Pokedex limited Pokemon Sword and Shield is a huge problem for fans

Everything is not going well in the world of pocket monsters. The official Pokémon Twitter account is be inundated with angry fans. The latest gameplay for Pokemon Sword and Shield is massively voting on YouTube. The subreddit Pokémon is full of worrying subjects, some vowing not to buy the game at all. For a moment, a hashtag was even fashionable on social networks: #bringbacknationaldex.

The hashtag refers to a current feature of Pokémon in which players are allowed to have a complete pokedex of monsters once they have defeated the main game. Whenever new games appear, they introduce new monsters and the title will limit you to this directory to help you get to know the new cast. But this is only temporary. You can optionally import your entire collection into the game in question.

Not so in Pokemon Sword and Shield. As announced earlier this week, producer Junichi Masuda said that only Pokémon in the Galar region would be available in Sword and shield. According to Masuda, the ever-growing list of Pokémon (which now has more than 800 creatures), combined with the functionality of the Nintendo Switch switch, makes importing all monsters into new games difficult. The goal was to represent the collection with "much higher fidelity with higher quality animations" compared to what we had seen before, Masuda told USGamer. Some familiar faces will be back, as each new region includes older Pokémon. But the Galar region will only be home to Galar Pokemon.

Masuda's comments immediately displeased Pokémon fans. Part of the problem is that Masuda's explanation does not really make sense, at least at first glance. He talks about improving animations, but Pokemon games have always featured limited movements on the battlefield. For example, one of the floating viral Tweets presents the dichotomy between what Masuda says and what the games actually show:

The problem with this line of thinking is that we do not really know which animations Masuda refers to. As far as we know, the extended animations could refer to Pokémon Amie, which allows us to pet and pamper our favorite buddies. An increasingly convincing leak of Pokemon Sword and Shield indicates that the upcoming game will allow you to camp with your Pokémon and that in doing so, you will be able to play with them, prepare them and feed them with curry. As camping did not exist in previous games, it is possible that the custom-made animations Masuda is talking about are not battles – this is where Pokémon has placed his animation resources.

Another part of the narration that feeds this reaction comes from the piracy scene, which is familiar with how Pokémon games are built. As pirates say, the models in play are reused from previous games.

Of course, this is difficult to confirm – but it certainly influences much of the angry rhetoric I've seen float. But again, even if they are reused templates, it does not take into account the time needed to create hundreds of new animations for the new features. Beyond the potential camping mechanic, we also have Dynamaxing, as well as anything that has not been shown yet. People are working with limited information at the moment.

It may sound like an answer, but that's largely due to Pokémon's permanent identity. At one point, the franchise's slogan was "you have to understand everything". Although this phrase still appears from time to time, on the whole it has been removed from the official slogan. Even so, players continue to approach Pokemon this way. People like to hunt for complete collections, spending endless hours tracking down rare monsters. Others spend their time chasing bright Pokémon. And when you've been able to transfer your game collection into play for years, it means you're starting to attach to these digital creatures. Every monster has a story. People do not want to lose that.

Part of the dissonance here is that Game Freak, the developers, are encouraging this type of gaming approach. Hardcore players pay for the privilege of putting their monsters in the cloud, to preserve them for future games. For some, it's like a slap to pay for something you can not use in the latest games.

Game Freak / The Pokemon Society

So, to a certain extent, the surf makes sense: people have spent years playing Pokémon in a specific way, and they expect to be able to do exactly that forever. Criticism and disappointment were inevitable. But, in some ways, the backlash has become uncontrollable. Many shocked players call Game Freak "lazy" for not bringing the entire compendium of 800 monsters in Sword and Shield, which is a wild thing to say.

There is no lazy game developer. Even disappointing or "bad" games are often a work of love and crisis. I believe that Masuda, when he says that the animation of more than 800 monsters is hard work. I mean, look at the battle animations that are scrambling right now: Yes, Scorbunny's attack is just a stock animation. But Scorbunny still has a specific idling animation that runs as this attack occurs. This animation must have taken time and effort, and it is not a resource that can be reused for any other non-rabbit monster.

The problem is not laziness. The problem, if you can call it that, is a difference of priorities. If Game Freak thought it was important that all Pokedex be available in the Galar area, that's exactly what it would do. Instead, the developer seems to be focusing on other parts of the game. We know that Sword and Shield will have raids, an open world, extensive online capabilities and a 3D camera, all with enhanced graphics. So we know that Game Freak strives to make a good game, but that effort is simply not going where fans want it. This gap allows people to easily abandon Game Freak's existing vision for the game.

Right now, fans are trying to catch the attention of Game Freak and convince them to change course. This might not work – Masuda says that there is currently it is not planned to modify the Compendium via future updates. But unless something changes, we'll probably see a speech on the missing National Dex until the publication of Sword and Shield.