Pokemon Sword & Shield vs. Red & Blue Screenshots Shows How Far the Series Has Come

Greysun writes: "It's been over 20 years since Pokemon Red and Blue came out in the U.S. so we decided to compare screenshots with Pokemon Sword and Shield with Pokemon Red and Blue."

[Killa78]

There's probably bigger changes in other games than Pokémon from 1998, it hasn't come as far as it should have.

[rolando123]

Huh?

[mikeslemonade]

That’s right you haters. This was B-Team Game Freak. 35 team size, on a project for 2 years. Impressive that they even got a 82 meta. Come back to reality.

[ABizzel1]

He's saying yes the franchise has come a long way and looking at both games in the comparison it's a night and day difference.

But considering the release dates of the games and hardware, it's a huge "no duh". Sword and SHield should look better, and in fact they should look much better than what they do, considering the original games are over 20 years old, and running on a Gameboy, a system with a processor that based off a 1974 Intel processor, only had 40KB of system memory (yes Kilobytes, later upgraded in the GBColor to 128KB), and only had 8MB for max cartridge storage (although most were 256KB, yes kilobytes).

The Switch has a 2015 Processor running in it (a 40-year technology difference), 4GB of RAM (over 100,000x the amount of RAM, lol), and 32GB cartridges (over 4000x the amount of storage).

So yes it is expected to be better.

This issue, however, that he and many fans have is that in the greater scheme of things Pokemon Sword and Shield at best are only acceptable graphically. When Pokemon is compared to other RPGs out there on the Switch, and on other consoles both current and prior the graphics just don't stand up and look like a lower tier 3rd party game effort, coming from what is without question one of the biggest franchises in gaming / general media.

Graphically the games are inferior to Zelda, The Witcher, Dragon Quest 11, and Xenoblade all better-looking RPGs on the Switch, and this is the big 3 of Nintendo's biggest franchise. Even Pokemon games from the home consoles like Battle Revolution and even the GameCube games hold their own when it comes to one of the main aspects of Pokemon battles. Those games are running on vastly inferior hardware and the games still look as good, and arguably better in the case of Revolution.

Gamefreak has made a lot of improvements to modernize Pokemon with these games, but adding these features and playing other RPGs with these features and more, just goes to show how far behind modernized times the DEVELOPER is, compared to the industry. The games are becoming more cinematic which is a big plus, but Gamefreak is on par with early PS2 developers cinematically with stale animations, lifeless character models, flat texture work, and excessive pop-in. They even made a shared world space, which is cool, but going online tanks your framerate and it's slow at updating events and getting into them without a link code most of the time.

We all love the games, so we're still going to buy them, and there are other things that can be a bit better, like inventory management and selecting multiple things at once. Sword and Shield are definitely a step in the right direction, however, again for one of the biggest franchises in gaming and a multi-billion dollar franchise a step in the right direction is not where we should be at.

[mikeslemonade]

The Pokémon games on gb-3DS was always one of the worst looking games. Yet you haters come out from the woodwork for these ignorant reasons.

Gamefreak is a 135 person development size company. They usually make one game every year or two. They made 5 games in 2018-2019. Also this is the B-team that worked on Sword. What do you expect?

My expectation is Pokémon sun and moon port. A whole new game is bonus to me and they scored a 82 meta.

You ignorant people have unrealistic expectations. Go pick on Mario Kart or Smash. Those games are overrated.

[Gemmol]

Pokémon are not meant to be those games the graphics are not suppose to be those games

You basically have no game to compare it with because it was never meant to be any other game so for you to think it’s suppose to have graphics of dragon quest just shows how more out of touch you are with the series

[ABizzel1]

It's always funny to see people like you (Mike) complain and call people "haters", when said "haters" are the same people you will be playing online with, doing Max raid battles, trading, and having competitive battles against. But since we all must be "haters" considering that we feel they could have done more with the games and offered a true evolution of the franchise instead of this small step forward.

"Gamefreak is a 135 person development size company."

And also allegedly had over 1000 people working on this game, their words not mine. 200 of which worked at game freak, and another 100 from a partner company that worked on 3d models, and another 100 from another partner company that worked on debugging, so realistically at least 400 people possibly more made these games, so your 135 is well below what was actually there.

"They usually make one game every year or two. They made 5 games in 2018-2019. Also, this is the B-team that worked on Sword. What do you expect?"

You call us "haters", and you expect us to be accepting of the quality of the game they released when the issue is that instead of focusing on their biggest billion-dollar and multi-million selling franchise, they decided to send the lesser B team to work on it, because fans would suck it up and buy it regardless and don't care about quality, because the core A team was too busy making other games. You sound ignorant, and that's the problem with you delusional fans.

We can never receive better work or quality if we don't hold people and companies accountable and push them to be better. Pokemon is a multi-billion dollar franchise, and they put out an average semi-shared world RPG staring Pokemon. It's basically Destiny 1 set in the world of Pokemon, there are things to be enjoyed for sure, but and the core mechanics are great, it's not enough for a franchise of this magnitude especially when smaller studios and games are producing better experiences with less.

"My expectation is Pokémon sun and moon port. A whole new game is bonus to me and they scored a 82 meta"

Just because you have low standards in life, doesn't mean the rest of us should.

"You ignorant people have unrealistic expectations. Go pick on Mario Kart or Smash. Those games are overrated."

MarioKart is a racing game, there's not much they can do besides adding new maps (which they do), add a new mechanic (which they often do, doubles/ glider / drifting / items / etc...), and Smash is a side scroller arena fighter which also adds new characters, new stages, a story mode, channelge mode, plenty of other options, generally a functional online mode, collectibles, and more content then just about any other fighter in the industry.

Your comparison and argument are ignorant like you defense for GameFreak.

You have low standards, and that's fine, so enjoy your game, however, for a franchise based around evolution it has not evolved much from 20 years ago, and often find itself cutting content, features, introducing one time mechanics, and now generationally behind in technology, graphics, and more.

They could get away with this because the games were always on handheld, but the Switch houses both handheld and Nintendo's traditional console games on one system, and it shows that unlike the other studios which have grown and maximized their crafts and the hardware of Nintendo over the decades, Gamefreak has only done the minimum to get by, and they need to get it together and improve on their craft.

People expect more from them.

[ABizzel1]

Gemmol

Your argument is just as ignorant as Mikes.

It doesn't matter what Pokemon was never, the reality is it is now on the same hardware as those said games, and it is inferior graphically, inferior in animations, and inferior in basic RPG standards / mechanics.

So yes it can be compared to 3rd party RPGs which are also on the Switch and show more care about their craft in their games then GameFreak working on a game with significantly more funding and a multi-billion dollar backing.

It has nothing to do with Pokemon trying to be those games. The problem is Pokemon and GameFreak are stuck a generation behind other RPG and JRPG developers. The core of the games ranges from acceptable - good, and for what's possibly the biggest franchise in gaming and one of the biggest franchises in any media both fanbase and financially speaking, that's completely unacceptable.

[Kingdroopy2018]

Yet Pokemon Coliseum looks better than Sword and Shield.

[rolando123]

Yeah but that was much more streamlined with less content than what the mainline games have to offer now.

[KeenBean345]

They have completely different art styles plus less unique animations than Sword/Shield. Battle revolution on the Wii though probably had some of the best animations in the series (who were the developers of XD and Colosseum)

[rolando123]

yeah, I just want a new Coliseum-esque game

[septemberindecember]

Pokemon Colosseum does not look better than Sword and Shield.

http://imgur.com/gallery/mf...

[rolando123]

That Pikachu looks terrifying 😂