Pokemon Sword and Shield Initial Thoughts: Random Encounters Should Have Stayed Dead

USGamer: “Long story short, the return of random Pokemon encounters makes me sadder than a Rapidash with three broken legs. Essential disclaimer: Game Freak showed us an unfinished version of the game today, and for all we know the single random encounter we saw in the trailer is a placeholder. It seems unlikely, though. Pokemon Sword and Shield is already looking quite polished, and I imagine its mechanics are mostly in place. I hope I'm wrong about the random encounters, but I probably won't be.“

[Araragifeels]

I loved Random encounter since it make harder to find Pokemon which mean I am going to be putting more hours and I like a challenge.

[FanboyPolice]

Yes, and it's very rewarding spending hours trying to find that Pokemon you really need to balance your team.

[Flare149]

With over-world view there can still be that challenge, because the rare options can still be very hard to find so you still have to wander. But at least it would offer variety, so you could still encounter and/or battle commons you find in the grass, and then just freak out when the rare that you really want finally pops up in the over-world and you run over to catch it

[-Foxtrot]

I would have liked them to be like Ni No Kuni where you could control the Pokemon yourself and move around the battle scene, maybe giving you the chance to dodge attacks yourself. That and the open world is what i kind of was expecting with the first ever console Pokemon title

BUUUUUUUUT

As long as it's not the crappy system in Lets Go so lets just be grateful for that at least...for now.

[PhoenixUp]

That’s why Pokken exists. You don’t need that kind of concept in a mainline entry when a spinoff can handle that kind of concept just fine.

Not every game needs to be open world

[MoshA]

Pokemon is worth over 4 billion. Let that sink in. Gamefreak is lazy and only cares about money. They will continue the low iq tradition of having the same story and gameplay forever since it works. Pokemon fans have issues.

[King_Noctis]

At this point I would argue that the people who have issue are the ones who always come to troll Pokemon articles even though they themselves claimed they have “no interest” whatsoever with the game.

[CorndogBurglar]

Turn based is what it should be. What you are describing is something more like the newer Final Fantasy battle systems which I personally can't stand. That real-time turn based stuff is for the birds unless it's a party based RPG like Pillars of Eternity or Baldur's Gate.

[Newmanator]

I happen to agree. When you compare this with Zelda it's crazy to think how much better this could be considering both of them are on the same console.
It has me wondering if there would be a port for DS ...

[King_Noctis]

“I would have liked them to be like Ni No Kuni“

Then....play Ni No Kuni instead?

[-Foxtrot]

Wow...very witty

/s

[Flare149]

I have wanted the system you described for so long. It never made any sense to me why in the show you could dodge but in the game there's barely any focus on dodge or defense

[Nintentional]

every post you post is full of so much fail, Foxtrot. Why bother? lol

[EddieNX]

I like both the random encounters and the visible Pokémon of Let's Go.

[ABizzel1]

@EddieNX

I said if anything make it both. Have the common Pokemon on the route visible, make the uncommon Pokemon shake grass, and the rare Pokémon random encounters.

That’s the best middle ground. The issue is having to create hundreds of 3D models moving around the map, which gamefreak is too lazy to do.

They make billions on Pokémon and refuse to hire enough people to enhance the game.

[CorndogBurglar]

Or they could make all the pokemon visible but only make them appear based on rarity...

[EddieNX]

I thought it worked great in Let's go. You just don't see the Rare Pokémon spawn as often.

They did it in let's go so I wouldn't say they're too lazy...

I'm happy with the way Shield and Sword is shaping up, they can't make too many drastic changes or they risk losing millions of fans.

[ABizzel1]

EddieNX

Let’s go had 150 models, less than that actually roaming around. A true Pokémon game would have hundreds of models they’d need to build roaming around. That’s where the being lazy comes from. It’s not that they can’t do it, they won’t, because you have to animate over 900 Pokémon.

The only issue I have is not having random encounters takes away from the exploration and thrill of seeing a new pokemon if you can simply see this thing wandering around.

[King_Noctis]

The game is not yet in its final form. So who knows, maybe Gamefreak will make the Pokémon visible again if alot of fan request for that.

Or they just say “screw it, that feature belongs to a spinoff. This is a mainline Pokémon game”.

[Sono421]

They absolutely will not, I bet my life savings on it. It would take way too much development time.

[JimmyDM90]

You could do a hybrid where all pokemon are random encounters until you face them for the first time and then for the rest of the game that pokmeon type appears in the overworld (when in appropriate areas for that type). Thematic explanation, now that you've seen a (say) growlithe up close you can identify them at a distance when you see them in the wild.

[Neonridr]

I was fine with the mechanics of Let's Go. If they want to remake other early entries like Red and Blue and utilize that system I am fine with it. But for the core, mainline entries, it should always be about proper battling and catching. No showing pokemon on the overworld map.

[CorndogBurglar]

Random encounters get very tedious though. It's pretty annoying when you are trying to get somewhere and keep getting interrupted to fight some weak character you've already beaten 100 times.

That's why I like seeing the enemies on the map and then initiating the battle yourself.

[Neonridr]

true.. guess I am just used to that from the final fantasy days.

[thejigisup]

.... Do you even repel, or max repel?

[King_Noctis]

You could always use repel if you wanna get somewhere fast. I use it all the time.

[Teflon02]

Buy repel. If your like 5 or something I'd get it but if your old enough to be on a site like this you can understand they literally put repel in the game for a reason. They're cheap and if I can always have a stack of pokeballs and a stack of repels I don't see why you wouldn't be able to.

[TheFirstClassic]

Teflon is taking this way too personal lol

[Sono421]

Red and Blue? wtf,skip that, just go to gold and silver, i'd buy it. They definitely need to stop treating pokemon like a B grade series though. Look at the treatment Mario and Zelda get, their games look amazing and play amazing, Pokemon gets one of those. It still looks like a Wii/Gamecube game at best, We know the switch is capable of great gaphics, Odyssey, pokken, smash bros, Mario Kart, Splatoon, Mario Party, Kirby, Arms, literally all of their exclusives look better then their pokemon games, what kind of messed up world do we live in where ARMS looks better then the first mainline pokemon home console entry, whats sad is I think the main reason they don't make it look better is because they know it will sell no matter what.

[PhoenixUp]

I hate random encounters in most RPGs, but I still feel a franchise like Pokémon still needs it.

[Elronza]

I'm looking forward to both of these games. Will be buying a switch for this pair of pokemon games and some others on my list. I for one am glad random encounters still are in the series as it makes getting the rare pokemon I want that much more rewarding when finally captured.

[CorndogBurglar]

How is it more rewarding? If the pokemon are seen on the map, but only appear based on their rarity, and it's still just as rare for some of them to appear on the map as it is for them to appear in a random encounter, then what makes that any less rewarding?

[Teflon02]

Because you can stand still and wait for it to pop up. If it has a 10% spawn rate in some tall grass that spans about a 3x8 space. That means you'r likely to see it once in every 10 spawns. If visible, you wait 10 spawns and grab it. With random, it may spawn once in 10 but now you have the others who are still spawn that will still block your chance making a 10% change about a 2.5 percent chance. Your chances when something is visible is much higher. it's like drawing a winning ticket because the ticket is the one ticket that feels different. So even if you're not looking and you have 99 loser tickets. You have a way higher chance than the 1% you should have because you have a way to identify the winner

[FanboyPolice]

Yes, it is by far more rewarding. There is no sense of watching the pokemons go. You have to struggle finding other random generated pokemons to find yours. And sometimes you won't be able to fly from the match.

[TheFirstClassic]

I don't understand why having to go through a random encounter over and over is a good thing though. It's not even a challenge thing, it's just tedious. You enter a battle and hit run over and over until the right pokemon appears. It just seems like inferior game design to me.

[CorndogBurglar]

@Teflon

What? If they make a visible pokemon as rare to appear on the screen as they do in a random encounter then then there is literally no difference.

If they appear on screen as often as a random encounter, and out of those appearances a certain pokemon has specific chance to spawn then it is no different.

[Kosic]

They need to have a toggle option for random encounters or open world spawns.
Also the same could be said with the battle mechanic. Bring in the let's go catch to level or an option for classic battles (I MUCH prefer classic battles but it doesn't hurt to have that option).

I am looking forward to this one, after let's go was a let down with the mandatory catch mechanic.

[coolastheycome]

I prefer the random encounters

[Nerdmaster]

I don't have patience for random encounters anymore.

[FanboyPolice]

I believe random encounters is the best for the series. Is more challenging and rewarding.

[CrimsonWing69]

See I’m old school and don’t mind random encounters at all. I’ve always been weirded out when people gripe about them it’s just always been what a JRPG does in my eyes.

[ninsigma]

Agreed. Can't believe they went back to that. I 100% expected this game to just stick with the tired formula (it looks just like the other games with more detail and that's it) but I at least expected them to do pokemon on the over world.

[KillZallthebeast]

What a stupid article. Gamefreak has and hopefully always will continue the traditional line of pokemon rpgs. There's a plethora of spin off titles most notably lets go that have different takes.
Nintendo isn't stupid there's a reason their main franchises last for decades.

[Omnislashver36]

Nobody's going to pay attention to the fact the graphics look way, way worse than a PS360 game?

I enjoy the art style, slightly. The graphics are so disjointed they can't do the art style any justice though. Also, the graphics SHOULD be good enough we could have gotten a KH3-lite art style going but hell, we're way too far off from that. It's strange because the maps are so small this should all be possible.

Like shit. This looks worse than Mario Odyssey for sure.

And I'm not being a graphics whore here. This is just not acceptable in 2019. Everything looks like stretched PNGs.

[KillZallthebeast]

Honestly first round on new consoles for main pokemon games always have sub par graphics. The leap from x and y to ultra sun and moon are pretty significant.

[Djinn]

Good thing I haven’t seriously played Pokémon in more than a decade because I despise random encounters, a gameplay mechanic that should be dead in this day and age.

[TechnoGoat]

So basically he is upset about the mechanic that actually makes the games fun being back in a pokemon game? ...

[Lexreborn2]

Only thing I’m concerned about is them releasing 2 identical games for 60 bucks with omissions of select Pokémon based on the previous portable model. I don’t think it was a good idea with lets go eevee and Pikachu and don’t like the idea here either.

[Sirk7x]

Kinda sucks. The Pokemon visible in the world of the Go series was easily the best part of the game, and the best thing that's happened to the series since G/S. It not only gave you more choice in your own progression, but made the world feel more full and realized. It was very much a positive to the entire experience. New games should have had a combo of both: Visible on the map, and still have to fight before being capturing. Random encounters suck, and that is an archaic game mechanic I'd be glad to see stay in the past.
And you can't tell me that after seeing these new starters, that Game Freak is not officially out of ideas.

[Xaevi]

Agree 100% that random encounters shouldn't have returned. Seeing the comments here tho it's easy to see why the series hasn't changed drastically over the years, the fans want more of the same. Hope to see them someday make something in the style of the first Ni No Kuni. But if they keep making more of the same then I'm simply done with the series.

[FanboyPolice]

Don't get us wrong. We tried let's go. Is not that we want more of the same. If it will change, it should be for better. We all fans understood that lets go wasn't for us, was for a different crowd of fans. But we knew they will be saving this version for hardcore fans.

[Xaevi]

I didn't like Let's GO, definitely not the change I wanted for Pokemon. I just simply want the world to be open similar to Ni No Kuni, Pokemon to be seen roaming around, and turn based battles to have more flashier animations. I don't think want I want is that drastic of a change tbh

[Teflon02]

Shut up, that was one of the reason I skipped let's go. The random encounters are a staple to the style. you won't want an encounter buy repel. I hate how stupid it got with lets go where people will stand around waiting until a shiny shows up because you can tell. It took all the value out of it all. I'm glad they're actually going back completely

[FanboyPolice]

Agreed bro.

[Knightofelemia]

I wonder if these new Pokemon games will make use of the Pokeball controller used in pokemon Go

[FanboyPolice]

A lot of people disagree with this. I'm happy they brought back random encounters. And something is real, it is here. Like it or not. For those who don't like it, let's go still there. For fans of the old school pokemon series, we have a fresh look.

[mkis007]

It needed something more for the occasion of the first new game not on a ds. It feels like they just took the next ds game and put it on switch.

[KingBeed]

Honestly changes ought to be made to this game. In 20 years the core gameplay hasn't changed. Not only that but the battles still look like their on a 3ds, why do the battles scenes in Pokemon battle revolution look better??