Pokémon Presents - Pokémon Day 2025 - Pokemon ZA Info & Pokemon Champions Announced

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

I think they'll have PvE content but I don't think it'll be a lot. I think it'll be like TCG Pocket which has some missions that are mostly teaching basic concepts and to let you toy with your teams, but not like, the Battle Frontier

I also think there will be a way to get Pokemon, and I think they'll actually give most competitive Pokemon as freebies. After all, in both TCG and VGC they've done many events of reprinting winning cards or events to get a competitive Pokemon from VGC. But I think the allure will be deeper customization and the ability to use *your* Pokemon, and to get more than just the standards.

Most VGC events have giveaways. I think they'll allow Champions players to get them too.

The allure of using your mons is great, and also how they'll get the big bags out of that game. Lord knows how many people went out of their way to get a copy of RBY/GSC after playing Stadium with a friend.

The catch about the Frontier and the like is that it's not exactly demanding to make. Let me put it this way.

What would you need to make a Battle Tower? A pool of NPC trainers (They can literally just randomize some parts or templates), and, more importantly, a pool of Pokémon from them to pick from.

That's obviously time-consuming but not resource-consuming. The Frontier hasn't been in the mainline games for a minute because of time constraints, but a 3rd party making a game that's all about battling anyway?

I believe that's the best chance we've gotten in a loooooong time.

 

[ant4456]

Most VGC events have giveaways. I think they'll allow Champions players to get them too.

The allure of using your mons is great, and also how they'll get the big bags out of that game. Lord knows how many people went out of their way to get a copy of RBY/GSC after playing Stadium with a friend.

The catch about the Frontier and the like is that it's not exactly demanding to make. Let me put it this way.

What would you need to make a Battle Tower? A pool of NPC trainers (They can literally just randomize some parts or templates), and, more importantly, a pool of Pokémon from them to pick from.

That's obviously time-consuming but not resource-consuming. The Frontier hasn't been in the mainline games for a minute because of time constraints, but a 3rd party making a game that's all about battling anyway?

I believe that's the best chance we've gotten in a loooooong time.

I don't think it's time consuming but I don't think they like it from a game design perspective anymore, for whatever reason that may be, I honestly think they would just say "Why don't you just play against real players who will have better performance than our AI"

Double-post:

Do y'all think they'll limit Megas by battle? I thought SV was pretty clever with its one Tera per full heal, but maybe it's something else. Or maybe it's just regular.

Is it a charge meter? Did they explain this in the trailer lol?

 

[verbatim]

Gale of Darkness had these chess like puzzles where i.e., the opponent's pokemon all alternate using protect on your two slaking's off turns and you need to sack a garbage mon in the back to desync one of your slakings to win.

Would be cool to see stuff like that return.

 

[RoyalDispenser]

Speaking of which, this might be a bit frowned upon, but does anyone know how one could get mons from emulators to Home? My Switch got deep-fried by a power surge and uh...

There's ways to do it but depends on which game specifically.

For the DS-era games you can turn a ROM into a flash cart (plenty of tutorials for that) and then use the flash cart to trade them over like you normally would.

For the switch I have no clue. You'd probably require one to get them into home in the first place.

 

[ant4456]

It's like I was saying yesterday, I know a lot of people won't be cool with just "You can get your pockets ran in Ranked!", especially if they don't have Home.

It's a really easy layup to make this the grand return of features like the Gym Leader Castle, PWT, and Battle Frontier.

Speaking of which, this might be a bit frowned upon, but does anyone know how one could get mons from emulators to Home? My Switch got deep-fried by a power surge and uh...

View attachment 717738

Yeah, nah, I ain't buying one again, not with the Switch 2 around the corner

PKSM sends its regards.

 

[Codraroll]

What I want:
Grass/Fire Meganium (Sunflower)
Fire/Water Emboar (Pig in cauldron)
Water/Grass Feraligatr (Swamps)

What likely will happen
Grass/Fairy Meganium
Feraligatr getting either Dark or Fighting
Emboar getting Ghost or Psychic

I actually do really hope Meganium's regional form is Grass/Fire though. Really Really do. And having Flower Gift as an Hidden Ability. Sun + Flower Gift + Fire STAB would be an absolutely brutal combo and GameFreak OWES Meganium that.

I agree with this prediction.

There is a reason why we really only see five types as secondary types to starters these days. Ghost, Dark, Fighting, and Psychic are the only types that don't interact neither offensively nor defensively with any of Grass, Fire, and Water. That means they can be freely added to starter Pokémon without upsetting the Fire/Water/Grass type balance. Or, well, not the only types; there's also Normal, but it doesn't mix with the others very well. It's a STAB that doesn't give any super-effective coverage nor any defensive resistances, only drawbacks (except a very situationally useful Ghost immunity, I guess). Additionally, there's Fairy, which is resisted by Fire but has no other interactions.

Using these types keeps the Fire/Water/Grass triangle intact, while the secondary types can interact with each other completely separately. I think that's the intention of the designers. Have the primary types work along the traditional type triangle, while the secondary types create another triangle that either reinforces or subverts the advantages of the first.

The problem is that there are only so many balanced combinations one can make out of the five eligible types. Especially since Fairy does not fit as neatly into a type triangle as i.e. Ghost/Dark/Fighting or Psychic/Dark/Fighting do, so it's a rarely used type. It has too few weaknesses to prevent imbalance in the type triangle. Dark/Fairy/Ghost is mostly balanced, while Dark/Fairy/Psychic is slightly less so.

However, there is another way to do balance. I once worked out a couple of starter type triangles that involved other types, with the twist that the secondary types were neutral against each other, without coming in the way of the primary type triangle, because the secondary type of each starter was also neutral against the primary types of the other two. But of course, I forgot to write them down, so I can't check if any of them were truly perfect. I think one was Grass/Poison, Fire/Rock and Water/Electric, whose flaws are that Fire/Rock is double weak to Water and Rock resists Poison. Grass/Flying, Fire/Poison and Water/Dark works too, but uses one of the "cliché types", and leaves the Water starter as the only one without a double weakness. I'm pretty sure there are other possible triangles too. None work as perfectly as the cliché types do, however, which is why Game Freak keeps reusing them.

 

[Karxrida]

I’m kinda surprised by how many people here and elsewhere are talking about how ‘small’ the map is and how little wild space there is. And I think that’s based in a lot of people assuming that the game will lock us to specific districts with new ones unlocking as we progress.

But we’ve been told from the initial announcement that this game is going to be built around the redevelopment of Lumiose.

Seems pretty clear to me that the entire map we’re seeing with its five small wild areas is the starting point — or the equivalent of just the Obsidian Fieldlands. And as we progress through the game the redevelopment will happen and more and more of the city will be habitable to Pokemon, creating new wild areas, new areas to explore, etc.

Similarly, I really doubt we’ll be doing many adventures outside the city. I think the bulk of the game is going to be exploring the newly built areas of Lumiose as they are finished.

Tbh a relatively small map isn't even a dealbreaker if the game design in that map is strong and the movement feels good. You just need a lot of good nooks and crannies to explore. I've never played them, but I've heard the Yakuza games make great use of a small overworld. Plus there might be some indoor dungeon-like locations to crawl around in -- the Insomniac Spider-Man games use those to compliment the overworld.

Gale of Darkness had these chess like puzzles where i.e., the opponent's pokemon all alternate using protect on your two slaking's off turns and you need to sack a garbage mon in the back to desync one of your slakings to win.

Would be cool to see stuff like that return.

Yeah, the Battle CDs. They were a clever use of the battle system to make puzzles (especially since your teams were premade so they could be curated) and you got rewards for beating them. Some CDs also came in pairs where you swapped what team you were using and fighting.

 

[Yung Dramps]

Y'know after stewing over it I'm... kind of at a loss for words on what to say, really. In fact, I'm not even sure I can entirely trust myself to provide proper analysis of the game going forward as we get more information because I, uhh... I think I more or less got exactly what I wanted?

I mean, it's just trailer 1. There's still finer details to be worked out, things I'd still like to see them do like the aforementioned Alpha Megas. But in terms of big picture stuff and my biggest wishlist requests it's just kind of all taken care of lol.

"They should make this a sequel to XY with returning characters" ---> Does exactly this
"Rei/Akari were fun but I want brand new protagonist designs like Nate/Rosa" ---> Does exactly this and they look great
"Man Tepig is so underrated, being a starter in a Legends game would be awesome but they're probably gonna go with something like Scorbunny or the Kalos trio again" ---> Nope lol
"Lol what if AZ comes back occupying some mundane day job to re-integrate into society" ---> Does exactly this
"If it's an XY sequel we'll probably get Emma content but that's an if and it might not be very much and I might have to wait a while for confirmation on what's going on there" ---> Looker Bureau with a fucking Mimi desk photo just to make sure any and all ambiguity is crushed
etc.

Again, the "issue" here is they've already knocked out all the stuff I was specifically asking for aesthetically and mechanically, a good chunk of it pretty niche. How do I explain to a casual observer who thinks the graphics are bad and who hates the starter trio "Ah, but you failed to consider that we're getting followup on the obscure postgame sidequest"? People are gonna be coping for Mega Flygon for months to come but I already got my personal Mega Flygon and a bunch of other rad shit so yeah I'm chillin'. Just a very strange feeling all around.

 

[ant4456]

I'm honestly baffled by how much Chikorita hate I'm seeing online, I thought it an its evos were pretty popular lol but I guess not.

Tbf I've always cared for cute Pokemon more than cool Pokemon, so that reflects in a lot of what I see from artists and the like.

 

[Karxrida]

So I decided to go back to the trailer via the official upload to try to sus out framerate stuff. I originally watched it via Good Vibes Gaming's stream, and being two streams removed can absolutely give a false impression there.

While I'm decent at spotting whether something is running at 30 or 60fps, I admittedly couldn't tell while watching the official upload. I think the game's framerate is inconsistently hovering between the two, which is potentially a good thing if it's still a base Switch game. People have theorized that Switch games might get a passive boost to performance on Switch 2 without patches if their framerates are unlocked, which isn't farfetched since this happened with PS4 games on PS5. Dark Souls III and Elden Ring immediately come to mind here.

Something I absolutely did notice is that the footage of Mega Charizard X using Outrage(?) super obviously and blatantly hitched for a second, including with the sound.

 

[Samtendo09]

I agree with this prediction.

There is a reason why we really only see five types as secondary types to starters these days. Ghost, Dark, Fighting, and Psychic are the only types that don't interact neither offensively nor defensively with any of Grass, Fire, and Water. That means they can be freely added to starter Pokémon without upsetting the Fire/Water/Grass type balance. Or, well, not the only types; there's also Normal, but it doesn't mix with the others very well. It's a STAB that doesn't give any super-effective coverage nor any defensive resistances, only drawbacks (except a very situationally useful Ghost immunity, I guess). Additionally, there's Fairy, which is resisted by Fire but has no other interactions.

Using these types keeps the Fire/Water/Grass triangle intact, while the secondary types can interact with each other completely separately. I think that's the intention of the designers. Have the primary types work along the traditional type triangle, while the secondary types create another triangle that either reinforces or subverts the advantages of the first.

The problem is that there are only so many balanced combinations one can make out of the five eligible types. Especially since Fairy does not fit as neatly into a type triangle as i.e. Ghost/Dark/Fighting or Psychic/Dark/Fighting do, so it's a rarely used type. It has too few weaknesses to prevent imbalance in the type triangle. Dark/Fairy/Ghost is mostly balanced, while Dark/Fairy/Psychic is slightly less so.

However, there is another way to do balance. I once worked out a couple of starter type triangles that involved other types, with the twist that the secondary types were neutral against each other, without coming in the way of the primary type triangle, because the secondary type of each starter was also neutral against the primary types of the other two. But of course, I forgot to write them down, so I can't check if any of them were truly perfect. I think one was Grass/Poison, Fire/Rock and Water/Electric, whose flaws are that Fire/Rock is double weak to Water and Rock resists Poison. Grass/Flying, Fire/Poison and Water/Dark works too, but uses one of the "cliché types", and leaves the Water starter as the only one without a double weakness. I'm pretty sure there are other possible triangles too. None work as perfectly as the cliché types do, however, which is why Game Freak keeps reusing them.

Another issue the clichés types for the Kalosian forms / Megas is that the Kalos trio already runs Fighting/Psychic/Dark respectively, so there is a huge risk of overlap regarding Dark and Psychic, and Ghost and Fairy aren’t mitigating enough for type balance between them without reusing one of the three above either.

Grass / Flying and Fire / Rock can work with reusing Water / Ground as it adds a Grass double weakness and reinforce the triangle, but that wound up making Feraligatr overlapping with Swampert in terms of stat distribution, if not overshadowing the latter completely if Kalosian / Mega Feraligatr get a better (Hidden) Ability.

 

[Trainer-nine]

yea, I know I'm a day late and no one is going to stop and read my post, but here's my opinion of this year's Pokémon Presents:
(I'm going to skip Cafe Remix, Go, Masters Ex and Sleep since I don't currently play them/never tried them)
-The return of mega evolutions to the TCG (and possibly TCGP in the future) really excites me, I remember the XY era in TCG Online quite fondly, I'm not aware of the current meta but it will be interesting to see the megas in action.
-Beyond the new thematic booster pack, the arrival of Ranked Matches to Pocket seems to go no further than a simple weekly/monthly table with mediocre rewards for those who take it seriously (as DeNA has accustomed tho us).
-I didn't expect to see any announcement regarding a new season of Pokémon Concierge, it was a series that made me fall in love with stop-motion animation again after several years without seeing a production of this style. I hope that this batch of new episodes maintains the great charisma that this series carries.
-For a while now I've been waiting for some improvement for UNITE that isn't simply more Pokémon and scenarios, UNITE is a game that I see a lot of potential as a MOBA but since its launch the quality improvements have been quite weak (especially if you compare it with League or Dota 2 that always receive updates of this style to please their playerbase).
-Honestly, I feel like it's too early to proclaim Champions as "the killer of Showdown" or "the end of Smogon", PS allows a vast amount of possibilities when building teams by not being tied to a loan or transfer system from other games, I'm not saying that the game is destined to be a failure, but compared to Showdown I doubt that it can fulfill its goal of facilitating access to competitive combat well.
All that aside, I was surprised that Project Synapse ended up being the new successor to the Stadium/Battle Revolution games and not another bait from the leakers.
-And finally, I have mixed feelings about the new Legends Z-A trailer. Yes, I appreciate the graphic improvement compared to Legends Arceus and SV, Luminalia City shines in every street and corner as it should be, I love the new real-time combat system, the return of AZ after so long sheds light on the wasted lore of XY and etc etc etc.
What I fear most is not the graphics and the story, but rather how the game takes advantage of all its playable and narrative possibilities to stand out from the main saga and is crowned as a more than solid experience after a streak of games that range from acceptable to very mediocre on the Switch.
Regarding the absence of new mega evolutions, I hope they know how to give us surprises with this mechanic and take it to its maximum senit even if it is in this game.

And well, it was not a bad present compared to its predecessor from a year ago and even with my fears regarding Legends Z-A, this 2025 has several promises that we will see how they will end.

 

[ant4456]

So I decided to go back to the trailer via the official upload to try to sus out framerate stuff. I originally watched it via Good Vibes Gaming's stream, and being two streams removed can absolutely give a false impression there.

While I'm decent at spotting whether something is running at 30 or 60fps, I admittedly couldn't tell while watching the official upload. I think the game's framerate is inconsistently hovering between the two, which is potentially a good thing if it's still a base Switch game. People have theorized that Switch games might get a passive boost to performance on Switch 2 without patches if their framerates are unlocked, which isn't farfetched since this happened with PS4 games on PS5. Dark Souls III and Elden Ring immediately come to mind here.

Something I absolutely did notice is that the footage of Mega Charizard X using Outrage(?) super obviously and blatantly hitched for a second, including with the sound.

It's 30fps, I'm good at seeing framerate stuff. Definitely not that laggy, though I saw stutters mostly when moves were used.

double posting

I think I realize a big part of what gave me "the ick" the first time I saw the trailer is the camera angle behind the protag. It feels... Off? Idk how else to describe it. Does anyone else get what I mean?

 

[Jungle cruiser]

I'm honestly baffled by how much Chikorita hate I'm seeing online, I thought it an its evos were pretty popular lol but I guess not.

Tbf I've always cared for cute Pokemon more than cool Pokemon, so that reflects in a lot of what I see from artists and the like.

Essentially, it all boils down to a combination of not having the best matchups in their home region against major battles, not being THAT strong battle wise and in general not having the cool factor that the other two's final stages have. Ofc, that's just from what I have observed.

With that said tho, even with all that, I still stand proud as a chikorita line enjoyer.

 

[DrrT]

I don't think it's time consuming but I don't think they like it from a game design perspective anymore, for whatever reason that may be, I honestly think they would just say "Why don't you just play against real players who will have better performance than our AI"

Double-post:

Do y'all think they'll limit Megas by battle? I thought SV was pretty clever with its one Tera per full heal, but maybe it's something else. Or maybe it's just regular.

Is it a charge meter? Did they explain this in the trailer lol?

The trailer already shows they are on a timer, and I mean...they were always limited to one per battle? Like, that has always been the entire point. I don't see why they would change that. It tries to sell the player having a deep bond with only one of the mons.

As much as I liked the original SV approach, they already threw it out of the window on the Indigo Disk, so it seems like even GF sees it as too limitating. So I see no reason why it won't be exactly like it has always been. Once, on each battle.

I'm honestly baffled by how much Chikorita hate I'm seeing online, I thought it an its evos were pretty popular lol but I guess not.

Tbf I've always cared for cute Pokemon more than cool Pokemon, so that reflects in a lot of what I see from artists and the like.

Chikorita has always been extremely hated lmao
Mostly from the playstyle and matchups it has in Johto, but even ignoring "serious" players it has always been the less popular of its trio. The anime portrayal probably didn't help either, if it managed to annoy me and my former friends as children it could have happened with other people too but that part is mostly speculation.

-The return of mega evolutions to the TCG (and possibly TCGP in the future) really excites me, I remember the XY era in TCG Online quite fondly, I'm not aware of the current meta but it will be interesting to see the megas in action.

I would have been pretty hyped if Mega sets have not already been trademarked, but even then..I can't say I like the new implementation. Basically, it allows you to skip the vanilla version of Megas. So Riolu can directly evolve into Mega Lucario.
I understand why they made it. They are trying to avoid what happened to them originally. But like...three prizes on strong basic Pokemon with current powercreep HP bloat? After the return of exes had at least been an attempt at stoping Basic dominance that has been so prevalent in the TCG for so many years, this feels like such a massive step back. I know the old mechanics would never make certain Megas competitive because good luck playing what is pretty much a Stage 3, but just not ending your turn inmediatly without Links would have been a massive improvement. If even some (even if few) Breaks managed to be viable, Megas could have been too.

Or like, make them somehow temporary like in the actual game. Would be kinda weird, but at least unique enough, something that I feel like the SV era just is not doing enough if you ask me, specially with Tera and the like.

 

[Hugin]

If GF really wanted people to freak, the starters would all end up as Type/Dragon. It's impressive and has never been done before. The STABs now either hit each other neutrally or are 4x resisted, the Dragon STAB is now SE no matter what, and Diantha/Eternal Floette/"whatever fairy specialist they introduce bc Gen 6 remake" can absolutely crush your starter.

Alternatively, Grass/Fairy, Fire/Poison(or Steel), Water/Ground. Almost perfect in terms of weakness/resistance(as long as you don't care about 4x vs 2x), with only the fact that Fairy is neutral on water instead of SE to mess with things.

I'm honestly baffled by how much Chikorita hate I'm seeing online, I thought it an its evos were pretty popular lol but I guess not.

Tbf I've always cared for cute Pokemon more than cool Pokemon, so that reflects in a lot of what I see from artists and the like.

Chikorita was awful in the original games(bad gym matchups, a defensive movepool, few of the support options that are standard for grass types). And then 0 attention paid to it since then to make people reconsider that opinion. What surprises me is that people are upset GF is bringing Chikorita back here. We all know that there will either be a mega or a regional evolution, doesn't the internet understand that this is a chance to fix the complaints they had?

Oh right, online comment sections.

It's 30fps, I'm good at seeing framerate stuff. Definitely not that laggy, though I saw stutters mostly when moves were used.

Is it consistently 30 fps or does it vary between 30 and 60? (maybe hovering at 40ish on occasion)? Sometimes changing framerates can bother people even if the framerate never drops below a good-enough line.

 

[Valoo]

I agree with this prediction.

There is a reason why we really only see five types as secondary types to starters these days. Ghost, Dark, Fighting, and Psychic are the only types that don't interact neither offensively nor defensively with any of Grass, Fire, and Water. That means they can be freely added to starter Pokémon without upsetting the Fire/Water/Grass type balance. Or, well, not the only types; there's also Normal, but it doesn't mix with the others very well. It's a STAB that doesn't give any super-effective coverage nor any defensive resistances, only drawbacks (except a very situationally useful Ghost immunity, I guess). Additionally, there's Fairy, which is resisted by Fire but has no other interactions.

Using these types keeps the Fire/Water/Grass triangle intact, while the secondary types can interact with each other completely separately. I think that's the intention of the designers. Have the primary types work along the traditional type triangle, while the secondary types create another triangle that either reinforces or subverts the advantages of the first.

The problem is that there are only so many balanced combinations one can make out of the five eligible types. Especially since Fairy does not fit as neatly into a type triangle as i.e. Ghost/Dark/Fighting or Psychic/Dark/Fighting do, so it's a rarely used type. It has too few weaknesses to prevent imbalance in the type triangle. Dark/Fairy/Ghost is mostly balanced, while Dark/Fairy/Psychic is slightly less so.

However, there is another way to do balance. I once worked out a couple of starter type triangles that involved other types, with the twist that the secondary types were neutral against each other, without coming in the way of the primary type triangle, because the secondary type of each starter was also neutral against the primary types of the other two. But of course, I forgot to write them down, so I can't check if any of them were truly perfect. I think one was Grass/Poison, Fire/Rock and Water/Electric, whose flaws are that Fire/Rock is double weak to Water and Rock resists Poison. Grass/Flying, Fire/Poison and Water/Dark works too, but uses one of the "cliché types", and leaves the Water starter as the only one without a double weakness. I'm pretty sure there are other possible triangles too. None work as perfectly as the cliché types do, however, which is why Game Freak keeps reusing them.

I actually never thought of it that way. I assumed it was more that they were less “elemental” than something like electric and were easy to slap on, especially for regional forms. But yeah they’ve only done those five types so I expect the same here, regardless of whether they’re megas or regionals.


This was brought up a few pages ago but I wonder how many returning characters we’ll see. They’ve avoided cameos the last two gens, and have also leaned into the alternate timeline shit so I could see that as an excuse for leaving it limited. But I don’t see how they could avoid Clemont and Diantha (/whoever is currently Lumiose gym leader and champion).

 

[Cuddly]

I'm honestly baffled by how much Chikorita hate I'm seeing online, I thought it an its evos were pretty popular lol but I guess not.

Tbf I've always cared for cute Pokemon more than cool Pokemon, so that reflects in a lot of what I see from artists and the like.

Well GameFreak were the biggest Chikorita haters for a long time.
Reminder Leaf Guard used to be able to let the user use Rest while sun was up. It wasn’t until Gen 5 where they gave Meganium Leaf Guard and nerfed Leaf Guard the same generation. So not only was it a worse version of Hydration, on a defensive grass type that needed a weather that boosts Fire attacks, but they gave the ability a drawback too. While also giving Feraligatr Sheer Force and Typhlosion Flash Fire. They also just ignored giving Meganium Flower Veil in Gen 6 when it only works on Grass types.

Hopefully GameFreak rectify this “Oldest sibling” treatment by giving Meganium-Kalos a good ability. Also throw in Flower Trick too. Flower Veil + Flower Trick would actually provide a great niche for Doubles since it’ll be immune to burns, resist Rapid Strikes, and bypass intimidate drops.

 

[Codraroll]

By the way, I might as well add my reaction to the trailer/preview. Or at least, try to.

I'm not sure what to think, to be honest. The battle system is probably what I'm the most intrigued by, but at the moment I can't really see what the "hook" is. I haven't yet seen something that made me go "this makes me want to try out the new game!" beyond that neat battle system. What we've seen so far is basically Legends Arceus, confined to a city environment that doesn't appear to offer much variation beyond the colour of the rooftops and one big and impressive building for each of the five districts:

They released the official map in the website. I believe it shows the wild areas (where the Pokémon are fighting). Interestingly, I don't see diversity in the biomes. I'd expected a snowy and desertic biome, but they all seem to be just parks.

If this is it, I'll be quite disappointed. I mean, it is a big city for a Pokémon game, probably with many interesting nooks and crannies to explore, but is it enough to be a whole game world? Are we really only going to travel through parks, back alleys, and rooftops? Will we be restricted to find new Pokémon in the canals and ponds of this one city? The strength of the Pokémon franchise has always been to, as the song puts it, "travel across the land, searching far and wide". To explore the high mountains, wide seas and deep forests for new creatures. Not just rounding street corners until you find that one alley where wild Pancham live behind the garbage bin.

That being said, I hold on to hope that this is not everything. That our task is not to travel through the city and catch Pokémon, but to bring Pokémon to the city. That, I think, is the Lumiose Urban Redevelopment Plan. Go out in the world, find Pokémon, give them a home in the city, and over time, you populate the city with Pokémon. I think that what we're seeing in Lumiose City isn't the areas where we go to find and catch Pokémon. It's a hub area that effectively serves as our living Pokédex.

One piece of evidence to support this impression is the fairly prominent gate structure we see in the lower right of the map, quoted above. That green building with the tower. It, and the first seconds of the trailer as seen in the Direct, suggests a gate used to travel to and from the city. While it is possible that the gate will only be used in the first cutscene where the player arrives in the city, I think we're meant to go through it a lot. Why else give it a tall tower, as one of only two interesting buildings on the city's outer ring? There's also the big dark building in the back, and possibly the train station (which was in the yellow section of the city in XY - could be that big building there), but it seems that this gate is the main way in and out.

So I keep my fingers crossed that they're keeping most of the game from us for now. Pretending that everything happens in Lumiose City only, then surprising us with a game filled with the beautiful biomes of Kalos. Of course, they will resemble the locations in XY approximately as well as those in Legends Arceus resembled DPPt, which is to say not at all, but I think it will be neat either way. Travelling across great natural landscapes to find the wild Pokémon that live in nature is a staple of the Pokémon franchise. It would disappoint me greatly if we were confined to the alleys and parks of one city.

Also, I look forward to seeing some of the new Pokémon and formes out there. Really hoping we get another equivalent to Ursaluna, Kingambit, or Annihilape, where a previously unremarkable Pokémon family receives a third member that changes my impression of the first stage from "a boring 'mon that will eventually become mediocre if I train it" to "a must-catch 'mon whose training will eventually reward me with awesomeness!" I do expect that most of the new Pokémon/formes will be Mega Evolutions, however. I'm fairly certain we'll see something at any rate, because of the merchandise and marketing potential. They need recognizable 'mons to sell the game and continue the hype it creates.

 

[ant4456]

Is it consistently 30 fps or does it vary between 30 and 60? (maybe hovering at 40ish on occasion)? Sometimes changing framerates can bother people even if the framerate never drops below a good-enough line.

I wouldn't be entirely surprised if the indoor environments are 60FPS from what we see, but it's mostly hard for me to tell because, and this is a good thing, the animations seem a lot more in-depth this time than normal.

There's def some dynamic FPS kinda system going on here but I don't know if it's base framerate or just animations- for instance, in the bit where we see catching Fletchling, the Bunnelby animation is very choppy, while the environment seems more normal, so it looks like it's still 30.

Same thing with some of the talking animations, some of it seems very smooth and some less so. Wondering if that's constant or if it's some dynamic system?

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

By the way, I might as well add my reaction to the trailer/preview. Or at least, try to.

I'm not sure what to think, to be honest. The battle system is probably what I'm the most intrigued by, but at the moment I can't really see what the "hook" is. I haven't yet seen something that made me go "this makes me want to try out the new game!" beyond that neat battle system. What we've seen so far is basically Legends Arceus, confined to a city environment that doesn't appear to offer much variation beyond the colour of the rooftops and one big and impressive building for each of the five districts:


If this is it, I'll be quite disappointed. I mean, it is a big city for a Pokémon game, probably with many interesting nooks and crannies to explore, but is it enough to be a whole game world? Are we really only going to travel through parks, back alleys, and rooftops? Will we be restricted to find new Pokémon in the canals and ponds of this one city? The strength of the Pokémon franchise has always been to, as the song puts it, "travel across the land, searching far and wide". To explore the high mountains, wide seas and deep forests for new creatures. Not just rounding street corners until you find that one alley where wild Pancham live behind the garbage bin.

That being said, I hold on to hope that this is not everything. That our task is not to travel through the city and catch Pokémon, but to bring Pokémon to the city. That, I think, is the Lumiose Urban Redevelopment Plan. Go out in the world, find Pokémon, give them a home in the city, and over time, you populate the city with Pokémon. I think that what we're seeing in Lumiose City isn't the areas where we go to find and catch Pokémon. It's a hub area that effectively serves as our living Pokédex.

One piece of evidence to support this impression is the fairly prominent gate structure we see in the lower right of the map, quoted above. That green building with the tower. It, and the first seconds of the trailer as seen in the Direct, suggests a gate used to travel to and from the city. While it is possible that the gate will only be used in the first cutscene where the player arrives in the city, I think we're meant to go through it a lot. Why else give it a tall tower, as one of only two interesting buildings on the city's outer ring? There's also the big dark building in the back, and possibly the train station (which was in the yellow section of the city in XY - could be that big building there), but it seems that this gate is the main way in and out.

So I keep my fingers crossed that they're keeping most of the game from us for now. Pretending that everything happens in Lumiose City only, then surprising us with a game filled with the beautiful biomes of Kalos. Of course, they will resemble the locations in XY approximately as well as those in Legends Arceus resembled DPPt, which is to say not at all, but I think it will be neat either way. Travelling across great natural landscapes to find the wild Pokémon that live in nature is a staple of the Pokémon franchise. It would disappoint me greatly if we were confined to the alleys and parks of one city.

Also, I look forward to seeing some of the new Pokémon and formes out there. Really hoping we get another equivalent to Ursaluna, Kingambit, or Annihilape, where a previously unremarkable Pokémon family receives a third member that changes my impression of the first stage from "a boring 'mon that will eventually become mediocre if I train it" to "a must-catch 'mon whose training will eventually reward me with awesomeness!" I do expect that most of the new Pokémon/formes will be Mega Evolutions, however. I'm fairly certain we'll see something at any rate, because of the merchandise and marketing potential. They need recognizable 'mons to sell the game and continue the hype it creates.

I'm not worried for one reason alone.

Mega Abomasnow.

They'll figure out an icy biome to fit it in, even if Alpha Mega Abomasnow causes it or whatever.

 

[Yung Dramps]

I'm not worried for one reason alone.

Mega Abomasnow.

They'll figure out an icy biome to fit it in, even if Alpha Mega Abomasnow causes it or whatever.

This is Avalugg erasure :c

 

[Basedwell]

Most VGC events have giveaways. I think they'll allow Champions players to get them too.

The allure of using your mons is great, and also how they'll get the big bags out of that game. Lord knows how many people went out of their way to get a copy of RBY/GSC after playing Stadium with a friend.

The catch about the Frontier and the like is that it's not exactly demanding to make. Let me put it this way.

What would you need to make a Battle Tower? A pool of NPC trainers (They can literally just randomize some parts or templates), and, more importantly, a pool of Pokémon from them to pick from.

That's obviously time-consuming but not resource-consuming. The Frontier hasn't been in the mainline games for a minute because of time constraints, but a 3rd party making a game that's all about battling anyway?

I believe that's the best chance we've gotten in a loooooong time.

I love the Gen 5 one because it is currently helping me understand doubles more than YouTube or VGC experience has, and there are countless strategies you see that clearly aren’t optimal enough for a human player to use, but are still worth engaging with.

They also tie together a bunch of in-game mechanics in a very “exemplary” kind of way, that shows you they had one hand tied behind their back when making in-game battles.

Designing it also probably has the potential to remind them about the need for balancing.

One random thought I had, was how I love seeing unorthodox teams and strategies in competitive, and that I see a lot more of them in Smogon tournaments than VGC events, where teams tend to be fairly homogeneous. And it makes sense because at the highest level you want something consistent and proven because you have to rely on it for the duration of the tournament.

If you were allowed to change teams between sets, (so like you’d use one team for the duration of a Bo3), you’ll see more variety over a tournament. Maybe. It’s worth a shot at least in my mind.

Edit: also don’t forget about the Cold Storage in Black and White guys. If anything, one formulaic area of Pokemon that imo does need to be innovated is map area, it feels extremely samey, almost moreso in open world games.

 

[ant4456]

I love the Gen 5 one because it is currently helping me understand doubles more than YouTube or VGC experience has, and there are countless strategies you see that clearly aren’t optimal enough for a human player to use, but are still worth engaging with.

They also tie together a bunch of in-game mechanics in a very “exemplary” kind of way, that shows you they had one hand tied behind their back when making in-game battles.

Designing it also probably has the potential to remind them about the need for balancing.

One random thought I had, was how I love seeing unorthodox teams and strategies in competitive, and that I see a lot more of them in Smogon tournaments than VGC events, where teams tend to be fairly homogeneous. And it makes sense because at the highest level you want something consistent and proven because you have to rely on it for the duration of the tournament.

If you were allowed to change teams between sets, (so like you’d use one team for the duration of a Bo3), you’ll see more variety over a tournament. Maybe. It’s worth a shot at least in my mind.

Edit: also don’t forget about the Cold Storage in Black and White guys. If anything, one formulaic area of Pokemon that imo does need to be innovated is map area, it feels extremely samey, almost moreso in open world games.

I prefer the competitive element of making a team with enough techs to not just be easy fodder for anti-meta teams while being just good enough to last a full tournament, much more than I think swapping teams between sets makes things interesting.

Besides, unlike Smogon a lot of tournaments are done match after match, so it's not like it's prepped.

 

[Valoo]

but it's mostly hard for me to tell

I thought you were good at noticing FPS?

By the way, I might as well add my reaction to the trailer/preview. Or at least, try to.

I'm not sure what to think, to be honest. The battle system is probably what I'm the most intrigued by, but at the moment I can't really see what the "hook" is. I haven't yet seen something that made me go "this makes me want to try out the new game!" beyond that neat battle system. What we've seen so far is basically Legends Arceus, confined to a city environment that doesn't appear to offer much variation beyond the colour of the rooftops and one big and impressive building for each of the five districts:


If this is it, I'll be quite disappointed. I mean, it is a big city for a Pokémon game, probably with many interesting nooks and crannies to explore, but is it enough to be a whole game world? Are we really only going to travel through parks, back alleys, and rooftops? Will we be restricted to find new Pokémon in the canals and ponds of this one city? The strength of the Pokémon franchise has always been to, as the song puts it, "travel across the land, searching far and wide". To explore the high mountains, wide seas and deep forests for new creatures. Not just rounding street corners until you find that one alley where wild Pancham live behind the garbage bin.

That being said, I hold on to hope that this is not everything. That our task is not to travel through the city and catch Pokémon, but to bring Pokémon to the city. That, I think, is the Lumiose Urban Redevelopment Plan. Go out in the world, find Pokémon, give them a home in the city, and over time, you populate the city with Pokémon. I think that what we're seeing in Lumiose City isn't the areas where we go to find and catch Pokémon. It's a hub area that effectively serves as our living Pokédex.

One piece of evidence to support this impression is the fairly prominent gate structure we see in the lower right of the map, quoted above. That green building with the tower. It, and the first seconds of the trailer as seen in the Direct, suggests a gate used to travel to and from the city. While it is possible that the gate will only be used in the first cutscene where the player arrives in the city, I think we're meant to go through it a lot. Why else give it a tall tower, as one of only two interesting buildings on the city's outer ring? There's also the big dark building in the back, and possibly the train station (which was in the yellow section of the city in XY - could be that big building there), but it seems that this gate is the main way in and out.

So I keep my fingers crossed that they're keeping most of the game from us for now. Pretending that everything happens in Lumiose City only, then surprising us with a game filled with the beautiful biomes of Kalos. Of course, they will resemble the locations in XY approximately as well as those in Legends Arceus resembled DPPt, which is to say not at all, but I think it will be neat either way. Travelling across great natural landscapes to find the wild Pokémon that live in nature is a staple of the Pokémon franchise. It would disappoint me greatly if we were confined to the alleys and parks of one city.

Also, I look forward to seeing some of the new Pokémon and formes out there. Really hoping we get another equivalent to Ursaluna, Kingambit, or Annihilape, where a previously unremarkable Pokémon family receives a third member that changes my impression of the first stage from "a boring 'mon that will eventually become mediocre if I train it" to "a must-catch 'mon whose training will eventually reward me with awesomeness!" I do expect that most of the new Pokémon/formes will be Mega Evolutions, however. I'm fairly certain we'll see something at any rate, because of the merchandise and marketing potential. They need recognizable 'mons to sell the game and continue the hype it creates.

The city setting is my biggest worry tbh, because I dint see how they fit anything interesting like LA’s icelands in there. I could see us eventually expanding to the badlands or something though, but it’s hard to know at this point I guess. I’m hoping I’ll be surprised by whatever they eventually show. Would like to see a few underground/indoor areas at least.