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Tsunekazu Ishihara talks Pokémon on Switch (ToyoKeizai Online Interview)

Lynd7

Member
would enough people really buy another more expensive copy of the same game though?

People would if they added new things, or didn't play Sun/Moon. (I haven't yet)

I'm not talking about a Stars though, I can't imagine the next mainline games wouldn't be on Switch, it would be beyond stupid.
 
what if its a really good spinoff?
What could they possibly do thats similar to the main games at this point that would be worth doing on Switch if its not cross compatible with sun/moon now?

I think at best we would get something like Pokemon Stadium to play using the 3ds/Bank pokemon but in HD.

Stadium games are exactly what I do not wish to play. My hope is just a 3rd game like the rumored Stars

I just want to play a regular Pokemon on my TV
 
I'm not talking about a Stars though, I can't imagine the next mainline games wouldn't be on Switch, it would be beyond stupid.

I guess so, but it also means being limited by the games having to run on 3ds as the base, since i doubt they would make an entirely different engine and assets for a switch version.

Stadium games are exactly what I do not wish to play. My hope is just a 3rd game like the rumored Stars

I just want to play a regular Pokemon on my TV

3ds can be hooked up to a TV :p
I would also like a big budget console equivalent, but i suspect it wouldn't be more than a port of a 3ds version :(
 

Pokemaniac

Member
Would you mind elaborating on this a bit more? Specifically, the single screen compromises. I haven't played a mainline Pokémon since Gold so I'm a bit out of the loop.

The disaster that is Festival Plaza is a replacement for the PSS which was a simple and easy to use system that could be brought up on the touch screen at any time out of battle. That's really the biggest loss from what the games had before.
 

Cartho

Member
If Pokemon Stars is not at the very least cross-generational (although imo it should be Switch exclusive) I'll throw my hands up. It would be utterly ridiculous.

This. I think a cross gen Pokemon Stars is the most likely scenario at this point. I mean if I was Nintendo and I found out that Game Freak were making Pokemon Stars exclusively for 3DS I'd be furious. It's not like a Fire Emblem situation where there's a 3DS game being made and a Switch game - Pokemon is a system seller. Full stop. End of discussion.

If they can get Pokemon Stars with a Switch version, bundled with a Switch console this Christmas, maybe at a Black Friday friendly price, that's sales. Right there.
 

JoeM86

Member
This. I think a cross gen Pokemon Stars is the most likely scenario at this point. I mean if I was Nintendo and I found out that Game Freak were making Pokemon Stars exclusively for 3DS I'd be furious. It's not like a Fire Emblem situation where there's a 3DS game being made and a Switch game - Pokemon is a system seller. Full stop. End of discussion.

If they can get Pokemon Stars with a Switch version, bundled with a Switch console this Christmas, maybe at a Black Friday friendly price, that's sales. Right there.

They'd still have to work out connectivity with the 3DS games, and just using Bank is not enough.

For the Pokémon World Championships, for example, they'd either need to be compatible locally with eachother or they force people into either 3DS or Switch which isn't fair.
 

Terrell

Member
Wasn't this one of the main points of the Switch? GameFreak bullshitting again.

Heck, the Superbowl commercial is basically that with Zelda, seamless change between handheld and home console.

This is so ass backwards. There's nothing mechanically about the mainline Pokemon games that you would have to change to make it "work" on the Switch. He's making a big deal out of nothing, just have the same core experience with bigger set pieces and better model and resolution.

At no point did they say it couldn't work unless they changed the fundamentals of Pokemon, that's putting words into someone else's mouth.

You cannot deny, though, that the change to a device like the Switch means that they can't do things exactly the way they were done before.

Hardware like Switch would carry certain expectations graphically that they've never been required to meet due to hardware limitations on GBA/DS/3DS, just for the obvious example.
But there's also things like, say, tabletop mode, where they may opt to design a multiplayer solution in instances where only one Switch is present, an option that doesn't immediately come to mind with a standard handheld device.
Also, they'll have to consider if they actually want to do anything with the hardware-standard 2nd analog stick, since that's not been part of Nintendo's standard hardware configuration on handhelds until New 3DS.

Just moving Pokemon as it exists now is entirely feasible, but there's facets to the hardware that they'll certainly want to determine if they want to do anything with, things that were not previously accessible to them in the standard handheld hardware configurations they've worked with before. All without saying that the scale of their work graphically needs to change and determining how they want to meet that challenge, either by growing their own team or bringing in another studio.
 

Yukinari

Member
Nintendo always makes everything sound like rocket science.

Im surprised Pokemon even got a 3D entry as soon as it did.
 
I think Ishihara's comments doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Like I've been saying about the Switch as well as games that came before it even existed: the distinctions between console and handheld gaming have been blurred for years. Thanks to improving handheld technology, we've been getting console experiences on handhelds (an example would be JRPG franchises moving from consoles to handhelds and still maintaining their gameplay elements and experiences). Even if Ishihara references the change in hardware, what would be so difficult to apply from the older Pokemon games to the current ones? The GTS, and online trading via friends means that trading doesn't HAVE to be limited to local multiplayer like it was in the old days. Online battling also makes finding matches more convenient though you also have the option to play local multiplayer. If anything, the concepts in Pokemon should be easier to apply to the Switch, not causing so much cognitive dissonance about how it can work. It should theoretically work without changing so much about the franchise (speaking strictly in terms of features, Pokemon as a game is a completely different story) because you can access local multiplayer and online multiplayer in both handheld and console mode, so what's the big deal?

In my eyes, Ishihara's comments are much ado about nothing.
 

JoeM86

Member
I think Ishihara's comments doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Like I've been saying about the Switch as well as games that came before it even existed: the distinctions between console and handheld gaming have been blurred for years. Thanks to improving handheld technology, we've been getting console experiences on handhelds (an example would be JRPG franchises moving from consoles to handhelds and still maintaining their gameplay elements and experiences). Even if Ishihara references the change in hardware, what would be so difficult to apply from the older Pokemon games to the current ones? The GTS, and online trading via friends means that trading doesn't HAVE to be limited to local multiplayer like it was in the old days. Online battling also makes finding matches more convenient though you also have the option to play local multiplayer. If anything, the concepts in Pokemon should be easier to apply to the Switch, not causing so much cognitive dissonance about how it can work. It should theoretically work without changing so much about the franchise (speaking strictly in terms of features, Pokemon as a game is a completely different story) because you can access local multiplayer and online multiplayer in both handheld and console mode, so what's the big deal?

In my eyes, Ishihara's comments are much ado about nothing.

You're twisting his words a bit..
 
You're twisting his words a bit..

How? He emphasized design philosophy needing to change due to the nature of the Switch, especially with regards to how trading and battling works on handhelds in the past. On the Switch, this would be no different with the way we currently see trading and battling work on Sun/Moon.
 

Mr-Joker

Banned
I think at best we would get something like Pokemon Stadium to play using the 3ds/Bank pokemon but in HD.

The stadium series is dead and largely pointless due to the main series going 3D.

As for showing off the Pokémon in HD, they already done that with some Pokémon via Smash 4 and Pokkén Tournament with the main series filling in the gaps when it gets released on the Switch.
 

JoeM86

Member
The stadium series is dead and largely pointless due to the main series going 3D.

As for showing off the Pokémon in HD, they already done that with some Pokémon via Smash 4 and Pokkén Tournament with the main series filling in the gaps when it gets released on the Switch.

Think some people are going to be in for a stark realisation when they realise that TPC will want to keep the anime style art style for Pokémon games and not try to go realism.

Hell, the shading for Pokémon in the 3DS games is based on Ken Sugimori's artwork
 
Look up videos of Sun & Moon in 1080p. Give it a better lighting engine and better battle backgrounds and it'll be glorious :D

The models are the only thing that look better if you ignore how their textures dont look nearly as good in comparison (higher res model with pixelated face texture is super jarring), and everything thats not a 3d model looks atrocious. It looks exactly how you would expect an upscaled emulated version.
 

Neoxon

Junior Member
The models are the only thing that look better if you ignore how their textures dont look nearly as good in comparison (higher res model with pixelated face texture is super jarring), and everything thats not a 3d model looks atrocious. It looks exactly how you would expect an upscaled emulated version.
Game Freak would obviously touch up the textures if they did a game on the Switch. It's the models themselves that are future-proofed.
 
Game Freak would obviously touch up the textures if they did a game on the Switch. It's the models themselves that are future-proofed.

well they have been using the same models and stock animations for every pokemon that existed since X/Y so yea... (watch pikachu do the standard electric Z move and he will just do the stock standard attack jump animation hes been doing since xy)

touching up the 2d artwork is a huge task. Would we also get voice acting? Having just text for speech, and the tamagotchi sounding pokemon cries seem really at odds with a modern console jrpg.
 

Mr-Joker

Banned
Think some people are going to be in for a stark realisation when they realise that TPC will want to keep the anime style art style for Pokémon games and not try to go realism.

Hell, the shading for Pokémon in the 3DS games is based on Ken Sugimori's artwork

Well if they were expecting realistic art style then they clearly haven't been paying attention to the Pokémon series as they have always maintained that cartoon look to them.

Would we also get voice acting?

Voice acting for story cut scene? Possible.

Voice acting for the Pokémon themselves? Barring Pikachu, not in a million years.
 
Well if they were expecting realistic art style then they clearly haven't been paying attention to the Pokémon series as they have always maintained that cartoon look to them.



Voice acting for story cut scene? Possible.

Voice acting for the Pokémon themselves? Barring Pikachu, not in a million years.

why though? why not something like Pokken where they either roar or speak gibberish. The sound effects they have right now sound like theyre stuck in the gameboy era.
 

Aleh

Member
Think some people are going to be in for a stark realisation when they realise that TPC will want to keep the anime style art style for Pokémon games and not try to go realism.

Hell, the shading for Pokémon in the 3DS games is based on Ken Sugimori's artwork

Well if they were expecting realistic art style then they clearly haven't been paying attention to the Pokémon series as they have always maintained that cartoon look to them.

I think Pokémon will (or at least imo should) evolve into something similar to the style of Breath of The Wild with Sugimori's/anime style influence. Add in some actual Pokémon in the overworld and it couldn't be better. Although they should really use more vibrant colors on the Pokémon models, they are pretty dull right now for most of them compared to the actual artwork.

Look up videos of Sun & Moon in 1080p. Give it a better lighting engine and better battle backgrounds and it'll be glorious :D

That would be fine for an enhanced port/third version of SM to make a first step into HD development but I'm hoping they will go beyond that afterwards pretty soon, that wouldn't really tap even half of the Switch's potential otherwise. But since there's no set precedent with GameFreak yet, I'm very curious to see how they'll handle it
 
Main line Pokemon has been using two screens for over a decade now so it would definitely require a significant change in terms of the UI and menus.
 

Neoxon

Junior Member
Main line Pokemon has been using two screens for over a decade now so it would definitely require a significant change in terms of the UI and menus.
As mentioned earlier in this thread, Sun/Moon has already started to cut down on the use of the 2nd screen. Gen 7 (Sun/Moon) doesn't really use the 3DS's bottom screen in any major way outside of battle like the Gen 6 (X/Y) games & its remakes (OR/AS).
 
LOL They don't speak gibberish in Pokken they say their Japanese names

braixen has a language comprised of gibberish, weavile makes some strange noises too. Suicune and Charizard dont "say their names" afaik etc and im pretty sure Gardevoir doesnt.
Either way its a lot better than the gameboy era sounds currently being used
 

Neoxon

Junior Member
why though? why not something like Pokken where they either roar or speak gibberish. The sound effects they have right now sound like theyre stuck in the gameboy era.
Imagine doing that for all 802+ Pokémon. Pokkén is a game with smaller roster of Pokémon to choose from (& they didn't bother to do English voice acting for the Pokémon in Pokkén), so it's not exactly a fair comparison to make.
 
Imagine doing that for all 802+ Pokémon. Pokkén is a game with smaller roster of Pokémon to choose from (& they didn't bother to do English voice acting for the Pokémon in Pokkén), so it's not exactly a fair comparison to make.

didnt stop them from doing it in the anime.In the new SM anime you have popplio and rockruff (maybe vulpix?) who dont "say their names" from what I can tell, and just kind of make cute noises. Whats funny is that even in the games their speech is sometimes comprised of syllables from their species, so its not even an anime thing.

having realistic animal sounds just makes the series super abusive and gross, and would take away from the magic of the world, but they cant keep using the sounds they have right now forever.
 

JoeM86

Member
didnt stop them from doing it in the anime.In the new SM anime you have popplio and rockruff (maybe vulpix?) who dont "say their names" from what I can tell, and just kind of make cute noises. Whats funny is that even in the games their speech is sometimes comprised of syllables from their species, so its not even an anime thing.

having realistic animal sounds just makes the series super abusive and gross, and would take away from the magic of the world, but they cant keep using the sounds they have right now forever.

Japan does the Pokémon cries better than the dub in the anime. In Japan, each Pokémon of the same species has a different voice actor for the most part, or at the very least is done differently.

In the dub, it's the same for all of them unless they're making a point such as it being a really old Pokémon
 
Japan does the Pokémon cries better than the dub in the anime. In Japan, each Pokémon of the same species has a different voice actor for the most part, or at the very least is done differently.

In the dub, it's the same for all of them unless they're making a point such as it being a really old Pokémon

huh, didnt know that
 

Hydrus

Member
I'm gonna go ahead and bet the next game (Stars) comes out this year, around October, and isn't coming to switch. It stays on 3DS. We wont see a mainline Pokemon on switch until at least 2019 when the next gen starts.
 

JoeM86

Member
huh, didnt know that

Indeed. It's quite a revelation. There was one episode a few years ago where they had at least 4 voice actors just to voice different Onix.

The voice actors also but so much emotion into the Pokémon voices. For example, Chespin is one of the more emotive Pokémon in the XY series and that's noticeable with the original but much less so with the dub.

Granted, I wish they were all more grunt like. Onix, for example, is an example of it being a "grunt" but it's actually saying its Japanese name. We need more like that if they continue to just have them say their names.
 
Indeed. It's quite a revelation. There was one episode a few years ago where they had at least 4 voice actors just to voice different Onix.

The voice actors also but so much emotion into the Pokémon voices. For example, Chespin is one of the more emotive Pokémon in the XY series and that's noticeable with the original but much less so with the dub.

Granted, I wish they were all more grunt like. Onix, for example, is an example of it being a "grunt" but it's actually saying its Japanese name. We need more like that if they continue to just have them say their names.

well hopefully they stay away from the dub if they do go that route...

full VA in like a Mystery Dungeon would be fine though, kind of like the commercials but with better direction
 
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