Pokémon Champions Producer Acknowledges Visual ‘Limitations’ Amid Ongoing Fan Scrutiny of Series’ Graphics
by Turbostrider27
Nintendo Switch
Pokémon Champions Producer Acknowledges Visual ‘Limitations’ Amid Ongoing Fan Scrutiny of Series’ Graphics
by Turbostrider27
44 Comments
Does people still expect pretty pokemon games? It’s not going to happen. Pokemon video games are expensive in price, but produced cheaply.
Pokemon Violet / Scarlett looked like complete ass when they launched and they still sold 20 million+ copies… Until people vote with their wallets, nothing will change.
I really don’t think the technical hardware limitations apply here…unless, of course, the game’s engine is very poorly optimized
The switch 2 is not a powerhouse but it can do far better
THAT is people’s main concern? The graphics are fine, maybe not winning awards but fine. I’m on a switch 1 so it’s probably even better looking on the switch 2.
My issue is that it is barely a game. I just don’t know what the point of random battles is?
The Pokemon company have been too comfortable for far too long with the visuals and performance of their games, they need to take a new approach to their production pipeline and make more of an effort to improve their increasingly obvious shortcomings.
A lot of fans seem to be on their last legs of good will towards game freak.
With that said the early trailers for the next mainline games looked promising but they are still over a year away and there is no guarantee the end product will look that good.
I think ILCA is just ass at developing Pokemon games but who really knows. I just know that I do not trust them with the rumored B/W remakes though, whatsoever.
Inexcusable that this game runs at 30 FPS on the switch 2.
Honestly the graphics seem perfectly fine
There are no landscapes or anything. I’d much rather they took those resources and put it towards the next game not being the absolute shit show that Scarlet and Violet was
The only issue I see is apparently it’s locked at 30fps on the switch 2. Asking for 60fps there seems reasonable
But otherwise, put that time and effort into the next game, god knows they’ll need all the help they can get
He genuinely did not have an answer for such a simple question. He just pivoted to talking about… Pokkén Tournament?? What does the number of Pokémon on screen have to do with the lack of anti-aliasing?
It’s pretty inexcusable to not have a proper SW2 version of the game running at a higher frame rate and fidelity.
ILCA get some heavy flak, some deserved, but we do know they have had to be the fall guys for Pokemon Company/Gamefreak when their developments weren’t working. From the leaks we know they had bigger ambitions for the D/P remakes but had to scrap nearly everything when they had to move the timeline up to put a game out on the 25th anniversary.
And we can see on Gamefreak side that if they have the time to cook, they can make games that [look like this.](https://youtu.be/3dw0ePZ8GLc?si=jTYLwSPZJjTU0jS3)
So the shared factor is being overseen by Pokemon company and being given unrealistic deadlines and support. So you have to wonder if they have to go to bat on behalf of TPC and excuse their missed opportunities.
The main issue for me is the speed of the battling. The text, and the idle waiting around makes games far too long and boring. They need to add a way to make the game snappier and more satisfying to play. A long clock is fine I guess when selecting moves, since it is ultimately a kid’s game, but we need less talk more show during the battle phase.
I genuinely don’t get the criticism of graphics on this, I’ve played hours of it, and it’s looked good the entire time. I haven’t experienced any framerate issues at all, but I’ve never noticed them in any game unless they’re especially bad. It just… looks like a decent 3D videogame- good models, good animations, no stuttering. I don’t get it, personally.
I liked how Pokken looked so I was always expecting them to eventually work up to it in terms of graphics but it’s been over 10 years and here we are 😡
I don’t understand how people can accept Champions. It looks and feels worse than Battle Revolution, which came out 20 years ago!!
At least for this game I understand graphics wise cuz they wanted to launch this game for mobile as well, yes even lower to mid range phones which many 3rd world country uses. Because they wanted to the competitive to grow outside of console.
In this case I can understand it since they want it to run on mobile phones too, just like Pokemon unite doesn’t have incredible graphics.
But not running at 60fps on switch 2 is so weird, I hope they fix it in future patches.
Has there been a single 3D Pokémon game that hasn’t looked and run like shit?
honestly, aside from the polygon difference, judging by that vaporeon pic, vaporeon does look better in pokemon stadium. the colors, shading and shadows on the model are so much better.
I mean, come on. If it takes Switch 2 to run a PS3 game at 30fps…
So the Wii had less limitations than the Switch 2?
Pokemon Battle revolution has better animations and more Pokemon overall.
Biggest nothing burger criticisms of all time.
The only thing worth barely a grain are frame rate issues.
I want it to fail so they learn a lesson about needing to make a good game
I was concerned when I first heard Champions would be both home console and mobile.
But then I thought, “they must know the demand for a big cinematic Revolution style battle sim” and figured the home console would actually look very nice while the mobile was more simplified just to get it only into the hands of literally everyone.
I’m pretty disgusted that looks to have been built with mobile in mind and ported to console.
There’s no legitimate excuse for this game to run so poorly and look so awful.
Games had better graphics than this 15 years ago on hardware a quarter as powerful.
so a nothing burger article. Got it.
Another half baked Pokémon game with 2003 graphics. At this point these blogs need start bashing the players who keep funding this shitty studio
Pokemon gold and silver also had hardware “limitations” witch made the game almost impossible to finish, until they brought Iwata and he was like “Nah we can fit another whole region even”
The pokemon team was never about making the best and smoother pokemon experience ever, many say it’s because of the tight deadlines, but Idk, even without releasing a game a year I don’t see them ever actually pushing pokemon to the max potential
I seriously think “doing their best” would have been looking at the games fans think look good like battle revolution as a reference for the dynamic camera and mon positioning
People rag on the models and framerate, but my biggest issue has always been the shaders and lighting engine used. No matter what, the models always look like plastic dolls. I dunno if they need to go cel-shaded or what, but until they change those, the graphics will always look mediocre at best.
Limitations? No
These fuckers are incompetent beyond belief and have been getting away with it for far too long
Maybe when the switch 8 comes out we’ll finally get a Pokémon game with ps3/360 era graphics.
How can a game has so much features like in Stadium 1 or 2, but Champions lacks the very basics?
The n64 stadium games had better animations and more character then any of the new games 30 years later lmao
No one plays showdown for the graphics
I hadn’t played pokemon since shield. The game is really fun, but after watching some vgc clips from scarlet i see 3 major downgrades:
– Scarlet had 60fps, at least as far as i can tell from vgc battles. Looks really smooth.
– Scarlet menus look way faster and snappier, while in champions you have to account for 6 seconds to select your moves and targets alone
– Stuff like mega evolution animations don’t feature your trainer at all, it just cuts to the pokemon doing the thing. Even terastallizing in scarlet had more trainer involvement. Shipping the “bonding with pokemon to evolve beyond” mechanic but skipping the bonding part is kinda weird
Palworld > Pokemon
Can’t they just hire people from a studio that know what they doing, pal world look better
Normally I’d say it’s not the biggest worry since it was originally developed for the Switch 1, not the Switch 2. But then I remember that mobile devices can easily run 60 FPS games, and Switch 2 versions of both ScarVi and ZA run at 60 FPS as well, so… not as excusable.
Capcom got Resident Evil Requiem running at 60fps with a box of scraps!
My issue is that the game just chugs when models are moving. It isnt even the frame rate
Sorry, but after the internal convos leaked about them bragging that they barely put in the $/work for their games, and still make bank, I don’t trust them. They will cut corners all over the place to maximize profits
Probably after ZA was considered bad by the fans, the team that was supposed to work on Champions, got pushed to Wind and Wave(along with its announcement pushed forward) to make sure the core game had all the hands they need to meet schedule. While Champions was told to make it work and fixed it as they go with updates/patches.
You know gamefreak/pokemon co, they hire the minimum amount of people and give them no time or budget, so they can have their advertising (the games)make hype for the merch and anime of the new generation.
Same thing different gen
Then do something about it? Holy shit.
They really need to outsource anything they make. If other games can look good then its on the Producer of Champions to get outside help