Following up on the Pokémon Direct on June 5th, Nintendo has revealed more information on Pokémon Sword and Shield at the Nintendo Treehouse Live at E3 event.[prebreak][/prebreak] The showcase revealed a few things, such as the new Pokémon Yamper and Impidimp, as well as other general gameplay.

However, during discussions with Junichi Masuda, he revealed that not every Pokémon is going to be available in Pokémon Sword and Shield. "What that means for Pokémon Sword and Shield is that players will be able to transfer their Pokémon from Pokémon Home, only if they appear in the Galar Pokédex." This means that certain Pokémon will be completely omitted from the game, for the first time in the series' history. Naturally, people are upset about this, leading to a whopping 40,000 dislikes on Nintendo's official upload, compared to the video's 15,000 likes. Part of the frustration comes from the idea that all Pokémon can be transferred to the new Pokémon Home service, and have no way of leaving, leaving them in what is essentially a Pokémon Prison.

In an interview with USgamer, Masuda explained that the reason for omitting Pokémon was down to the "higher fidelity" of the game, as well as the "higher quality animations". He also said that they're looking to keep the battle system balanced, and to allow the new Pokémon to shine.

Junichi Masuda, Producer: There are a couple of different parts to the thinking behind it, but really the biggest reason for it is just the sheer number of Pokemon. We already have well over 800 Pokemon species, and there's going to be more added in these games. And now that they're on the Nintendo Switch, we're creating it with much higher fidelity with higher quality animations. But even more than that, it's coming down to the battle system. We're making sure we can keep everything balanced and give all the Pokemon that appear in the games a chance to shine.

We knew at some point we weren't going to be able to indefinitely keep supporting all of the Pokemon, and we just found that Sword and Shield would probably be a good point to go back and reevaluate what would be the best selection of Pokemon that appeal to the widest audience while keeping into consideration the balance of the battle system. It isn't just going to be all-new Pokemon in the Galar region Pokedex; there's still going to be a lot of favorites that fans will be able to bring over that they've adventured with previously. But yeah, it was pretty much just balancing and getting this optimal selection of Pokemon for the adventure we wanted to provide.

Previously, all Pokémon were available through trades and cross-generation transfers of Pokémon. This meant that each game had a unique set of Pokémon that appear, but the others can be obtained in some form. It's currently unknown how many Pokémon have been cut from Sword and Shield.

You can find a list of Pokémon confirmed for Sword and Shield here.

YouTube Video
USgamer Interview

 

[lordelan]

Although I can somehow understand his "reasons", this is a really really bad decision and in my mind they had enough time and man-power to include "em all".
At least Charmander and Mew are in there so I might give it a shot nevertheless.
But I think they will do something about this with all fans complaining.
I mean look how fast they reacted to the fact you can't play SMM2 online with friends. And yeah, Banjo is in Smash now too, so ...

 

[MYFW]

Ok, and...?

 

[erikas]

TCGs have been doing that for a long time. Pokemon only lets you use cards from the past couple of years and Yu-Gi-Oh keeps banning popular cards due to Konami constantly breaking the game.

Hmm...I understand your position. I really do. But this is DESPITE your analogy, rather than because.

Because I've played magic: the gathering for quite some time. From 1995 to 2010 or something. And I was thinking of mentioning that as well, because out phasing, banning, errata-ing and restricting cards is EXACTLY what they do. And for good reason. Yes, they create some cards somewhat better than others, and somewhat steer the meta-game. But what they actively try to avoid is that everyone ends up playing with the same deck because it beats out everything else.

Every new edition has some new cards as well as some older cards that are no longer allowed to be used. Of course they don't come to your house to lay it on you when you use cards from out phased editions in your deck, but that's akin to just keep playing your current pokemon game.

So...no. I'm sure there is some outrage whenever a card is deemed too powerful, but their restrictions are heralded rather than banned (whenever a new edition comes out, it is simply standard that cards from the old block can no longer be used).

I know pokemon has been doing that for competitive play, the problem is, at home you can still play with any cards. And playing the older game is not comparable here. You would still have all your cards in one place and be able to build a deck from all of them. But the older games do not support gen 8 pokemon and since gen 8 will not support some older pokemon, you essentially have a permanent split, and there are combinations of teams you can never make. The thing is, i'm not much of a competitive player nor do i spend that much time building teams, but this isn't as much about about what i do as what i'm limited to doing. I am biased here, as I work as a programmer and lack of backwards compatibility is annoying even outside of games and it upsets me to see anything doping it.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

Reminds me of the first and Japan-only Pocket Monsters Stadium game which didn't support all 151 Pokémon. I wouldn't be surprised about "Ultra Shield" and "Ultra Sword" supporting all of them like Pocket Monsters Stadium 2 (Pokémon Stadium in the west) back in the day.

I agree that they very well could afford animations for all the Pokémon considering the cash the series is generating on a regular basis. Just outsource the work if necessary. They could recycle them in future installments of the series so it's not like the effort is just for one title.

I think Masuda said there will never be a pokemon game that support all pokemon ever again. If the next game had them all this wouldn't be such a big deal.

 

[pasc]

Hmm... I didn't know there was a superlative to "most disapponted"

 

[warweeny]

Just wait for next year, when ultra sword en ultra shield come along with ALL pokemon, we all know it is coming seeing nintendo has bad practices.

I honestly still am surprised how nintendo fanboys can defend the company, hardware from 2011 sold for 10x the price, bad support of controllers and games (patches destroying compatibility with 3rd party controllers), bullshit "sales" on their e-shop (zelda, now 65 euro instead of 70! WHAT A STEAL!), refreshing the line-up of their handhelds (switch is a handheld, NOT a console, if that was the case, the PSP was also a console, you can hook that up to your TV as well) so your old device is obsolete, not to mention the aggresive handling of copyright on media and sites.

The company is truly sickening, and a shame not many see it.

 

[Agahniim]

This thread is full of entitled gamurs demanding the game to fit their needs. Play with some new mons for once will ya?

 

[gamesquest1]

honestly im not too fussed, i know they will have all the major popular pokemon, over the years there has been a big amount of dupe pokemon and trash pokemon that clog up the pokedex, im sure everyone will know a few pokemon that make you go "urgh, that design is so dumb" thinks like garbodor, vanillish, Chandelure,klefki i know some people will probably like them or say they had some unique battle style or some shit, but it does start to feel like pokemon has turned into pokerandomthings we saw while looking around the office for new idea

i guess its time for some to go to the pokemon retirement home

 

[Agahniim]

first gen pokemon: eggs, pokeballs, garbage (grimer/muk). is this not random to you? just take an ordinary rat and slap purple on it? raticate is really just a big rat. every gen has its stinkers, but we forgive the first couple of generations because of nostalgia. klefki is just one mon from gen vi. there's also greninja and delphox. very ironically you tell others are old, while it is most certainly you that is blinded by childhood nostalgia

 

[WiikeyHacker]

I personally dont see the problem it gives you a fresh start so stop your bitching and just play the damn game or dont buy it and not ruin it for those that will enjoy the experience.

 

[gamesquest1]

first gen pokemon: eggs, pokeballs, garbage (grimer/muk). is this not random to you? just take an ordinary rat and slap purple on it? raticate is really just a big rat. every gen has its stinkers, but we forgive the first couple of generations because of nostalgia. klefki is just one mon from gen vi. there's also greninja and delphox. very ironically you tell others are old, while it is most certainly you that is blinded by childhood nostalgia

yeah but there does become a difference when you just start lumping inanimate objects into the mix, chandeliers an ice cream and a set of keys , i would say grimer and muk go into that realm, but i guess its possible you could have some sludge covered sewer dweler, it also comes down to "dupe" like every generation has added a new bulbasaur squirtle and charmander starter set

idk i guess what im getting at is that maybe a little cull could be good to clear up the roaster a little, i wouldn't mind a new pokemon with all new pokemon and zero original pokemon available, things get a little stale when everyone just gravitates to "ahhhh i will recreate my team from pokemon blue and swap out the legendary birds for whatever the new legendary pokemon are"

 

[Deleted member 414991]

I invite to model, rig and animate 900 unique freaking monsters. It is insane, even for Game freak.

Delay the game until they can do that. There isn't really an excuse for this except laziness and desire to rush out a game.

 

[Lokaijz]

Although it seems important to spread the information (which unfortunately is true) I think it's ideal to demonstrate our disappointment to the main media (Pokemon Company twitter,etc).
https://twitter.com/hashtag/bringbacknationaldex?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^hashtag

 

[Izual Urashima]

This is... I actually have no words to resume this.

For collectionners, this is a huge drawback. Not being able to carry their beloved mons they had since RSE. Not being able to bring back shinies they were lucky to catch in those versions. Giving up all the personal attachment they had to some pokes simply because Game Freak didn't deem them worthy of appearing in their newest game.

Their excuses hold no water. You can't cry that "we need to reduce the number to have better animations/quality" when the models and animations are outright imported from the previous games with a shader on them. You can't cry about balancing issues where there are already tools in place (in-game checks for pirated pokes, restriction to this gen's pokes and moves for tourmanent-useable pokes) to take care of that. You can't tell people "you will still be able to use them in the Bank-like utility we sell on the side" when they want to use them on the main game. That's avoiding the problem.

I approve the players' move to try and #BringBackNationalDex , but it won't be listened as Game Freak only cares about using the licence to make more money. The only exception would be if, like the complaints that actually brought a change, Game Freak or Nintendo's shareholders would be politely alerted that such a decision could impact their sales, which is easily done by adding the companies' stock market code (good thing they actually share the same one, NTDOY) like you would add a hashtag to your posts (except with a $ in place of the #).

The release is coming near, but this decision will hurt the sales unless they come back on it.

 

[bixxewoscht]

I understand that this is dissapointing for Pokemon Veterans, but it might even be a breath of fresh air.
A new adventure with new Pokemon to discover and no way to use the same Pokemon again that you use for 20 years.

Personally I like the 1. and 2. gen Games way more than the newer ones, but I want to give these ones a try to kind of recreate the feeling that I had with gen 1. and 2. when I played them for the first time.

I doubt that I will love the new games but I'll give them a chance.

 

[Maq47]

Huh suddenly this song is now relevant

Also somewhat relevant:

 

[Burorī]

I invite to model, rig and animate 900 unique freaking monsters. It is insane, even for Game freak.

They can recycle models and animations like they did for Pokémon GO

 

[digipimp75]

Cue nerd rage

 

[zxr750j]

It's a bad decision but as long as mimikyu is available i'm good.

 

[pasc]

People will still defend this even though the game looks far worse than the average switch game. Maybe if the animations were really good I would not care as much, but they are mostly the same lame recycled 3ds animations.

Thats the problem with gaming/development these days:

Companies get away with that kind of Cr4#, so they keep doing it.

Even in the DS days, they had to deliver finished products.

Nowadays ? Wherrrr iz dat 45 gb day one patch ?

It's a bad decision but as long as mimikyu is available i'm good.

Kind of selfish reasoning really. Then again, thats how people usually work.

If peole were smart, they'd boycott this game on release, until they'd reverse their "decision"

 

[Enryx25]

I personally dont see the problem it gives you a fresh start so stop your bitching and just play the damn game or dont buy it and not ruin it for those that will enjoy the experience.

I hope GameFreak will never make your favorite Pokemon playable again.