Pokemon fans are divided.
While most players are enjoying Sword and Shield, a vocal part of the fanbase continues
to question whether Game Freak lied in the runup to the games’ launch.
The developers claimed that they were “recreat[ing] models from scratch”, and fans continue
to debate how much this is actually reflected in the final game.
Perhaps the bigger question, though, is, why?
Why were Game Freak unable to include all Pokemon in Sword and Shield, and why did they
have such a hard time justifying their decisions in interviews?
From interviews published in the November 2019 issue of Game Informer magazine, it’s
possible to paint a picture of a studio in crisis, as Game Freak struggled to meet the
demands of developing for the Switch – and curbing their own ambition – while meeting
their aggressive launch deadline.
By the release of the Switch, Game Freak had become very efficient in developing brand
new Pokemon titles every single year, like clockwork.
This involved reusing as many assets as possible, and keeping innovation or experimentation
to a minimum.
The Switch somewhat threw a wrench into the works of this well-oiled machine.
With the sudden leap in graphical capabilities of the Nintendo handheld hardware, Pokemon
Let’s Go Pikachu and Eevee required a lot more extra artists and developers.
According to Shigeru Ohmori: “I think the biggest takeaway was how the
graphics and rendering work is so different from the 3DS.
Needing to staff up and figure out how we’re able to get that to work really well on Switch
takes more time, and we needed more resources.”
Game Freak nearly doubled in size in an attempt to accommodate for the challenges of releasing
a home console quality Pokemon game, but this alone wasn’t enough.
They still needed more time to actually settle on direction for the games, something that
was in short supply considering their annual release schedule.
It absolutely didn’t help that whatever they made was going to be compared to Breath
of the Wild.
Coming at the start of the Switch’s lifespan, the acclaimed Zelda title had been in development
for over half a decade, and had dramatically reworked the formula for the series.
Everyone was expecting the first proper Switch Pokemon title to be that same big, bombastic,
genre-defining game, but Game Freak had a fraction of the time in which to achieve this.
Shigeru Ohmori said: “We set out with the idea of making the
ultimate, strongest, the best Pokémon game yet, being on the Nintendo Switch, the first
time an all-new generation is coming to a console.
It was really just kind of applying this idea of ‘ultimate’ to every facet of the game:
gameplay, visuals, everything.
That was really the theme for when I set out making the game: the greatest Pokémon game.”
In spite of the obvious danger of overextending themselves, the creative leads of Sword and
Shield began unpicking the core Pokemon gameplay.
They attempted to rethink the rules of what a Pokemon game ought to be.
For example, the team began experimenting with giving each Pokemon five available moves
instead of four.
Or, alternatively, reducing the number of available moves down to three.
Neither of these attempts really worked.
According to planning director Kazumasa Iwao: “I think that hurts the balance of the gameplay
quite a bit…you really start seeing there are haves and have nots in the Pokemon world.
Like, these Pokemon are obviously way stronger than the rest of these Pokemon.
We keep coming back and finding that four is the right number for the current battle
system.”
This challenge of balance was really weighing on the developers, especially when it came
to making competitive play less frustrating.
Game Freak didn’t need to simply build a balanced single-player campaign; they also
had to make sure that they crafted a fairly balanced metagame that wasn’t inherently
tedious.
According to Kazumasa: “Traditionally in the series, you start
with your starter Pokémon and then you catch a lot of Pokemon in the beginning, and those
are with you throughout your whole adventure, and the player gets attached to them.
But a lot of times, they get into the competitive battles and they find they can’t actually
use those Pokemon or they’re not competititve, so they have to go out and find the exact
right Pokemon or breed them in a certain way to make sure they’re viable in competitive
battle.”
All the while as the team were experimenting, the clock was ticking.
Their deadline was getting closer, and their vastly inflated staff needed guidance.
So, the decision was made.
Game Freak would cull the number of Pokemon that appear in the finished games.
This meant that balancing the game was quicker and easier, and it meant that more polish
could be put into the game’s art assets.
Apparently, this decision was not unanimous, and various people within Game Freak disagreed
as to which Pokemon should be included.
According to Junichi “a wide variety of discussions happened” as the team attempted
to narrow down the included Pokemon.
They thought long and hard about which Pokemon would fit the game’s Britain-inspired setting,
and obviously decided that if they needed anything, it was a living smog cloud in a
top hat.
[sarcastically:] Nice, thanks Game Freak.
This, of course, led to the infamous interview in which Junichi Masuda and Shigeru Ohmori
attempted to defend a reduced Pokedex, and inadvertently dug themselves deeper into a
hole in the eyes of many commenters.
In the interview, Junichi and Shigeru gave both the graphics and the gameplay as explanations
for why they’d decided to scrap the National Pokedex.
Junichi said: “The number of Pokémon (counting both new
Pokémon and forms of existing Pokémon) has crossed 1,000.
In addition to improving the graphical quality to adapt to the new hardware platform, when
it comes to battles, it has become exceedingly difficult to give Pokémon new individualistic
traits and balance affinities.”
Shigeru said: “Even during the development of Pokémon
Sun/Moon, it was extremely difficult for us (to bring along all previous Pokémon); with
the move to new hardware, it became necessary to recreate models from scratch.”
While Game Freak were mostly concerned about balancing the finished game, Shigeru had inadvertently
created an open invitation for commenters to analyse every tiny minute detail of Sword
and Shield’s presentation.
Hence: The Game Freak Lied hashtag, and the endless debate over how Shigeru’s words
were meant to be interpreted.
So Game Freak failed to deliver on their goal of creating the ultimate Pokemon titles, and
therein lies a lesson.
It’s wise not to overextend yourself; to push yourself too far, and to hold yourself
to an impossible standard.
It’s certainly not wise to try and reinvent yourself from the ground up while in the midst
of a stressful, time sensitive challenge.
That said, it’s worth pointing out that, for all the nitpicking Pokemon Sword and Shield
are being subjected to by a vocal minority, most players of the game are having a very
good time.
Millions of people around the world are enjoying them.
Perhaps that’s the second part to this moral.
You don’t have to be perfect.
You don’t have to overcome all your challenges in a single instant.
Sometimes it’s more than enough to simply be happy to be you.
As you are, today.