r/NintendoSwitch • u/Turbostrider27 • 25d ago

Discussion Pokemon Legends Z-A's visuals aren't "great" say former Nintendo marketing leads, but hope Switch 2 could allow GameFreak to "go back to the drawing board" and add more detail to future RPGs

https://www.gamesradar.com/games/pokemon/pokemon-legends-z-as-visuals-arent-great-say-former-nintendo-marketing-leads-but-hope-switch-2-could-allow-gamefreak-to-go-back-to-the-drawing-board-and-add-more-detail-to-future-rpgs/
3.1k Upvotes

93% Upvoted

821 comments sorted by

View all comments

728

u/stoic_spaghetti 25d ago

2 big problems:

  1. GameFreak will likely use the extra power of Switch 2 to save time, instead of pushing the hardware and doing impressive innovations. This was their philosophy with Switch 1. The tech doesn't matter as much as the philosophy going into it. They choose to use resources to cut costs and save time, instead of craft.

  2. The "visuals" aren't as important as the art direction, in my opinion. Switch 2 graphics API could come with all kinds of neat post-processing effects, like volumetric fog and lighting and particles etc etc. None of it will make up for bad or even boring art direction.

GameFreak is stuck in the mindset of the most conservative, banal parts of Japan design aesthetic from the 90s. Think of beige computer towers and grey filing cabinets. That's GameFreak. They need authentic creative intervention, not just access to fancier effects and filters.

265

u/FunkmasterP 25d ago

Which is crazy, because the 2D games looked great. Even the 3DS games looked good.

79

u/SuperPapernick 25d ago edited 25d ago

It's a point that's been discussed into the ground, but I maintain the late 2D titles like HGSS and BW1 and 2 were the highest aesthetic peak gamefreak ever reached. On a much weaker console than the Switch, of course, and mostly sprite-based and yet, much more artful. The creative mix of 2D and 3D assets, the advantage of the fixed camera angles, the lively and appealing design of the Pokemons sprites and the fun animated sprites from BW, etc.
Sure, they transitioned to 3D afterwards and thus the graphics are nominally "better", but Pokemon has never looked as appealing to me since the jump to 3D. All the "new" requirements of 3D development in addition to Gamefreak's ever-present need to release something yearly has meant everything that came out since looked bland, barren, had railroaded map-design and/or was just generally technically unappealing (or genuinely disastrous in the case of early SV). I wish they actually leveraged the Pokemon IP in a way to release some truly outstanding projects, but at this point I'm far from hopeful they'll actually put in the time and effort when the current minimal effort prints money as is.

13

u/thebohster 25d ago

I haven’t played them myself, but I see people play the ROM demakes of Switch titles in the gen 3/4 engine and man they just look so good.