generations. I haaaaaaate that thing.