Soapbox: Pokémon Legends: Arceus Raises The Question - How Much Do Janky Graphics Matter?

There's a limit to the excuse of "Gameplay is more important than graphics", and this Pokémon game went way over the limit.

While it seems that the game is still good, we shouldn't be clapping the game without any criticism, of course graphics are important, there are many comparisons about games for Dreamcast or PS2 being prettier than a game released in 2022.

Honestly, PLA's graphics are pretty decent for a pokemon title, and I don't mind the look. The gameplay is there, and that's all that counts in my eyes.

Graphics aren't everything to me, hence why I still consider some N64 games to look amazing at times like Jet Force Gemini, the main thing that irks me is for newer releases I expect the games to have a solid frame rate, back in the day when technology was limited I accepted the issues but nowadays with enough polish I don't think there is a reason for any game to have a dodgy frame rate, it is often just a result of bad optimization.

Lordy, I could write a book on how graphics affect a game. So, I'll just say they can add or they can detract from gameplay, but most of the time, they simply provide visual cues and feedback for the gameplay, as opposed to a work of digital art. Sure, there are an awful lot of staid genres that rely on graphics to set them apart from everyone else, but if you have an idea, then it doesn't matter so much...unless it makes the game too cluttered etc. Yadda yadda yadda.

If the game is fun, an the graphics aren't killing my eyes, then its fine to me. And yes, graphics are important (Kinda) but the game is amazing, and the graphics aren't going to burn your eyes out.

who plays pokemon games for the graphics anyway?

Playing a switch game for graphics? Not a brilliant decision, playing Pokemon for graphics? Even worse. Arceus is getting brilliant reviews from everywhere, sometimes a good game is just a good game

I care more about performance...

Graphics do matter whether people are willing to admit it or not.
I don't like how the statement "graphics don't matter" is normally used as a defense for a game not looking well.

I don't know about you but I would like to play a game that looks like it was made in the current generation and not like an early gamecube game. (Not specifically a jab towards Legends but its not far off).
There are obviously better looking games than Pokemon Legends and it shows heavily, even first year switch games look significantly better visually than it.

Another common excuse I see as a defense is "i don't play x game for y" (usually graphics).
While true to some extent that doesn't mean the game can't have both. I don't play monster hunter for the story but I wouldn't mind them trying to have a more in depth one in future games or in the upcoming dlc.

Graphics do matter but performance and gameplay matter more. But that doesn't mean you can't have all three or rule one out entirely like I see a lot of people doing.

While I am somewhat fine with jank graphics as long as it has a solid framerate at all times. 60 fps is what I always want but I will take a 30 fps if it is solid.

I don't mind dips here and there but if it is unable to keep a solid 30 fps (minimum) and has jank graphics then that is a problem for me.

I’m not a massive graphics nerd because I mean, it’s on the Switch. I have a PS5 so if I really want to play something with decent graphics I’ll play it on that. Despite all that… it does kinda look a bit crap. Metroid Dread and BotW look great, this doesn’t really. But it’s not a big deal, it’s arriving tomorrow and I’ll probably enjoy it.

Graphics are fine I guess but just look at botw or Mario odyssey. The switch can do great graphics if you put the time into it. That’s not to say that the game is bad but it does effect the quality of the game.

Gameplay over graphics any day of the week. I'd buy a game with Spectrum/C64 level graphics if it was really good.

hehehe round rowlet

Graphics are SO far down the list in priority.
Nobody enjoys a boring game with spectacular graphics.
Lots of people enjoy gripping stories or exciting mechanics with bad graphics.

Game Freak is just a bad developer now and they have been for many years. They're out of meaningful ideas, care only about money, and they can't even develop games properly on a modern console with low specs.

With my limited Pokemon knowledge, I'd say the last actual good Pokemon game was Black/White. I played and enjoyed X and Y to some extent, but it was the start of their decline.

I know it’s annoying, but I still think this game could look way better. Smt v looks like a late stage ps2 game, and don’t care a single bit. Can Pokémon look as good as that? Or at least as good as let’s go pikachu/evee? What happened after that? Looked too nice for their standards? Anyway it doesn’t really matter I guess

I prefer when it looks like work has gone into textures but in terms of extreme fidelity I don’t care. It’s a waste of time. I’d prefer landscapes to be serene than to see every hair on Geralts face.

I’m bored of people whining about graphics.

Remember balan? How many people admit that the game looks good but absolutely hate the gameplay? Yeah I bet people would prefer a game that look off but still a blast to play then a game that looks beautiful but plays like garbage.

Grew up on NES, SNES, Playstation and still play Dark Cloud 2 and other retro games.
I don't care at all about graphics.
Find it sad though, that Pokémon games rake in so much cash and so little seems to go into upping the presentation of their games

Graphics are important as long as you can appreciate Rowlet's sphericalness.

@Crockin Heavily disagree, SMT V is easily one of the best looking switch games and it's artstyle, animations, and world look miles better than any pokemon game.
It would be more accurate to call PLA the PS2 game which it has been for a while.

The game is a step in the right direction in the very least, but for me there leaves a lot to be desired.

@Greatluigi Lol what? Balan Wonderworld looks like an early PS2 game I don't think I seen a single person call that game even remotely decent looking.

Even in Nintendolife's review they said the game had "half decent" graphics. Balan is garbage because both the graphics, gameplay and performance (at least on the switch version) are all bad.

I run by an argument of “If it runs and it’s fun, I’ll play it.” Why do people care in the first place? Graphics are inherently superficial, they’re how a game looks. If a game looks good, that’s great, and I’ll enjoy it all the more for that, but how the game looks doesn’t impact my enjoyment of the game.

Art direction matters more than the graphical fidelity tbh. So many indie games for example are basic as hell pixel games. However they have such a strong art direction, and game play that it is looked over.

@Dingelhopper Spoilers they were never good devs. Even the best gen Gold/Silver had to bring in Iwata to fit everything in the game. Gen one is a awesome mess of bugs and glitches.

@iLikeUrAttitude No even some reviews that were slamming the game play were saying the presentation, cutscenes, and stuff was pretty good.

'Do graphics matter to you?' I think this is a somewhat weak and loose question tbh - since there are so many aspects to a games graphics.

I care VERY MUCH about graphics in a game (the tone, the style, the mood) but I'm not sure I've ever given a damn about a low-res texture - or even noticed one, and I work as an artist/designer for a living!

Technically many very modern games, like say, Forza Horizon excel at stuff like that but to me lack 'art' and instead just look 'good'. Technically amazing games can look... very boring, whereas if a games graphics have a certain feel to them that is appealing for some reason, then who cares if the textures are janky or whatever.

I'm no Pokemon fan, but I think this game generally looks rather nice, if not a bit simple artistically.

Game could have the best graphics in the world where it has detailed sweat on someone’s back, but I wouldn’t care if the gameplay is mediocre.

I can play fun games with mediocre graphics, but not Vice versa. I would just go watch a movie if I want a high end cinematic experience which unfortunately some AAA Western games are more concerned with visual presentation then the actual gameplay that launches in a buggy mess and/or gameplay feels worse then some indie games

@iLikeUrAttitude it does look great! Definitely not one of the best looking on switch tho. I would put at least 20 other games ahead of it. It looks like ps3 at best. Again, I don’t really care because the game is so good. My point is Pokémon is the biggest franchise in the history of entertainment, these games could look at least a gen or two better than they do

The game is ugly no doubt but it does have a lot of cool detail, for instance i came across a sleeping Psyduck who slept like he does in the anime, that was pretty cool to be honest.

End of the day though if the gameplay is good i can look past the visuals, look at Minecraft that's ugly when not using mods but its still a fantastic game with its own charm.

There's one thing that shouldn't be ignored. Japan would like to have more people learn the Japanese language. If Japan, through Nintendo, only focused graphical fidelity, and ignored that none of their consumer base is bothering learning any Japanese, then they would only have themselves to blame for leading their followers in that direction. There's an entire game that Arceus seems to be providing hints toward - try playing it in Japanese text instead. Seems like Japan needs more culture, not necessarily more money.

The purple shading thing on the rocks looks hilariously bad, like what is this?

I would say Art is more important than graphic power (say than polygon count, or resolution)
There are many 16 bit pixel games prettier than some PS5 super high def ones.

Is not how powerful the machine is, but what you do with it.
That is why I feel they could have done a much better work with this game. Its a shame because it seems the gameplay is great!

It's a visual medium of course it matters lol

@iLikeUrAttitude The issue with SMTV is the visuals are too good and the game struggles for that, anyone calling it PS2 level are too young to even be around for the PS2 era.

How someone can pay $60 from an extremely established dev for a game that they'll be looking at for 25+ hours and say what they're looking at doesn't matter and shouldn't be a priority is beyond me. I'm not saying this game needs to be PS5-level but this is just straight-up ugly and looks unfinished at points.

Of course what your eyeballs are seeing matters.

@Crockin You need to look at any PS2 or PS3 game then, cause SMT V is easily better looking than both of those gens.
Hell take Nocturne for an example, the graphic fidelity of SMT V is obviously better; just look at the detail of the textures, models, animations and amount of enemies in the overworld roaming at once.

Well yeah I agree they obviously could look better especially since its the biggest media franchise of all time no disagreements there.

@WallyWest As someone who played the game and completed it the performance issues are at most minor but heavily exaggerated. They still exist though, most people just won't notice.

I think SMT V was honestly just rushed. Especially looking at the story of the game.

But yeah anyone calling it a PS2 game obviously never touched a PS2 or looked at any of its games.

People are over comparing to BOTW this game. And that a real shame every game should be compared to itself not to what you want it to be. Maybe they will update with better patches for graphics but you must remember this is Pokémon were talking about. It's not like 4K 60fps Pokémon gaming-I think alot of people are over comparing this game. I'll give my vote after I get this game up and running.

Ok I got told that people though that balan looked ugly...oops. Yeah Minecraft is a fun game but without mods it doesn’t look that good. (Heck my dad outright said that the game is the ugliest thing he’s seen. Also he thought that the idea behind that dragon cancer is disgusting so who knows)

There are aesthetic choices and there are straight-up poor visuals. IMHO this fits firmly into the latter category, especially given the resources at the disposal of the developer here as well as the capabilities of current hardware. I have enjoyed many games from previous generations whose graphics were subpar but offset by strengths in other areas, particularly gameplay. But we're not playing games on those old systems anymore; there are certain expectations of modern games, especially those of first-party affiliation.

It's one thing to ask whether/how much visuals matter in your games; it's another to give developers and publishers a pass when they don't put forth their best effort in that area just because you enjoy the other aspects of the game. A disturbing trend as of late has seen developers getting away with rushed, incomplete releases (key example: 343 and Halo Infinite) and still being rewarded with glowing reviews and heaps of sales. I'm not saying not to appreciate the good that's in there; just remember that it's also okay to lay out criticisms and ask for changes when it's appropriate as well. We pay a lot of money for these games, and if we don't speak up we're only going to see this great hobby continue to see diminishing returns for the end user.

@SwitchForce Obviously this is due to Breath of the Wild having grass. Pokemon Arceus also has grass. So why doesn't it look just like it does in BOTW? HMM?

(this is absolute sarcasm, I agree with you)

@bozz But its gameplay says different. If you don't like the art style thats fine.

You can have the very best graphics in the world but of the games no fun, it’s no fun. So yes, they need to be good enough as not make our eyes bleed but gameplay is what gaming is all about. Always has been. Always will be.

I don't care TOO much about graphics but I do expect them to be at least satisfactory. I don't absolutely despise the graphics in this game but I wouldn't call it one of the best-looking games on the switch either.

@Astral-Grain sarcasm for one thing BOTW isn't the same team as GameFreak. And they took 5+ for BOTW and it did get updates along the way. But if the fun isn't there what's the point of the game. Pokémon is a fun game compared to BOTW which can really really Lynell challenging. We only can hope they do updates with the graphics engine and make is more visual appealing no go 4K gaming.

Not the prettiest game, also not a ps2 title. Seems like people view the ps2 better than it was. The game for sure is no graphical masterpiece and looks no where near as good as other Nintendo first party titles. But, they made huge strides since the Sword and Shield on the distance Pokémon spawn (a good 100 feet away vs the half a foot they gave in Sw/Sh) the UI and the mechanics are much stronger than i expected. Glad they focused on making it work rather than making it pretty

@SwitchForce
The fact that this is Pokémon, the largest media franchise in the world, should be more than the reason to question the graphical quality of this game and draw comparisons to Breath of the Wild. It generates more than enough money to warrant at least some higher quality in game development. Especially in a franchise that has close to 1000 different entities, minus any variations, The Pokémon Company should be investing more into the graphics department - animation takes time and money, but they have that money available and they aren't using it, and that's why people complain.

Graphics don't have to look good, but abuse that trait and you have yourself something that makes you question how much money was actually poured into this game. It's an even bigger problem when indie games are more aesthetically pleasing than a AAA game from the largest media franchise ever, and in most cases, those games don't even try to look good. From a hardware standpoint, it's a huge wasted opportunity to minimalistically use the Switch hardware

They matter because you need to be immersed into the game.

Otherwise might as well play with a stick and use your imagination.

@ModdedInkling There's a difference in arguing.
1. Constructive arguing vs Arguing for Arguing sack without no end point.
2. I can say if they didn't make a Open World Pokémon we still running the same old Pokémon graphics.
3. Those saying it's bad, I say common make a better Pokémon game then.

@falkyn
So it is fine that the game looks mediocre because............ we don’t know Japanese?

@DeclanS98
I guess you can say Legends: Arceus is a Brilliant Diamond, but not a Shining Pearl.

For me the Pokemon main series is not about immersion so good graphics are not a must but nice to have.
I value visual clarity in games.
Never played a Mystery Dungeon game but I expect them to profit more from good immersion.

I only like games with bad graphics.

@Skogur Whew, for awhile, it read 0% - glad you're here to represent your people!

I’m actually surprised that Pokémon graphics fall far below those of dragon quest. For the resources they have, that’s a reasonable level of complexity to expect

Fun Gameplay is and should always be first.

But still, PLA's graphics are so janky they constantly pull me out of immersion. Don't get me wrong, there's lots of stuff that looks really nice. But there's also so much stuff that looks loveless and unpolished despite this being a core product for the most expensive media franchise in the world. Like, more expensive than Mario, Harry Potter and the MCU COMBINED expensive.

Man, I'd hate to be an indie developer, these are graphics most Indies can't even dream of and we openly call them janky. I mean, it's the Switch, it was never going to be perfect, but the game looks good. Certainly the best looking Pokémon game to date overall. Even New Pokémon Snap, which technically looks better, mainly due to being a small on rails map, doesn't feel as alive and fully realized as this world (because it isn't).

Recent open worlders being janky seem to be par for the course on Switch. I played through SMTV a few weeks to completion and that was another one. The sooner we get an updated Switch model, the better

@ModdedInkling

Profitable Games ≠ Flawless Graphics and Performance

Profitable Games = It's Fun to Play

@Astral-Grain Couldn't resist!

To be frank, I don't give a rip.

@Troll_Decimator to be fair, i think most people with a brain are judging an indie operation's efforts with less anal scrutiny than a huge company backed by a huge publisher (not that I particularly mind Arceus' graphics, of course)

I prefer gameplay, but I'm not going to lie to you, I do like games with good graphics. My biggest thing isn't the technical specs, its the artstyle. I don't want my game to look ugly, lots of indie games are not graphically impressive, but they look good in their own way.

The problem with Game Freak seems to be they're still building games as if we're all still looking at them on a screen scarcely larger than the palm of our hand. It's like they developed the game without ever seeing what it looks like docked.

Got to play the game a bit today. Graphics are serviceable. Nothing to write home about, but good enough to not detract from the experience.

Sadly it follows the paradigm of the majority of exclusive Switch games we are getting the last 2-3 years where there is noticeable technical issues (Monster Hunter Stories 2, SMTV, NMH3, etc).

The Switch is showing its age, especially as the games coming out for it get more ambitious, so it is what it is.

My headline on this game would be it's fun but boy is it ugly. The gameplay is decent and sort of reminds me of a 3d version of Pokémon ranger. But man, this game is painful to look at, to the extent that I doubt I'll finish it. Massive shame really

This is a loaded question and people word it so to make you feel superficial if bad graphics matter to you.

But make no mistake: Bad graphics matter, especially in this case. Legends doesn’t have “janky” graphics, this isn’t a cheaper-than-retail Eurojank RPG, this is a $60, premium priced, triple A release from the most successful media franchise of all time. The graphics aren’t janky, they are BAD. Plain and simple. The two biggest reasons:

1. Immersion

Just imagine how much better Arceus would be with richer detail? How magical it would be, how much more immersive? Video games are a visual medium, the visuals are important to the product. Especially when it’s just laziness as the cause. Immersion is what video games can do better than ANY other entertainment medium. Bad visuals detract from that.

2. It’s $60

Tell me, how on earth should we, as consumers, be ok with spending full retail price for a game from the most successful and one of the most profitable media enterprises of all time? How on earth can we spend $60 on games like God of War, Forza Horizon, Spider-Man, Horizon: Zero Dawn, Monster Hunter World, etc, all these games that BLOW us away from a visual standpoint, while also having incredible gameplay, stories, atmosphere, etc. How do we pay $60 for BotW, a LAUNCH Switch game that was made for Wii U, and accept at how Pokémon Legends looks WORSE with far less detail and stuff going on?

Graphics don’t make a game, of course not, gameplay is the most important. But they do matter a lot of how immersive a title is, how we perceive the quality and care that went into it, and most importantly, how we justify spending $60 on it.

Gamefreak needs to do better, and consumers need to expect better. If this was a $40 game with a lower budget? The conversation changes. But a $60 game from POKÉMON having some of the most underwhelming and lower quality graphics of any triple A release yet? It’s not acceptable.

I’m all for the “shorter games with worse graphics” ethos. Graphics are vanity; gameplay is king. Doesn’t mean I don’t like or appreciate pretty games, but the visuals are rarely the selling point.

I still play games on DS and PSP - those systems would kill for a game as pretty/ugly as Arceus.

I'd rather have BOTW-like graphics, but different development team, different genre, less development time.
Also to me it doesn't look as bsd as some people make it out to be.

In most games I don't care, but this is really ugly.

Some locations in the game are super beautiful, but others are like N64. And the sky is perfect.

I judged the game with my own eyes and whether or not it makes me happy. The graphics are not great but I am not a great judge on graphics. I will happily play any game that looks terrible as long as I find it enjoyable. For me that is exactly where Legends Arceus falls into. That is what gaming is all about for me. Any game that makes me happy and keeps my mind off the stress of everyday life is a winner for me.

We live in a world where Minecraft is one of the most successful games of all time. Same goes for games like Among Us. Despite what people tell themselves, graphics haven't mattered for some time now. A good art style or clever design will carry a game further than relying on cutting-edge graphics. The only time graphics matter is when they actively interfere with gameplay.

Doesn’t bother me that much, but hopefully they could improve on it in future games. I don’t play Pokémon for the graphics.

@ArchRex They've been used to rock smash some semi royal pokemon.

Looks better than X & Y - that's good enough.

I pretty regularly play indie games that don't look so hot and I'm totally okay with it, but this thing should have had nearly infinite resources available to make it look as good as any other first-party game on Switch and it just doesn't. It's not a deal-breaker and the positive reviews mean that I probably will get this, but it is disappointing.

Do graphics matter?

Do you mind if your food looks like it's been eaten twice already in the course of three months? It still smells good, according to some critics, want to try its taste? Payment in advance.

Clone wars meme:
"janky graphics are just not all that important to my enjoyment of a game."
So we won't be hearing any complaints about graphics in reviews right?
smiling
We won't be hearing any complaints about graphics in games?

Graphics break the game only when they make you feel sick.

Looking at Wind Waker HD'd overly bright graphics for too long makes my stomach turn a little.

Legends: Arceus is otherwise fine but the water looks like it's from Paper Mario, for some reason. Will need to see for myself if the framerate and draw distance are any good.

It's not so much a discussion on graphics, but performance. I love the game, but the performance is distracting. Not so much on a purely visual basis, but things like the poor frame rate (not helped by low quality animation) and the atrocious pop in. Some of the blame has to go to GF, but this is also why a lot of us have been hoping for the Switch Pro, and I don't get the people that are happy it continues to not exist. If you're okay with sub par frame rates and pop in, then carry on, but why do you want everyone else to suffer?

Graphics aren't the end all be all for me at all. Gameplay matters the most to me.

However, this game's graphics, while nice in some places, are rough, rough, rough, and feel like enough attention wasn't given to them.

Kinda makes me wish the dev team would endeavor to improve them post launch, but we all know how that usually goes.

That being said... the game is fun to play so far.

@Peach64 Cause Switch Pro right now seems more a meme than any kind of impending reality. Also cause not wanting to drop 100s of dollars for another machine right now, might have something ado with it for some people.

I for example eschewed the OLED cause it's not a substantial upgrade for someone like me who uses the Switch primarily in docked mode... and mine is a day 1 launch model.

They aren’t the be-all-and-end-all but bad graphics are distracting and remove you from the world. The textures in this game are bad, there is no getting around that. Close ups are blurry messes. The way characters “float” above the ground is also highly distracting. Buildings are strangely empty. As mentioned, it’s as if all the geography and textures were turned to low even though we know the Switch can do more. It’s distracting and they need to do better.

@MegaVel91 If people don't want to spend the money to upgrade, they don't have to. Again, I don't get this 'I don't want it, so nobody can have it' attitude.

I’m 100% a gameplay over graphics kind of person, but when it comes to textures and especially frame rate, I get a little more concerned. I think Legends Arceus looks pretty alright overall, but I think some more polish could have been beneficial.

@Peach64 I misunderstood. In which case, I agree.

@Troll_Decimator I think the main point being brought up is that there are much better looking switch games than PLA, proving hardware isn't the issue here, it's the developer themselves.

Also yeah Pokemon Snap looks miles better than Legends ever will, but I don't think the rail excuse isn't valid anymore considering even GF's smaller games on the system still look visually inferior compared to other switch games.

After changing Immortals Fenyx Rising (Great game BTW) With the Pokémon Arceus cartridge The downgrade in graphics was jarring. They’re still OK and I’m excited to get into the game. Thankfully the graphics are not as poor as Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl as the graphics in that stopped me from purchasing it. Top down games like Links Awakening can look beautiful so there is no excuse for how ugly Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl are.

Wow what a bunch of nonsense this all is, it’s all about gameplay. Sure the graphics can help but look at the top graphical games right now, they don’t score 10/10 or offer any better experience than a game from 20 yrs ago.

This stupid fascination is why we have to endure generation after generation of slight upgrades with little to no real inspiration to take gaming anywhere new. Hell even the vr lovers say just imagine what it’ll be like when technology can make it look better.

Please can people ask games makers to invent the next craze, not regurgitate as they have been for too long now, pushed by this delusion that if it looks better then it will be better.

But then that is why I am here cause Nintendo is the only company liable to do that. Oh yeah and get off pokemons back will you, since when has that been a franchise that cares about graphics.

What usually bothers me more than the graphics quality, is a poor graphical style.
That is my issue here as well, even if the graphics were better from a technical standpoint, I still wouldn't really like it.
That being said, with great gameplay I can overlook bad graphics any day. Still could be a better game if it just looked more pleasing to the eye though.

At this point I only saw a few hours of the game via a stream and I am already getting used to how it looks, so that is something as well, I guess.

@dew12333 Look man, even I'll sing PLA's praises on the gameplay so far, but the graphics really are very, very rough. Even SWSH looked better than this graphically.

GF and co. can do better.

The problem is that Legends and Sword/Shield feel very poor quality and the poor graphics are just one part of a pretty lackluster attitude. They are cheap, they do feel rushed and unfinished, a pointlessly large...God I hated walking around the towns in Sword, so much empty pointless space. And the poor quality of them really stands out when compared to what we normally expect from Nintendo exclusives. We all expected far more when Pokemon made the full proper transition to 3D.

@blindsquarel A couple of things here: I don't think the graphics look mediocre - I enjoy broad strokes.
Also, if devs kept following complaints about graphics then they'd have to keep their focus on graphics instead of focusing on getting the consumer base to switch over to the Japanese version of the game - where there is no lack of detail for consumers to get busy with.

For the peoples who keep complaining about graphics for open world style game, compare with this game. (Yonder the Cloud Catcher Chronicles)

@iLikeUrAttitude Exactly this post. And it's interesting how there are so many people afraid to admit it. Let's face it, graphics are an integral part of the experience. They can make or break the game for some! But, like many things, people get all extremist when it comes to the discussion. Hard to find people that appreciate the middle ground, these days, but I know they're out there!

Visuals, like music, story and many other aspects are all part of the complete experience, heck if anything theres multiple aspects which make up each category too such as art design.

the visual aspect is also part of what can give a game its "charm" and "personality" it can also be used as an element of storytelling and even tied into the gameplay itself.

when it comes to games which involve exploring a world i find the visual design of the game can matter very much, take breath of the wild for example when you emerge from the starting area and see a sweeping view of the games world including places in the distance which you will eventually get to visit, its a big part of what gave the game a sense of "adventure"

While im enjoying my time with PLA it does feel like the world feels somewhat empty and not quite as "alive" as it could feel due to the texture pop-in and overall lack of landmarks, it does feel like a game which is struggling with the systems limitations rather than built around said limitations.

i feel like the whole argument about graphics and gameplay was something which largely came up during the early 3d era when there were people who would dismiss 2d games, including publishers themselves despite there being some absolutely stunning 2d games at the time like symphony of the night, SaGa Frontier 2, Legend of mana etc, but eventually turned almost into an eversion to visual design, alongside the wii era in which it felt like people were dismissing creativity not tied to a systems controller (acting as though you cant have "innovation" on a system with a "traditional" controller despite the gamecube era being one of nintendos wildest and most creative in terms of changing up their franchises)

@dew12333 lmfao Nintendo has been regurgitating the same stuff since the N64, just with graphical upgrades. Last time they innovated was with the Wii-mote. I think it's okay to admit that there's only so much a company can do after 30 games of the same franchise.

Yeah some of the graphics in this are pretty sure. There are some insanely low res textures and low poly models that are front and centre in cutscenes like the scrolls and nameplates on desks. It was also weird seeing an Abra have a halved frame rate to everyone else in a cutscene, it really stood out!

I put most of that down to lacking optimisation and prioritising the Pokémon themselves. Like they decided it can move jankily, there can be hardly as of them and the environment can all be low quality but as long as the Pokemon looks good target acheived? Which is a weird choice. It's backed up by the fact the Pokemon animation is lovely and fluid, whilst the human animations are janky and often very basic.

But I am enjoying it. I'd enjoy it more if they took another year or two to polish it more visually. But it's not a bad game at all, it's good in spite of it's visuals.

It doesn't look perfect by any means, but it does look beautiful.

Art direction, sound & and a capped 30fps is all that matters, well to me anyways

@BloodNinja Seriously you think someone else has tried to make gaming more diverse than Nintendo. Yeah they love the cash cow of their franchises but at least they try and reinvent the wheel everyone now and then. That’s more than you can say for all the others who just get ‘people’ to pay for the r&d for the next slight upgrade.

There are very few games that really impress me with visuals. BOTW, RDR2, Bioshock Infinite, Ghost of Tsushima, Mario Odyssey, Tropical Freeze to name a few. Imho PLA looks good actually it looks better than Sword or Shield but could use a patch or 2 to help in that regard. But I do think people are overly dramatic when it comes to visuals and I think Gameplay is more important.

@MegaVel91 sure I’ve played it and It actually made me laugh at one thing I saw. But like I said it didn’t bother me or detract from my enjoyment of the game.

@PBandSmelly Whilst I agree the game looks shoddy, the game doesn't have "trillions in [it's] budget".

As you point out, it's the most profitable multimedia franchise worldwide. With Pokemon, the games aren't what bring in the most money. They're not going to get the biggest budget. The budget is in place based on how much profit they think they can make from a product (in this case, a game).

Do you know how many copies they would have to sell to make a return from a budget of a trillion dollars? I don't and I'm not working it out because a modern Pokemon game isn't going to sell GTAV numbers, the most profitable game ever which didn't make close to that.

All that said, I've played PS2 games that legit look better. Indie games with a fraction of their budget put out better looking games. I'm all for gameplay over graphics, but at some point we have to stop making excuses for a sub par developer producing sub par work.

@dew12333 But they haven't changed the formula for any of their games since the Wii U with BOTW. And technically, that was just a rip-off of Skyrim, at that point. I've been following the company for 3 decades; their first party stuff is pretty stale at this point.

@iLikeUrAttitude Oh yeah the performance issues aren't a deal breaker, i notice them but it doesn't bother me.

@Dpishere Amen! Some of my favorite games are ugly.

@BloodNinja BotW is like Skyrim? Both have forests and swords i suppose.

1. Gameplay
2. Story
3. Performance
4. Art style
5. Graphics

To me, this is the order of importance when it comes to judging how good a game is.
Story can be removed depending on the type of game though, like a racing or fighting game like Mario Kart or Smash.

If this game was $20-40 I would be more interested. I am having cognitive dissonance with such positive reviews with such shoddy visuals. I grew up with 8 and 16bit games and I get that even ugly games can be fun. But in 2022 I can have both fun and beautiful. How does this game have a better metacritic score than Kena? I think reviewers are grading on a curve.

@WallyWest Open world, fetch quests, crafting, all that jazz. Even came out when Skyrim was at a peak. Can’t deny the impact it had on BOTW.

@falkyn
Pokémon company has billions of dollars to invest in these games. Getting people to switch to Japanese has nothing to do with graphics that are are barely above acceptable.

The game could obviously look better than it does, but I'm fine with the graphics so far. I'm more relieved that performance is fairly stable, which is honestly more than I was expecting. Sun and Moon on 3DS were rough at times.

Great article, as usual! You, Alex, Zion, Jon and others here do a fine job of keeping things rational and avoiding conforming to rest of the gaming world and its obsession with super-realistic graphics and ultra-smooth frame rates.
The graphics matter in that they should look good, but they don't have to be state-of-the-art stuff. To me, Shovel Knight and Cyber Shadow have far better graphics than Final Fantasy XV and God of War (PS4). You can have a huge budget at your disposal and still fail to make a good-looking game, because you have no taste and no talent, as is the case with most Playstation and Xbox developers.

I don't like that this conversation can only go two ways. Either you're making a big deal out of nothing OR you value graphics over content... which is silly. I'm happy the new Pokemon is a step in the right direction and just bought it. HOWEVER we all know this game could look better and really should to help with immersion. I'm sure it's a good Pokemon game and from what I saw of reviews it's making bold moves but I think it's totally fair to want the WHOLE package to be great and go the extra mile. To have your cake and eat it too. Imagine how much more stellar reviews would have been if on top of this game playing great, it also looked super great. Goty contestant material. It's just not wrong to want it to reach a little more and cheer it on. Doesn't mean you are being entitled or just a graphics nut.

@BloodNinja
i do feel like the earlier switch incarnations of a few of nintendos big franchises did shake things up somewhat, with Zelda moving away from the OOT foundation and increasingly linear structure, same with how after several Mario games with the typical mario stage tropes it had worlds where there was a big focus on the environments themselves which i felt gave some nice context to the gameplay, it kind of reminded me of sunshine and how it made isle delfino feel like an actual location.

It does seem like with kirby and the forgotten land they are changing things up with being in 3d and having a unique setting.

i do feel like a lot of developers get generalised and overlooked when it comes to creativity, just look at how often you see the same rhetoric lumping xbox and playstation together that it does feel like a disservice to all the talented and creative developers you have making games for other platforms, quite a few of them even made their way to switch.

genshin impact this is not, lol. It's a pokemon game, it will sell regardless, game freak isn't stupid.
The problem is, pokemon games are released regularly and sell very well! If they were to put in actual effort, they would prolly release half the number of games or even less. More polish, better graphics, and the games wouldn't sell better, they would sell the same. So they keep on doing what they have been doing and churn out as many games as possible. It literally prints money. what is more, people might actually become more demanding and they would need to work even harder on the next pokemon game. as it is now, anything goes, and it will sell. who cares about wii graphics?

@Mgalens That's a fair assessment!

Considering that a lot of us went from the DS to the 3DS to the Switch, graphics do not really matter.

@ThomastheDankEngine And yet, Harry Potter, the MCU or Mario aren't known to cheap out on the releases that are the source for all that merchandise.

I feel the issue comes down more to the art style and direction a lot of the time graphics is brought up. Like others have said, a game can be flawless graphically speaking but lack a disticnt style that makes them stand out. I have always been one who would prioritise a great art style over brilliant graphical fidelity, but if I could get both that would be great.

Pokemon just doesn't really have that much of a distinct art style. It does to the point where you can go "oh its pokemon", but its hardly anything super distictive in comparison to literally every other series nintendo puts out. And obviously, the open world nature of arceus means that the grahical side is gonna flounder, even more so considering its a pokemon company game. Add that to the rather lacking art style and here we are: a game that just looks bland and as such cannot uphold the game's poor graphical fidelity.

I have always been one who has said that nintendo games with great lighting systems will look better than any super fancy graphically intensive game, just because the art style is there. THATS what pulls people more than "oh wow 8K 120fps i can see everyones pores". Or at least, it should be the more prominent pulling factor.

Its just that I expect way more from such a rich company. There is no excuse for thier mediocrity.

@somebread Not the case unfortunately. The majority of people see indie games graphics and immediately dismiss them as unplayable. I'm not talking about hardened "veterans" like you and me of course but people that play only FIFA and Call of Duty. The majority.

There have been times while playing that it’s looked really really nice…most times, not so much. Not horrendously ugly but not nearly as good as it should look. It should be on par with something like Dragon Quest XI visually, but considering the timescale it’s been made in it’s obvious why that’s not the case.

I just don’t understand the whole dynamic with Pokemon and why it is the way it is when it comes to the games. Nintendo clearly don’t care about delaying a game as long as it’s quality in the end- Zelda games take as long as they need for example. If Game Freak wanted to they could put all their effort into one game for 4 years and make it the best it can be whilst having other studios pick up remakes, spin-off RPGs and even mainline games with supervision from GF while they focus on big budget flagship games. We had stuff like Colosseum/Gale of Darkness before…it’d actually be nice to get different takes on the series in the in between years of the GameFreak games. Either way, I think the sales of BDSP have proven that people will take smaller scale titles while waiting for the bigger efforts.

I am really enjoying Arceus by the way, it’s just a shame it didn’t get an extra year to really polish it up. I guess there’s games already planned for the end of the year that aren’t tied up in the Diamond and Pearl generation?

@locky-mavo pretty much my thoughts as well.

Imho, it starts to matter a lot if you're talking about one of the biggest IP's in gaming.
When you have all the money in the world and deliver this, it just shows a lack of passion, drive and care.

It doesn't matter as much for the game itself, it it speaks volumes for the dev behind it.

It's good to hear that someone that's bored with Pokemon AND hates the graphics still thinks the game is good. That's surprising. But that gameplay had better be pretty special to make up for the fugly graphics that look half way between N64 and GCN.

@NEStalgia You're going bridge too far with that comparison. Even I can see that.

@ThomastheDankEngine They all at least looked decent for their time. Gen 5 looked quite good even.

But it has been evident that the jump from 3DS to Switch was too much for Game Freak. They kept the same release schedule and team size since the 2D Days (3-4 years for a new gen), and it's showing that TPC completely underestimates the increase in ressources for a 3D game.

They either got to slow down (and release new 'mon through spin-offs if they really have to produce more designs for plushies) or GF has to accept the fact that they need bigger teams to keep up.

Pokemon is now so much more than a videogame that i believe thats the reason The Pokemon company let gamefreak do games like they do, not bad but nothing stellar. Thats the reason they don't make the effort anymore, the real revenue must be on everything else

To the people making the argument about Pokemon being the highest grossing franchise in the world:

That is true but where is most of that money being allocated? It's obviously not the games. The Pokemon Company if I am not mistaken is at the helm when it comes allocating money to the various arms of the franchise. Which means Masuda and co. need to ask TPC permission for higher budgets and that TPC sets the amount of money Game Freak gets to put towards any Pokemon game project.

Which means hounding Game Freak only does so much. The Pokemon Company needs to be grilled too, not just GF, if anything is to get done on the graphics front.

My big hope for this game overall is that it's sales inspire a continued evolution of gameplay going forward. With the good reviews and people praising the gameplay (and not the graphics), it's gonna be pretty hard justifying going back and calling this a one-off.

EDIT:

Adding to this further, how much do the games themselves usually gross?

@MegaVel91 when was the last time since n64 you saw infinitely pixelated and stretched textures like the ground textures above?

The biggest problem with Pokemon is that it really follows the same design ethos as CoD and EA Sports. From a business view, it'll sell every year on brand. Why spend a dime adding anything unnecessary for sales? Why put out the best possible Pokemon game if one made to the minimum dollar required to pull a return meets sales goals? That's not going to change until fanta stop selling.

Frame rate is the most important thing to me, but art is also very important. As long as a game looks fun and has good looking animations I'll give it a try. Jank animations is usually a deal breaker for me.

Another thing, people use the excuse of "Gameplay is more important than graphics" to justify games running below 60FPS.

There's just a problem, FPS is not graphics, it is gameplay, when a game is running below 60FPS, they sacrificed good gameplay to achieve better graphics.

It seems this Pokémon game is running well, but I'm talking about general.

@MetalMan Like I said above, some people think that framerate is not gameplay and say "I don't care about graphics" to justify poor framerate.

@ThomastheDankEngine What...? It's my own opinion. If you were implying it sounded "generic", it's because the general census is that Game Freak is a garbage company now and they pump out low effort games. My own personal feelings on them is going to be similar to lots of other peoples too.

What's your take? That they're still somehow "good" and that you'll defend every modern game they put out? Not very original either. Whatever you have to say will sound completely copy-pasted as well lol. No one's opinion is going to sound original unless it's completely outlandish and purposely off the wall. Give me a break, ThomastheOriginalOpinion.

@blindsquarel effort and attention are finite despite their money being apparently infinite. perhaps they've chosen to allocate their efforts and attention to more valuable pursuits than graphics

@MegaVel91 @EriXz But GameFreak is The Pokemon Company, at least in part. It’s unknown how much of a stake they have in it alongside creatures and Nintendo but I’d imagine they have a lot of leverage in what goes on. It’s probably why they’ve historically done so much of the mainline games and remakes in-house because of the control they want of the games and not because Nintendo/creatures are forcing them to take those games on, though there’s also probably a lot of “if we can do it in-house in not a lot of time we can make a lot more money for ourselves” since the games sell ridiculously well regardless of their overall quality.

As I said earlier, Nintendo give games in their key franchises all the time in the world to be made (even their lesser ones, Metroid Prime 4 for example)- I doubt they would be opposed to Game Freak dedicating a lot of time to new Pokemon games especially when other studios could take on Pokemon projects to fill the gaps. It’s whether they want to or not is the question, hopefully with ILCA on BDSP that tide might be changing but we’ll see.

@Dingelhopper Yeah, don't engulf with him. He's too much up his own S.

@MegaVel91 The problem is less about the money and more about TPC wanting a new gen every 3 years (with remakes inbetween) and Masuda not wanting to increase his team size.

This worked in the 2D era, but both TPC and Masuda seem to ignore that the time going into assets has exponentionally grown since then. And it shows in the quality, as this is the only factor they can reduce.

@ThomastheDankEngine The difference between the old and new games is that the old entries are actually fun, unlike anything post-Black/White in my opinion. Also, most game developers are incompetent and end up getting outside help. Game Freak isn't the best developer out there (not even close), and their games always have lots of bugs, but at least they're not game breaking. I can play the entirety of Red/Blue without my game crashing due to some problem....unlike vanilla Skyrim. But I can't play Sword and Shield because I think it's a hideous, soul less, shallow, feature-cutting sh*t show.

I'm not even nostalgic for old Pokemon games. I didn't beat a single mainline entry until I was graduating high school. I'm not wearing rose-tinted glasses here. It's just obvious that they've become extremely low effort. The old games have their fair share of problems but at least they still felt like there was passion put into them. It doesn't matter that Iwata helped them or something. Legit who cares? Smash Ultimate had help from Namco, so I guess Sakurai and his team are incompetent too? Nintendo EAD got help from Monolith Soft for BotW. Incompetent much? Are all devs that require assistance in development just bad devs by your logic?

I'm not even a giant Pokemon fan and I'm not here to white knight old Game Freak titles. I've only beaten 3 Pokemon games but even I can see that the newer games are worse.

It feels like there's no point in discussing this with you anyways based on the fact you clearly have a hate-on for the franchise when you're saying all Pokemon games are mediocre McDonalds 7/10 games and other Nintendo franchises are 5-star restaurant 10/10's. You genuinely seem to hate Pokemon fans and the entire series so I'm not going to waste my breath any further. I think you need to calm your hatred down there buddy. It's not going to do you any good.

Saying that graphics doesn't matter on video games if the gameplay loop is good... it is the same as saying good animation doesn't matter on an animated TV series if the story is good.

That's BS. Both matter. Both complement each other.

Image watching a series like Arcane (or Attack on Titan or Invincible) with bad animation instead of good animation and be fine with it because the story is good. I call that BS...

@BowtieShyGuy I made the mistake of replying to him before I read his other posts. The guy clearly just hates the entire Pokemon franchise.

I wonder what Pokemon did to him to hurt him so?

All I know is I've played it for hours today on a 50" tv and have had a ball. The bright primary colors are nice after the pastel, washed out effect of BotW. I'm not convinced a pokemon game should have more realistic graphics.

The art style is pure Pokemon. The only thing that is a bit frightening are the main characters eyes. I mean YIKES!

Game play is smooth and I've not encountered any lag.

Tl:dr...if realistic graphics make or break a game for you then this probably isn't the game for you. But, imho, you're gonna miss out on a lot of fun.

@Savage_Joe The problem with SwSh was that the game was probably still planned for 3DS. Ishihara openly admitted he was conviced the switch would fail and dataminers found data referring to 3DS features.

Would also explain why Let's Go looks a lot better. That was probably properly planned as a Switch side-project, while SwSh had the 3DS pacrachute in mind.

Legends probably had a troubled production due to covid. And SwSh showed the graphical polish is secondary to sell more Pokémon merch.

@Dingelhopper Pikachu probably killed their entire family, lol.

Made the same mistake. Not interested in fostering someon's hate boner.

I think this game has a really strong art direction. But a direction is just that: a path to be followed, not a destination in itself, and I do wish they’d followed that path a little further.

What we have is a game that can look quite pretty, so long as you don’t look at it too hard. It’s quite telling that I prefer to play this game in handheld mode because it ‘looks better’ than in docked mode, when arguably it should be the other way around. Docked for visual fidelity, handheld for portability and convenience.

It is however, perfectly serviceable, and the fact that Game Freak have ambitiously and successfully developed the gameplay loop is probably more noteworthy than the fact they seemingly haven’t yet worked out how to squeeze a technically impressive and visually polished game out of the Switch’s hardware.

I love my Switch but it's mostly Nintendo exclusives and sprite based games. This looks really really rough especially after playing on a Series S and PS5.

@larryisaman not trying to start an argument, just a civil conversation. what i get from your post is that you think the Pokemon company earns more money from the videogame industry rather than movies, cartoons and other merch?

I have a feeling that Kate doesn't want to catch them all. hehe

@CONTRARIAN_SAMURAI
What are you doing here with all the Capital letters?

I don’t know what people expected, this is nintendo we talking about for god sake. They are known to not change the formula, not even upgrade the graphics to current standards. In fact let’s be honest, you do what they do long enough (fall behind) you wake up one day not knowing basic 2022 game development stuff like draw distance rendering, proper battle animations and dynamic and populated world. It’s just the reality.

The graphics look fie and very sharp presentation overall, those screens in the article do not do it justice at all, and in motion the game just looks like a Pokemon cartoon to me, yes some rough textures here and there, but not that noticeable when playing the game.

Nintendo has always been my primary platform and I haven't owned a non-tendo console since the PS3. 3DS was essentially the only platform I played on from 2011 until the Switch in 2017, aside from a sparse Wii U title, so believe you me when I say that graphics aren't important to me.

However. The visuals in Arceus still leave me with some mixed feelings. I like the cell shading on character models, the Pokémon and humans look great, the sky looks pretty cool and I like the colours in different times of day. But the environment itself does not look good and it kinda bugs me. The issues with textures and pop-in and all that ring very true for me as well. It's like, Pokémon was founded as a creative way to make use of the Game Boy's by-that-point woefully outdated specs, so it's always had that idea of not having to be visually stunning to do what it does. But the Switch is more than capable of some real impressive visuals, technical limitations be damned. Breath of the Wild and Mario Odyssey are two well-known examples just in the launch year. Arceus, and Sword and Shield too, really don't feel like they're making the most of the platform they're on the way that Red and Blue, and Gold and Silver did.

I ain't no developer, I have no idea the amount of work that goes into these games I love, so I'm in no position to be saying anything about effort and care and all that. There are things I like and things I dislike about this game but I will say that despise whatever trivial, inconsequential gripes I have, I'm enjoying myself so far!

@Savage_Joe just what i thought, so you guys agree that games are no longer their priority, hence the quality of their recent games

I still don't like graphic of Pokemon LA. Gameplay is good, but graphic not. It's can be improve in the future.

I don't really care about stuff like muddy textures or a lower draw distance. But what bugs me, is that they seemingly threw the trees and enviroments so haphazardly together, that I can see them partially hovering over the ground on a regular basis. It's (somewhat) fine to have the same five tree models for a whole area, but at least put in the effort to make them believably rooted in the ground.

Also, why are the rooms in the town all so, so bland? They had to populate one small village, one that the player is returning to throughout the whole game, and didn't deem it necessary to make it feel lived in and tell environmetals stories?

I really like the game loop so far, catching Pokémon is the most fun it has ever been. It's just a shame I'm reminded of what could have been an even better game from a billion dollar company, every time I notice some budget cuts, oversights or just outright meh level design...

The soft bigotry of low expectations from Switch. They can do better. If Breath of The Wild can look as nice as it did, and it's a Wii U title upgraded for Switch, then this should be better. Mario Golf has awful looking trees as well.

I’m never going to understand why we all spend so much of our life talking about things we don’t like instead of just DOING the things we actually DO like. I realize I just chimed in to publicly express my dislike of publicly expressing our collective dislikes and now I venemously dislike myself. Continue.

The title of this article should have been “Click here to fight in the comments” lol

I didn't even notice the tree textures... Because I was so distracted by their horrible shadows lol.

It's shocking Game Freak / Nintendo's media team were showcasing wide landscape shots in all the promo vids, which exposed the ugly tile effect of the ground and water textures.

@Anti-Matter a haiku it looks like

@Astral-Grain
Fine, I'll speak with my complex mind.

I spent about 350 hours on Age of Calamity, a game so infamously hated on because of the choppy frame rate and low resolution. I didn't care because the game was still fun, but more importantly, the game still looked good.

Maybe this is more of an art direction thing rather than a graphical thing, but I just simply dislike the look of Pokemon Legends: Arceus. Maybe I'll have lots of fun with it, but it wouldn't stop me from nitpicking it. To me, it looks like a wasted opportunity hidden behind a fundamentally great and enjoyable game. It could've been the best of the best, but it chose to be simply humble and good.

@Deviant-Dork The hell are you on about?

I've reached the point where if it has good graphics I'll say "daaaaamn", and then have fun playing the game. If it has bad graphics I'll say "daaaaamn" and then have fun playing the game.

Gamefreak will always be one step behind in the grafix department. Always.

Some people haven't speculated yet that Game Freak may not have the experience or knowledge on pushing the Switch hardware? Clearly, their engine needs a massive overhaul. I'm not sure if it's in-house or used from another Nintendo franchise, but this could also be the cause. The other issue might be due to time constraints. They may not have had time to upgrade the engine they used for Sword and Shield enough to make it look amazing. Look at what does look good. Terrain textures and water, but the characters look awful. The Pokemon look good, but then there are other inconsistencies everywhere. It seems like they ran out of time or something.

@Savage_Joe yes for sure and thats the whole reason of the conversation, otherwise we won't be talking about it which is kinda sad

@rpg2000 Many, many classic, influential anime series also had really terrible animation quality as a result of budget limitations, so I don't know how much your argument resonates with me.

I’ve been playing games for decades, and for me, good graphics are like a bonus or the secret sauce that can elevate the play experience, but certainly aren’t required to enjoy a game that is fun at its core.

I’ve seen many worse-looking trees and scenery in games and never really minded much. As a kid, I enjoyed the Atari 2600 E.T. game probably as much as adult me enjoyed Ys Origins or Dying Light. Similarly, I think my daughters will play and enjoy Arceus without thinking twice about the scenery details, as long as Bidoof and Rowlett are suitably cute and round. 😁

I will say that my only graphics complaint about the game is the...incredibly jumpy ground at the bottom of the screen when you're catching a Pokemon. It little jumps and jitters, like Max Headroom.

I’m not surprised game freak is struggling on the graphical side of development.

They’ve spent the majority of their existence developing for handhelds, where they don’t have to be cutting edge graphically.

And most of the time Pokemon has been on a console, another dev has handled it.

So after decades where graphics have not been the top priority, I think it’s gonna take them a while to figure it out. And they are improving. Maybe not as much as one would like, but it is getting better

The saddest part about this is: they could show people that they can produce kick-ass graphics, but they simply can‘t be bothered because it will sell anyway. I‘m glad the rest of Nintendo‘s departments are not that way.

Eventho the graphics are arent that good, it still looks better than any other pokemon game.
The gameplay however is top notch.

The game just looks so bad for the level of quality it should have for a studio and franchise as big as Pokémon. I tend to like a game no matter the art style, as long as it actually runs well. And Arceus.... Doesn't. At all.

If you're a Nintendo fan you're used to bad graphics and bad performance. That's just how it is. You don't expect anything better so long as you're getting fun gameplay. I don't necessarily think this is an insult, mind you. It's just how it is. The only problem I really have is graphics so bad I can't make out what I'm meant to be looking at or sub 30 framerate...which a lot of switch games can't manage to hit consistently.

@ThomastheDankEngine Bruh, you really think I'm going to read this novel when you start it with, "The difference between me and you is your towering ego"?

Thanks for the laugh. Irony at its finest. I'm happy knowing you typed out all that angry sh*t for nothing, because there's no way I'm reading this angry drivel. Pokemon must be a touchy subject for you based on your reaction to my post, which I might add, wasn't even hostile. Was it too hard for you or something? Couldn't get past the first gym? I'm trying to figure out why Pokemon makes you SO seething mad. Maybe you got bullied for liking Digimon over Pokemon? Hopefully a psychiatrist can get to the bottom of your completely irrational hatred.

Oh, and I when I skimmed through your objectively wrong post I saw the part where you said that Pokemon Emerald is the worst game you've ever played in your life and that you've played Sonic 06. You're opinion is now the worst one I've ever seen. I don't even know what to say. I'm glad I didn't waste my time reading your post. My brain cells will be kept intact. Literally nothing you can say from here on out could possibly be taken seriously. I'm not even going to reply, so don't @ me, LMFAO. 🤣🤣🤣

I have an ultra high end PC run 4K 144 fps on everything that can run it, but when I play on the Switch I know what I'm getting. As long as the game is fun the graphics or even frame rate don't mean much.
Just an example I've played more SMT V or Astral Chain as I have RDR2 on PC running beautifully at 4K silky smooth with DRR and the long awaited DLSS update.

I don't really care about graphics and think the game looks fine as it is, but I won't be picking this up because I'm tired of turn based battles.

With this game graphics dont matter that much because it actually is a great game. For pokemon sword, shield & BDSP they matter because those games suck

Let just say there’s a difference between a small indie studio without really budget and the biggest cross media franchise of all time in terms of expectations for graphics. Pokémon should at minimum be up to par with other Nintendo published games on the same console. It isn’t the case.

Like you said: It’s eyebrow raising when a big release by a big company looks bad, and makes you wonder if the rest of the design process didn’t get equally little love.

To me, the crux is art direction. Take Inscryption for example. It has far from the best graphics, but damn, that art direction is top tier for creating the atmosphere they specifically intended. Now take Call of Duty: Vanguard. It's almost photorealistic, but it looks like every other pew-pew army game on the market.
Personally, I don't think Pokémon's graphics are all that great and the environments can be distracting, but the art direction is part of why Pokémon has lasted 25+ years and why it's worth $109 billion.

I go back to this: when did Pokemon ever become a graphically-strong franchise to have these kind of expectations? What's the basis for all of this? Should Game Freak utilize the Pokemon Company's literal piles of money to create a more aesthetically-pleasing game? Hell yeah they should.

But in the 25-year history of Pokemon, we should at least come to the realization about how we treat our expectations to this franchise. Does that absolve Game Freak for supposedly bad graphics? No, not at all. But if you're expecting to see something that it's clearly not, that's on you and you're just nitpicking for the heck of it. Just go play something else

i think this vote is many ways totally wrong and the understanding of "good" graphics is too. good graphics have really nothing to do with the hardwar power. tetris has excellent graphics already on the game boy. mario galaxy has excellent graphics as good as most ps360 games at that time.
Pokemon arceus has most of the time not so nice graphics but thats not the problem of the game... pokemon arceus is just a pretty bad game thats the problem of the game.
pkm ai is bad, the level design is bad, the lack of dungeons and caves is bad, Soundtrack is bad, fetch quest are bad, repetition is hell, nothing meaningfull can be discovered , story and characters are lame and the tutorial treat the players as stupid etc... the new battlesystem is good though but its not enough to rescue the game

@Zebetite are you really comparing a game made by a single person and a game from a small indie team to the biggest cross-media and multi-billions franchise cause it’s a bad comparison ?

@twicesmt almost all Pokemon games look graphicly pretty good. sun and moon is actually one of the best looking games on the system. the only ones that i think are graphicly weaker are the switch games and black and white... graphic and visial design has nothing to do with hardware power or resolution.

Tbh, I don't really care for the art style or graphics in BOTW. I actually think Pokemon let's go has beautiful graphics. Would have loved let's go if it had GAMEPLAY, sadly they took a part of what makes Pokemon Pokemon out of it, killing the entire game for me. Performance (at least 30 or not laggy), fun, graphics, in that order ideally for me. Honestly Arceus legends can't be as bad as let's go from everything I've heard. I'll take a semi ***** environment if the fun is there. Tbh, 3ds Pokemon wasn't all that either. So I mean ehh par for the course, but like I'm more interested in the different gameplay directions honestly. Pokemon as it has been has gotten stale asf for me. Pokemon Arceus is a good start imo in a hopefully freshish direction.

@twicesmt Yeah I think this has became a new phenomena alongside metacritic bombing.

People who have played a series behind the curve graphically for it's entire 25 years. But now it's supposedly an unforgivable black mark against the games...but only the new ones you can buy today....hmm...

You can tell discussion points of the games are artificially driven by people who never had any interest in the series, targetting superficial areas of the game like the graphics which were never the main appeal of Pokemon.

I'd suspect with 25 tears as a top.RPG and global IP there's probably a lot of resentment from outside the Pokemon fanbase. Because anyone who believes a big game NEEDS to be a graphical spectacle to succeed will get a sore Awakening every 2 years when a Pokemon game releases.

@Dr_Lugae should Pokemon be graphically strong, especially now? Sure thing. I just find it funny that this remains a topic and they make it seem like Pokemon games can do nothing right.

Since they like talking about Pokemon's graphics and technical capabilities and all that stuff... should they police the original games too? Those are far worse even for their time.

@Duboiss Whether something is fun does not matter whom made it, so long as one enjoys the end product or not. The whole point of the graphic argument is basically people not being able to enjoy things beyond how something looks.

Graphics and game lenght are by far less important than gameplay, but they're the factors dictating how much I'm willing to spend on a game. If your product is graphically lagging behind or it's really short, I won't pay more than 25 bucks for it, regardless how fun the gameplay may be, because I can get plenty of fun games for even less than that.

Biggest disappointment is the sound for me, there is almost zero ambiance and a very boring soundtrack. For the graphics, wiiu botw looked better then this, it suprised me this game got a 9. Still, i'm enjoying the game, but with a better sound design and a little better graphics it would be better.

@Dr_Lugae not really sure if there is resentment. people just judge it for what it is and very often has been. pokemon is a bit of a fanboy franchise - people will buy it anyway and defend it to death. its pretty obvious with arceus, would the game been better if it had actually good graphics and polish and effort put in? Probably so.... would it have gotten a better review score and made more money - nope. And thats the funny thing ...

@twicesmt I go back to this: when did Pokemon ever become a graphically-strong franchise to have these kind of expectations? What's the basis for all of this? Should Game Freak utilize the Pokemon Company's literal piles of money to create a more aesthetically-pleasing game? Hell yeah they should.

But in the 25-year history of Pokemon, we should at least come to the realization about how we treat our expectations to this franchise. Does that absolve Game Freak for supposedly bad graphics? No, not at all. But if you're expecting to see something that it's clearly not, that's on you and you're just nitpicking for the heck of it. Just go play something else

This is from people not enjoying the fun of Pokémon itself.

Graphics really don't matter to me. As long as a game is playable and the gameplay is good and fun.

Which also means that a game with beautiful graphics but terrible gameplay and / or story (The last of us, comes to mind here) is worse for me than an "ugly" game with good gameplay. And sure, Pokémon Legends Arceus isn't the most beautiful game out now. (the graphics are decent enough for me) But honestly, it's the most fun I've had in a game for a LONG time.

And to be honest, I also play a lot of retro games. And even today I like those a lot more than all of the "cinematic experiences" out there.

I currently rank Legends Arceus on a 8,9/10, only downsides are the lack of multiplayer battles and the handholding gameplay.

@Poco_Lypso I don't think graphics make a game better.

Is Final Fantasy in a better state than Pokemon because it focused on graphics? Many don't think they're as good as when they could crank out 3 main entries in a single gen on NES/SNES/PS1. They just take longer and longer to release, constantly delayed and in the end they're not as well liked, and they sell less.

Personally I think the AAA model is a Fools Errand. It's a game of graphical chicken where the costs raise every generation and the number of contenders shrinks each gen will kill themselves off as fewer and fewer developerscan afford to compete. While something like Pokemon will truck along outlasting most of them.

The game is ugly, the end.

But the game is also fun

I don't mind ugly graphics if a game is fun, but fact is that there are plenty better looking Switch games.

Heck even some PS2 and Wii games, resolution aside look better, so while fun this game does prove once again that Gamefreak needs to stepup their game.

And I know they hired extra people for this game and got help from a different studio, but for the graphics that wasn't enough, it's kinda funny how out of the place good the Pokémon models and their animations look, compared to the whole overworld.

But at least the game is fun, however we can not keep accepting this excuse and ignore the problem here, this is the last Pokémon game where I accept this, they really need to keep up with other Switch 3rd party and Nintendo their own developers.

My end conclusion is "mixed feelings".

@Dr_Lugae it depends how you look at it. beautiful graphics and art style are just beautiful to look at. take mario kart 8 on the wii u (or switch) and compare it to the wii game. imagine for a second mk8 would have wii graphics. would it make the game, the racing experience worse? I definitely appreciated the effort. the graphics were very smooth and polished and beautiful. again, they didnt have any effect on the game itself. some games cannot be enhanced at all through graphics, like tetris for example. sometimes art style is very simple yet effective and beautiful on its own, boxboy for example. when it comes to adventure games, open world games, graphics (and polish) make for a more immersive experience. and you are right, it takes more effort and time and there is a danger of making less money. but I think in game freaks case the situtation is totally upside down. its a very rich company who could have easily put in way more effort.

I think the graphics are okayish personally. I actually think Gamefreak make very nice graphics when they're designing small areas. They dont have the expertise yet to make great open areas. And the Switch does not help because it limits texture resolution and is underpowered so unless youre a super experienced dev at doing this you'll struggle.

So far it has a wonderful artstyle, I like the fresh setting and story and the mechanics feel great. I hope this is a stepping stone for future mainline or legends evolves as a standalone spinoff.

I think they are somewhere between okay and janky but maybe I am just used to it with all this absolutely bad Unity Engine Game ports. I mean, you haven't seen janky rough popped up blurry stuttering low detail overworlds on Switch until you experience such things as Grow: Song of the Evertree or Little Dragon's Cafe.

So...ummm...it could be worse...and that's something

And for all this horrible Unity game ports... there is Ori and so we shouldn't live in a world where a cold shiver runs down your spine once this engine logo pops up at the start screen, dear developers.

game freak should be held to a higher standard because they are no indie developer with minimal budget and pokemon is a massive franchise.

to release a game with substandard graphics just comes across as disrespectful to the players, given the developer has the resources to do better on a technical level.

@piecez exactly, just because its a game primarily aimed at kids doesnt mean kids dont deserve better

Don't really care about graphics. If a game has a good art style, cool, but its not a really a game changer either way. It's all about gameplay/fun factor etc. for me. I can have just as much fun with platformer with pixel graphics such as Celeste as I can with a platformer with 3D models such as Crash 4.

A bunch of the complaints with recent Pokemon games are pretty ridiculous imo...nitpicking trees? Really? Each to their own I suppose. 🤷 I guess I can understand the comparisons to BotW ans how PLA should look more akin to that. I also find it funny too, a series that started on Gameboy(black and white graphics and all, with a bunch of ugly looking sprites) and I'm sure most of these folks complaining will tell you that the peak of Pokemon was the gen 1-3 and now we're microanalyzing textures and environmental objects. 😅

@Duboiss The games I mentioned are equally successful compared to a franchise like Pokemon. Feel free to google sales figures. Also, grammar is your friend.

9 hours in and graphics haven't made the game worse for me, they are fine. Superb game and loving it

Personally I’m probably in the minority here but I don’t think the graphics are anywhere near as bad as people are making them out to be. I do think playing this docked makes them look worse but I think the aesthetic looks great playing on my oled model in handheld. That being said I’ve played several games that look worse on the switch so I’m not really bothered I’m enjoying it 🤷‍♂️ and to those that say these trees look like N64 or ps1-2 graphics I do think that’s a bit of a stretch 😂

@Zebetite My first language isn’t English and attacking someone on their grammar is a poor argument.

You also need to know both Minecraft and Among us started from nothing. Pokémon has 20+ years of games and derived products including anime and movies.

Again, different teams and situations, different expectations.

@BloodNinja I already agreed with you on that, and I too have followed Nintendo the same. But I’m referring to ROB, labo, wii remote, GameCube / gba link, wii u game pad, Mario home circuit, fitness boards etc etc. These types of ideas are what I like to see in the industry. Things that can revolutionise the industry and take the enternainment to new levels. Not minor bumps along the road, take fps as a good example, if you look at the difference between the old and new versions of these types of games you’d think we haven’t moved along much at all. And that is what I think about graphics and what they add, just not enough for me. And why I feel Nintendo deserve credit for at least trying.

@victordamazio Whoever is saying that PS2 or Dreamcast games look better than Pokemon Legends obviously was not born back then, lmao. They look nothing like this. Look at open world games on PS2 and compare them to this game. They look like night and day.

However, at the end of the day, we should not forget that Switch is a portable console, hence limited. When GBA was hot, XBox was already out and had far better graphics. Handhelds cannot compare with home consoles, obviously, they are a couple generations behind.

I'm tired of people complaining about graphics. The game looks good and plays great. I'm having a lot of fun with it and that is all that matters to me. Graphics snobs need to reevaluate their lives.

@Trikeboy Most importantly, graphics snobs should not even be here, because not a single Switch game has high end graphics.

Is the video game fun and enjoyable? That is the only important question. Playing classic Pong with a friend is more fun than a lot of modern graphically intensive games.

Graphics matter these days less than they used to because graphics in general are great these days. And this is obviously a cartoon art style so graphics matter a lot less than if it was a hyper realistic art style.

Based off pictures and videos this game to me seems to look fine and even pretty from a distance, other than the horrendous patterned water. But up close I think you notice the deficiencies and the lack of effort, for which there is no reason considering every pokémon game makes an enormous amount of money. It just doesn't make sense, the only thing I can think is that the graphic artists at game freak just aren't very good because they're used to just developing pokémon games for portables and not high-end systems like the Switch (obviously not high-end compared to consoles but very high-end relative to consoles compared to previous portables).

But bad textures and mediocre graphics on a cartoony game like this don't really concern me when pokémon has never been about good graphics. It would be nice for them to be better certainly but it's not a deal breaker. But I do see problems with the fact that there's a ton of pop-up and from one video I saw when a pokémon first popped up kind of far away it had a horrendous frame rate. It seemed like the game was just using a frame rate of like 3fps while the pokémon aren't visible but they popped up on the screen a couple seconds before the frame rate for it went up to normal speed and so it looked horrendous. That's a major issue that takes you out of the game experience. Hopefully game freak does some graphical patches to fix stuff like that which are actual glitches. I don't expect them to redo all the graphics obviously but they should fix the graphical glitches like bad popping up and horrendous animation framerate glitches.

To me it looks fine, but if you're playing a Pokemon game for graphics, I don't know what to tell you

The biggest issue with the graphics is that it makes it feel an AWFULLY LOT like they're not paying their team enough money or giving them enough time/direction to do things right. I like the jank though, it's endearing.

@Troll_Decimator

And I told you already, being on a portable is not an excuse, the Nintendo Switch is still more powerful than a Dreamcast or PS2, it's also more powerful than a PS3 or Xbox 360.

Edit. I won't accept the excuse of cherrypicking, the worst screenshot of Pokémon Arceus should be better than any screenshot of Shenmue 2.

Of course it matters. Graphics don't only include what something looks like, it's always a factor of what can be rendered. I don't know anyone that prefers low density flat plains with a couple of trees to a density and active environment.

For LA, that game looks like a straight PS2 game. It honestly looks worse than remasters of PS2 games like .hack gu. Not just because the textures are blurry and the frame rate is poor, but the animations are so stiff. I remember walking in a rainy area in LA and being surprised that the hat got wet because that detail didn't match the quality of the rest of the game.

This isn't even a comment on the lack of power of the switch, LA looks bad compared to other switch games. MH rise looks great for a switch game even though it's honestly kinda disappointing when it comes to map variety compared to world because of hardware limitations. Rise is as complex on an animation standpoint as world and you can tell they did their absolute best within the limitations they had. LA is not that. They absolutely could have done better and I don't think it's productive to say that it's okay when it's clearly not. I mean, the game is fun, but it would be more fun if I could make out what Pokemon was what at a distance and if the Pokemon and characters actually didn't move like they were in a PS1 game.

I figured out what la looks like. A PSP game. I don't think that acceptable

@Slownenberg the pop in is pretty bad compared to a game like mh rise and stories which is I'll be honestly with you, the exact same gameplay loop wise as LA. The animations are also very poor but what you can't tell from stills is how blurry the game is. It's like it runs at 420p I'm docked mode. It's very, very distracting. I think my main problem is that MH doesn't have this problem even though from a map design standpoint they are the exact same and MH has more going on in a give map, which are typically larger and more dynamic, than LA. Is genuinely frustrating because you can point to something and say, look, this dev obviously figured it out and you have Pokemon money.

It's not that the graphics are bad, it's that it's bad compared to how successful the company. If it was an indie company that's not super popular I'd totally be okay with it. But Pokemon has been a super successful franchise ever since it started which is 25+ years now and there is no excuse why they couldn't do better. So to be it just feels like laziness or them just betting on the franchise to sell itself which just feels disrespectful to their fanbase.

@victordamazio That's called cherrypicking. You selected the best possible angle and nicest area in Shenmue 2 and the least flattering one in Pokemon Legends. You can do the same with any game and make a N64 game look better, but it is entirely disingenuous and dishonest. Not to mention Shenmue runs in 480i and Pokemon Legends in 1080p. Have you tried playing Shenmue 2 now? It's a blurry jagged mess.

Unironically I think modern 3D games should still utilize 2D assets more. BotW and this game do it a little bit, where if certain important objects are beyond draw distance, they'll have a flat sprite that gets loaded in 3D when you're closer. They should do that with everything. Objects swapping between 2D and 3D is way less distracting to me than pop-in.

This game and BotW have both been called "barren" by their fanbases and people freak out about the number of trees. Part of it is if you live in a place with trees, they're everywhere. These wild settings should have towering pine forests. That's too many objects to render? Idgaf, slap a 2D tree line in there. It's what games have always done. It works. The representation is more important than the realism.

@dew12333 While I agree with what you are going for, all those things you mentioned are all forgotten, and frankly, were gimmicks. I’m speaking industry-wide, not individual user basis. If you want two innovations that stuck, look no further than Dance Dance Revolution and Beatmania. Both games are over 20 years old, and are still influencing the industry, with new music and rhythm games coming out in Asian arcades. They just released or are about to release the 28th edition of Beatmania IIDX in arcades, and DDR is still going strong. Even has national and local tournaments. Nintendo is well-known for its eye-catching gimmicks, but I can’t think of anything that you listed that is still to this day influencing the market. I think perhaps the Wii balance board from Wii fit, but the rest of the stuff in the list hasn’t exactly stood the rest of time.

@Dpishere love seeing folks that remember Jet Force Gemini. That game holds a special place.

@echelon Heck yeah, it is legitimately in the running for my favorite game of all time. It's a classic.

I don't mind graphical quality much (I still play 16-colour EGA retro games on my PC)

I even think Sword and Shield looked fine, but outright glitches like the grass going all funky during battles and the purple blotches on the ground are things that do bother me, not aiming for the stars graphically is one thing, but make sure that what you put in works properly.

@MegaVel91 it's ok you that don't understand me, just learn a bit.

@swoose ohhh ok, you aren't into progress.

@victordamazio solid point

@Cyrox The worst screenshot from Pokémon Arceus should be better than any screenshot from Shemnue 2.

Everyone who says: I prefer gameplay over graphics:

Curious. Because I read a lot of fans writing that they don't like of a Call of Duty Warfare because (also) the serious graphics, or the graphics and art of a Halo (boring).....even though these games have excellent and fun gameplay. So yes. Graphics do matter. Nintendo's colorful graphics have always been a huge differentiator. I've only played Pokemon Shield in my life (I've been playing games since 1979 and I have 32 consoles, over 4000 games). I borrowed Pokemon Shield, because I was afraid to buy it and not like it. And yes...Pokemon Shield is really bad. And I can't remember a single good feature. So I won't give Arceus a chance.

@jojobar

almost all Pokemon games look graphicly pretty good. sun and moon is actually one of the best looking games on the system

I heavily disagree, Pokemon has never been graphically impressive on any system it's been on. I think the only pokemon games where the system is being pushed are the spinoff ones, and those aren't even made by Gamefreak themselves.
Sun and Moon aren't anywhere close to being the best looking games on the system. It's artstyle is decent but theres nothing impressive going on at all fidelity wise, Yokai Watch already pulled did it look way before it even came out, plus it actually runs properly unlike Sun and Moon where the framerate dips pretty bad even on the new 3ds xl. I can name dozens of other 3ds games that outclass it in every way.
Heres some to name a few:
MH4U, MH3U, MHG, MHStories (Basically every monster hunter game on the system). MH4U/3U/G have infinitely more impressive models, textures, and mechanics all shoved in their tiny little cartridges on the system and manage to have big areas too. Monster Hunter Stories was basically PLA before it even came out, and it was on the 3ds, you had free roaming monsters that you could battle and huge areas you could explore to your hearts content in a beautiful cell-shaded artstyle and while it did have some framerate issues, it was much less noticeable compared to Sun and Moon and the issues were basically nonexistent on the new 3ds xl.
Mario Kart, Kid Icarus, Xenoblade 3D, and more come to mind but if I were to least all the games that are visually superior to Sun and Moon I would be here all day.

the only ones that i think are graphicly weaker are the switch games and black and white

Well black and white aren't visually impressive either compared to other DS games - Mario Kart ds was fully 3D. All of the Dragon Quest games are visually better easily - the ds remakes of 4-6 had far superior sprites, animations and a much bigger world along with more content. DQMJ and DQMJ2 were the same except they were fully 3D etc.

Point is being Pokemon has never been visually or technically impressive, there have always been many games on the same system that have looked and played more impressive along with being more ambitious. That mostly applies for mainline games, the spinoffs are a different story.

@victordamazio I believe you replied to the wrong person.

Style > Graphic

But this Game failes at both.

@Rykdrew
I have been playing since 1978 and I have 33 consoles, over 4001 games and Pokémon Sword is amazing. Maybe you picked the wrong one.

Pokemon prints money. GameFreak have no excuse for such abysmal graphics. This looks like a PS2 game. Oh wait, they do have an excuse; Pokemon prints money.

@twicesmt it's not like the graphics are passably bad. They're honestly bad enough where it would be a problem if any major release came out looking like this. It's a clear lack of polish that is expected and shown in other games so it should be in this one. Like I use monster hunter to compare to this because LA is a play on mh mostly. MH is clearly a compromise to be the best it can on limited hardware. Like it's barren and the maps are dull compared to world, but that's the switches fault not capcoms. LA is
a blurry laggy less with incredibly stiff animations that wouldn't fly in an indie game or really even any game past a low budget PS2 jrpg from 2005. Like it's not like people should expect greatness from gamefreak, but they should demand better than something dev teams of three people do better. Like my time at Portia looks better.

@iLikeUrAttitude Buddy, having played MH4U, 3U, Generations extensively, and Stories. The only one that beats SuMo outright graphically, is Stories.

All the others are on par or close to the PS2 in terms of graphical fidelity for pretty much everything except FMVs. The graphical style differences are also largely due to a difference in art direction. So not only are you comparing apples and oranges in terms of direction, you're stacking that with multiple games that have the same or similar art direction, and only one that's actually comparable, outside of Yokai Watch, which you mentioned.

If you're gonna argue the graphics by drawing comparisons, at least have the sense to draw said comparisons with games with comparable art durection and style FFS.

@Rykdrew Oh do sod off. You're painting with too wide a brush and you know it. For example, graphics aren't the major reason thise games don't interest me. There are probably plenty of others who are the same way.

@FatWormBlowsASparky I went on to say since I've been playing games and that I'm a game collector, to avoid questions like "are you inexperienced in games or you must have started to know about games now". It was just to skip this kind of discussion.

@MegaVel91 Let's put it another way. For some it is important and for others it is not. Having a game with the exact same gameplay, the better the graphics, the better. The worse the graphics, the worse. So I don't think it's too awesome to just accept bad graphics and be happy with it. I'm not saying this directly in relation to you. But, a lot of people accept anything and are always "great" (as long as it's from the company they love so much).

Buddy, having played MH4U, 3U, Generations extensively, and Stories. The only one that beats SuMo outright graphically, is Stories.

Nope still disagree, every 3ds monster hunter game is easily more visually impressive than Sun and Moon.

All the others are on par or close to the PS2 in terms of graphical fidelity for pretty much everything except FMVs.

Well yes they're going to be "on par" or "close to" the PS2 because at best thats how strong the 3ds is in comparison to that system. You're basically saying "this PS2 game looks like a PS2 game". Though if MH4U and so on are PS2 then SM is closer to a PS1 game.

The graphical style differences are also largely due to a difference in art direction.

Yes, no disagreements here but you're missing the point entirely as I'll explain later on

So not only are you comparing apples and oranges in terms of direction, you're stacking that with multiple games that have the same or similar art direction, and only one that's actually comparable, outside of Yokai Watch, which you mentioned.

Well if you were actually read my comment replying to @jojobar you would see I was responding to his statement:

almost all Pokemon games look graphicly pretty good. sun and moon is actually one of the best looking games on the system

which I replied to and explained why I disagree with him as long as naming other games I think are better looking.
The topic was on pokemon games looking good on their respective systems and I explained why that isn't so, it's not that hard to understand. We weren't comparing specific generes just games in general. And even with a different art direction I would still say that SuMu, or any pokemon game, is nothing special.

If you're gonna argue the graphics by drawing comparisons, at least have the sense to draw said comparisons with games with comparable art durection and style FFS.

Nah I can compare what I want. The discussion was just on graphically impressive games on the 3ds and pokemon in general. In short pokemon has never been visually or technically impressive.

@Xansies I really think it come down to engine choice. MH Rise was built on the RE Engine. An engine that is use for all the recent Resident Evil games and Devil May Cry 5. An engine mainly designed for modern systen and high gaming devices like PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and High end PC, and breath taking visuals and animations.

So the backend was in place with Rise, so they just had to scale down which modern engine are very capable of.

Game freak seems to suffering from what many Japanese developers suffered from during the PS3 and Xbox 360 era, but far worse due to them coming from a handheld device. They are probably still using an engine and tools set designed around the DS and it outdated hardware, but are trying to scale up instead of start from scratch and building something modern.

Having played the game, I honestly don't think the graphics are that bad, although they could certainly stand to be better. Some of the shading on characters feels a bit off to me. The trees don't bother me at all.

To be honest, if it weren't for all the people calling out the graphics being janky, I probably wouldn't have noticed anything too bad.

@Floki Honestly, I thought the dp remakes we're cute and worked. I wouldn't even hate if they just stuck to that and just kept making the same Pokemon game if it means not making games sorta halfway. Like I actually like LA but the performance problems and knowing if someone else did it it would probably be great kills it for me. All the gameplay changes except for getting rid of abilities are great.

I agree that gameplay is more important than graphics, but this shouldn't be used as an excuse for bad graphics in games we know could be better. I'm sure Pokemon Legends is a great game, but we all know nintendo has more than enough money from the franchise to make pokemon better, and from the experience with BOTW and other third party titles (The Witcher 3, Fenyx Rising, Monster Hunter Stories) on the switch we also know the hardware is more than capable of render really good graphics. I'm not saying Pokemon Legends is bad, I'll probably get it, but, yes, the graphics could be better and they're not simply because nintendo don't want to spend money so they will profit more with the game.

The Switch has countless gorgeous looking games, most of which are not very complicated from a technical perspective. "Good graphics" are all smoke and mirrors, clever tricks and artistic direction. Even Call of Duty uses flat sprites in places you'd never notice. Game Freak needs to shape up, slow down, or just hire literally any other studio to do the heavy work for them.

@Mauzuri I'll take good gameplay and graphics over a good soundtrack any day I rarely even play my games with the sound on

I do appreciate good graphics but they are by no means mandatory for a game to be enjoyable. PLA looks fine enough for me anyway so I don't see the issue.
And people are hung up on the trees yet again? Maybe they should go outside and touch some trees.

@Cyrox It's pretty hard to say that Pokemon isn't what a game as successful game should look like graphically, when it is and remains a successful game series.

Something as superficial and surface level as graphics shouldn't be Pokemon's priority. The graphics will improve as the series continues, but in the end they are making the game for people who want to play it, and nobody plays Pokemon for a graphical spectacle.

The idea they need to satisfy some onlookers idea of what a multi-milliion seller series should look like is silly to me. It'd mark the end of the games being designed for the actual players.

@Dr_Lugae I agree that graphics shouldn't be Gamefreak's main focus and pretty much everything except this:

"The idea they need to satisfy some onlookers idea of what a multi-milliion seller series should look like is silly to me. It'd mark the end of the games being designed for the actual players."

I think that there's nothing wrong with companies reaching an expected standard based on their resources and franchise reputation. If this were true, Mario and Zelda titles would have suffered but it isn't the case as it's not like developers focus on one thing. Those games constantly improve on gameplay and graphics as much as possible as they are known/expected to be top sellers of the console and the same applies to other important titles from other companies. There's no reason why Pokemon, Nintendo's most popular franchise, can't do that and also there's no reason for us not to expect them doing it and even less so to "mark the end of the games being designed for actual players" if they do someday.

To be fair, I don't even think the game looks as bad as some people claim, but it's definitely not as good on a technical level as it should be on both graphics and performance. It could and should push the Switch to it's limits as well as be properly optimized just like other pillars of the consoles do. For a game focused on exploration, a lively, vibrant world makes the difference and graphics with good art direction seriously improve that. It's a first entry and kind of a bet so not putting more resources is understandable although it could have damaged the game impressions more than they have considered.

Many games, aren't played for the graphics, but there's a reason why they also try to look as good as possible and that's immersion, which is pretty much what every game needs to achieve through gameplay, graphics, sound and pretty much every aspect that conforms it.

https://vm.tiktok.com/TTPdhGFp3D/

The first handheld game I ever owned was Pokemon Silver (though I'd been playing red and blue on friends' Gameboys for a couple years by then). Nostalgia is probably at least partly to blame here, but I kinda think Pokemon peaked in gen 2 (plus I never owned later gens as a kid)
As an adult, my wife convinced me to try gen 3 (which is where she stopped), and from there we started hunting down copies of most main line games, catching up just in time to play sword and shield at launch (though we did skip ultra sun and moon since I didn't really like gen 7)

So having played through most of the franchise as an adult, I would have to agree that the format is a little tired. Personally, I feel that the issue is that Pokemon moved to 3D with gen 6 without adapting much at all beyond just making the sprites 3D (and many of the older gen sprites were gorgeous). The gen 8 DLC was the first step towards embracing a 3D world, and it's looking like Legends is another step.

So while I do think the format is tired, I'm going to keep playing the new ones as they come out (at least for now 🙂)

Well, if compared to other Nintendo games I often found pokemon lacking two things when the main series jumped to 3D: visual direction and polish.

Legends Arceus has good visual direction, but by god it does lack polish, so much. It is one of the main reason people say GameFreak is lazy, their games often lack that final polish, as if they know the product will sell and shouldn't invest too much time in it.

@MegaVel91 Forgot to mention you in my last comment scroll up to see my reply.

@Snatcher please don't normalize pokemon being suck.

@templag What? Pokemon being suck?

@Dr_Lugae you know, I think the majority of pokemon fan will surely wait if game freak wants to delay their game release, just to make sure that everything is polished accordingly. Some people really hate half-baked efforts.

If you want to create game with large area, you have to make sure that the game can achieve that. Game with large area is not something new. They have a lot of good and terrific examples in out there. They just have to adapt and improve it.

It's not about their priority. If they want to create a semi open world game, please create it the right way. Take MH rise for example.

@Snatcher If they want to create a semi open world game, please create it the right way. This game looks half-baked in my opinion.

@templag K. I think it looks fine tho.

The graphics are an improvement over Sword and Shield. With GameFreak games you mostly have to compare with their previous games and not other games. The pokemon games always were behind graphically compared to other games on the same system.

For me, graphics don't need to be "ultimate quality" or "ultra realistic" BUT, when textures are so bad, you can compare it to games from pre-playstation 3, there's a problem. Same goes for performance. I feel like the next switch should ABSOLUTELY target 60fps by any means necessary. 30fps feels janky once i made the full time switch to pc. Higher refresh rate matters a lot to me because it reduces the latency. I'm in a spot where if the next switch still targets 30fps, i'm out. I feel like nintendo should make the switch to a custom ryzen chip in order to offer compatibility with AMD's FSR or stay with nvidia and create a chip that allows DLSS. These would help a lot in boosting performance in games.

Pokemon is the IP that makes the most money, in the entire WORLD. They HAVE the money to invest in better graphics and optimisation. They are just saving that money. If the game looked way better, they'd sell even more copies. The game is the most fun I had playing a Pokemon game in ages, but it looks like a game that would run on mobile. And the low res textures and ugly graphics break the immersion for me from time to time.

It exists just so they can test the water for future "open world" Pokemon games (and to promote their last holiday titles, those remakes).

They didn't spend much money on the graphics, that's just their (and maybe Nintendo's) choice they made.

The point is it was and always will be a year on year franchise that makes baby-steps forward. And since it always will sell, they will always cut corners (now with the graphics for example). It would be much better if they released a main-game once a 5 years, with a huge team and huge money behind it. That way the game will be much better with much bigger steps forward and much better overall. But it won't happen.

@brunojenso nice take, and I largely agree.

Graphics do matter to me in terms of art direction, because that can set the mood and tone. Resolution hardly ever bothers me. It's all about creating a larger picture of a different world.

To step outside if Nintendo, some people gripe on the dumbest graphical things that would do nothing to the integral experience. PS5 users are saying GOW Ragnarok must have must feature trees that can be chopped down, and people criticized Halo for the fruit physics of all things.

@BloodNinja Hi, sorry for slow reply. I also had to reply as I knew you was going to use the 'gimmick' word, I almost used it myself when I was writing. And I have to agree that is fair, most of them are long gone but not forgotten here lol. But I have to again, in my usual blind nintendo fan way, defend nintendo because they have pushed the industry in what I feel is the right direction. I also feel that many gamers should be moving to PC gaming as surely this is where the best of the best is? But maybe Sony and Microsoft san see that future and this is the basis for them buying all the games makers.

Can't agree on the dance mat though, just because it is famous in one part of the world doesn't mean it's not a gimmick to everyone else. And I have the world championships for pea shooting held annually local to me.

The grass glitching about was the one thing that broke immersion for me. It's sudden, obvious, and needs fixing.
So hopefully it will actually get fixed, rather than ignored.

Other than that, I didn't mind the graphics. I thought they were a lot better than SwSh, and wouldn't mind if the series moved to a style like this permanently.
It undoubtedly could look better... but it looks a lot better than some other Switch games, like something like Little Dragon's Cafe.

It certainly matters to me, but not in the sense most people usually think about: Not all games need to have hyper-realistic, high-def graphics to be fun.

There are also more than enough old games with extremely dated graphics that are still tons of fun. We still love the N64 too, right?

However...
Graphics are part of the presentation. For me it's comparable to a website of a big company; it should look professional and solid to radiate quality and trust. If the Samsung website was Comic Sans with yellow backgrounds you'd really question their products. They might get away with that in the 90's , but not anymore nowadays.

It's the same with this game. The Switch is more than powerful enough to make a game look way better. GF/Nintendo/PokemonCompany have more than enough budget and resources. There is no excuse for it to look like a cheap assetflip.

They could have spent way more time on developing a minimalistic, simple art direction that actually looks nice even though the graphics are still generally simple. Should have went for a way more "painteresque" style for this game with a focus on color; that way the blurryness can be used to its advantage.

@dew12333 DDR is famous around the world lol

When they're stylized, it's different than trying to look realistic & being horrible (like most games were on ps2, for example, but Okami looked amazing).

@BloodNinja maybe where you come from but not here, lol

@SwitchForce @Astral-Grain People are Comparing it to breath of the wild because all of the the games marketing made it look like it was going to be like breath of the wild.

The graphics here still aren't that bad, they just could be better.

Let me explain: Sky stuttering is just a small graphical glitch. Pokémon and people at least pop much less than in SWSH (the world draw distance is the real issue). That weird "oddly harsh" lighting? It's called High Dynamic Range lighting, and it can be intensive on GPU. Grass jumps around because it's actually interactive, the game even has a wind simulation system!

Okami is undoubtely a beautiful game, but the aesthetic is also made to be simpler. Ever played Ghost of Tsushima? That game combined realism with a feudal Japanese context, and succeded.

And yes, graphics in games like this do matter, because you, the player, are immersing yourself in a self-mission of exploring everything the game has to offer.
The graphics here aren't magnificently great, but they're not that bad either. Definitely the best-looking mainline game to date.

What really hurts me is the bad performance (frame rates).