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Monday, June 24, 2019

No Sword/Shield National Dex: What About The Spin-offs?

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Plus, a... poem of sorts at the end.

While I think the vapourware state of Town is the current biggest controversy regarding GAME FREAK at the moment, literally no one else cares about Town. In fact, you most likely disagree with me and think GAME FREAK's biggest controversy is the lack of a National Dex (more like an International Dex) in Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield. While I think Rotom becoming a smartphone is the biggest culprit in why there will not be a comprehensive Pokémon registry, most people seem to blame GAME FREAK being an incompetent development team and Junichi Masuda personally. ...And as someone who equates Masuda as the Pokémon version of Shigeru Miyamoto (that's a bad thing), I'm not going to try to defend GAME FREAK or Masuda.

Since I have nothing outrageous to add about GAME FREAK being bad at planning or lazy or that they shouldn't have announced Pokémon Home until after Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield released (because who is going to pay interest to the Nosepass running Pokémon Bank now?), my main concern isn't actually the Pokémon not being in the Galar National Dex. It's the increased chance of deleterious effects it may have on downstream spin-offs.

If a Pokémon won't even be programmed into the flagship Generation 8 game—keep in mind that previous games don't let you catch every Pokémon in-game but they're still in the code—what chance do they have of being in spin-offs based on Generation 8? Quite low.

Traditionally, spin-offs don't include every-known Pokémon. From Pokémon Snap having less than half of the Generation 1 Pokémon in the game, to Pokémon Ranger having a small amount, to Pokémon Rumble (on WiiWare) only containing Generation 1 and 4 Pokémon, to Pokémon Conquest heavily-stylising a limited number (even if some Pokémon they excluded would've worked very well in that game's scenario). Even Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity excluded large quantities of Pokémon not introduced in Unova.

You have to be a particularly special spin-off to have the ability to interact with every Pokémon in existence, like Pokémon Pinball, Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon (which rescued the whole franchise... until now, I guess?), or Pokémon Rumble World.

Let's suppose that Tauros gets into Galar because of Kanto favouritism. Let's then suppose that they exclude Bouffalant because of the (bad) belief that Bouffalant is a redundant Unova expy (like many other Unova vs. Kanto scenarios) of Tauros. What chance does Bouffalant have in being in the next spin-off? Why, that would mean that the developer of the spin-off would put more effort into the game than GAME FREAK did for the main game.

Which isn't impossible, and I'd argue that's what happened with Spike Chunsoft's Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon vs. Pokémon X and Pokémon Y. But... that's not something you can count on.

Until the flagship game is expanded to have the capability to have every Pokémon, that's going to impact spin-offs a lot, and that's not good for fans. Especially of Bouffalant. Poor moo.

Tauros ass butt Pokémon Sun Moon anime bull moo
Unlike Tauros, I don't have any pictures of Bouffalant's ass saved to my hard drive, and I never will if Bouffalant never appears again.

So I'll leave you with this poetry:

Inscribing Arceus's Judgment.

In the Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield Direct it is inscribed,

And on November 15 it is sealed.

How many Pokémon shall pass away and how many shall be born,

Who shall live and who shall faint,

Who shall reach level 100 and who shall not,

Who shall perish by Water Spout and who by Fire Blast,

Who by Sacred Sword and who by Ultra Beast,

Who by Hunger and who by an unseen force,

Who by Earthquake and who by Infestation,

Who by Bind and who by Rock Throw,

Who shall have Rest and who shall Vital Spirit,

Who shall be Heal Belled and who shall be Pursuited,

Who shall be at Sleep and who shall be Tormented,

Who shall be Telekinesised and who shall be Smack Downed,

Who shall Pay Day and who shall black out.

But repentance, prayer and righteousness avert the severe decree. 


This is what happens when Ludwig is forced to put a picture into an article but doesn't know what, so he has to go deep into his stash of Pokémon anime screenshots. He likes both Bouffalant and Tauros very greatly, though Bouffalant has been his profile picture on Facebook for several years running. Are you apparently more worried about the state of future Pokémon spin-offs more than the mainline RPGs? Do you think patches or a third version will save the day? Just to make sure everyone realises, when Ludwig worries about spin-offs, his main concern is actually the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon series.


If you need to be rescued in any of those Pokémon Mystery Dungeon games, by the way, Ludwig can help you out.
If you want to know what GAME FREAK is doing with the extra development resources, it's a reskinned version of Mega Evolution.
The National Dex issue is a big one for many people, but Ludwig finds other reasons not to buy the game. 
Tauros and Bouffalant are both coming to Pokémon Sword/Shield... if you buy the expansion pack.

2 comments :

  1. I will be the one to say that the ending is a reference to a prayer in Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur.

    Honestly, I am a very casual player for Pokemon. I usually just use what is available ingame for my ingame teams then move on to a new game. My Shiny Girafarig and most other Pokemon I carefully raised for were transferred up to gen 6, never brought them to gen 7. I probably would get gen 8 for a casual run. I am even interested in using gen 8 as a way to interact with members of my religious women group I am in, who actually have a Switch. Most of that group is mostly mainstream fandoms like Game of Thrones or Harry Potter or at most Pokemon Go so it is nice to find actual Nintendo players in that group and don't want to miss out with the socialization just for a few missing Pokemon. However I do feel the movement to bring all the Pokemon back is worthy enough for Gamefreak to not get used to cutting corners for easy bucks. Should make a worthwhile product for the money of the majority of the fandom.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Alright, I wanted to wait for someone to call me out on my many-years-running remarks since I said Mega Venusaur's yarmulke made him the owner of Pokémon Bank, and then point out that I have a whole thing at the end of this article lifted from a Jewish prayer.
      Guess not.

      We do the same things with regards to not focusing on transferring Pokémon from one generation of games to the next, even if we care for our Pokémon within that generation.
      I'll also say part of that is a canonicity reason. ...And effort, of course. All of my Pokémon main characters aren't, you know, the same dude. So why should the same Pokémon keep being transferred?

      (Though I wouldn't describe myself as very casual... though I guess maybe that's my actual playstyle.)

      Nintendo is expecting GAME FREAK to carry Holiday 2019 for the Switch since a bunch of other big Nintendo titles got to be delayed into 2020. That means...yes, they gotta cut some corners. Big shame.

      Delete

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