Pokemon: GENERATION EIGHT, SWORD AND SHIELD!

WOOOOOOOOO

And I thought the Detective Pikachu trailer was all I am going to have to talk about Pokemon this week. Or month. But apparently the announcement dropped earlier today that... hey, we got the eighth generation confirmed, complete with a trailer! No Sun and Moon announcement nonsense where it's just the title and a bunch of non-informative stuff for three months after the first announcement, either. We get a straight-up trailer!

The new region is apparently called Galar region, and it sort of has an interesting design where it's very... it's somewhat linear in a way, where it's this basically just a climb from the starting town on the south of a long continent and you make your way through the cooler parts of the region? We've never had something like this, I don't think, where most previous regions were laid out that you sort of do a rotation around a circle as you travel around the map. I'm not particularly sure what the actual inspiration for Galar is, though -- people are saying European, and I definitely could see it.


And, if nothing else, the god damned game's graphics look gorgeous. I'm slightly disappointed -- but not surprised -- that we're getting the same, identical 3D models that we've been having since X and Y, but I guess there's only so much you can do with 3D graphics without going straight into Detective Pikachu levels of attempted detail.

Like, look at the locales being shown! We've got a small farming town, some huge stadium, a misty forest, a bustling city (okay, yeah, that city does look London-y), a snowy scape, that pretty underground mine... perhaps the most intriguing is the shot at 0:50 in the trailer where there seem to be some bizarre markings carved onto the side of the hill, like alien crop circles or something. Just Deoxys having a lark, or maybe something genuinely new?

I also do like that the specific shots that they chose seemed to highlight people's worries about Let's Go. Wild battles are still a thing, so the games are not 'dumbed down' like the Let's Go games. I love Let's Go, but I also don't want them to be anything more than a one-off. I do find it a bit of a shame that neither partner Pokemon following you from behind nor Pokemon in the overworld are a thing. I had genuinely expected one of those two to be carried over to the mainline series... boo.

At least we do know that Pokemon from all generations are going to be around, with the trailer showing an eclectic selection of Pokemon from all generations. We've got Pikachu, of course, but we also have representatives from basically every single generation briefly glimpsed throughout the battles, so that's nice. I really do hope that the selection won't be quite as bare-bones as Sun and Moon were, and that it's more akin to XY. 


Most important, though, and probably one that is most relevant to everyone, is the revelation of the three starters, and... and I'm not the biggest fan? I don't flat-out hate any of them, I think, but I do feel like these feel a bit off to me. I don't know... it's less than an hour since I saw the trailer, but my gut feeling tells me that I'm probably only going to enjoy the water starter, Sobble, which is basically a shoo-in. Although being an adorable little shy gecko creature, he's already a shoo-in for me regardless of what the other two choices are. I don't super-love him yet, but I'll let him grow on to me the way previous starters did. That face, in particular, is pretty precious, and I do like his little... chameleon ability? That's cool, even if it's not something that's actually going to affect actual gameplay.

And not to hate on the other two, but I just find them kind of... they're just there? Scorbunny, the fire starter, was the first one we see, and he's a strange example where I think the official 2D art actually makes him look more charming than the 3D model. Usually, and especially with Generation VI and VII Pokemon, it's the other way around, where I see the official artwork and go "uhhh" before looking at the Pokemon's in-game model and going "shit, I like this". That was my reaction to Florges, to Zygarde, to Alolan Muk, and a bunch of others I'm sure is documented elsewhere in this blog. But I look at Scorbunny and I just feel like he's a 3D mascot for a cheap commercial, y'know? I'm really not feeling him, and he's a design that I think would grow on me through watching the anime or reading manga featuring him. (He does lend credence to the Chinese Zodiac Fire-starter theory deal, huh?)

Grookey is a bit cuter, being a baby chimp. Certainly a cuter-looking baby monkey than Pansage, but I've never been the biggest fan of monkeys. That's more on me and less on Grookey, though, and he's easily my second-favourite in the bunch. I don't have a whole ton to say about him.

And the logos for the Sword & Shield game are... interesting? I'm not sure if the wolf-like crests are just an artistic style, or if we're actually getting wolf legendaries. They kinda look the same for both logos, so I assume it's the former rather than the latter.

Ultimately I'm just still very happy to see a new Pokemon game, and hope we get more concrete details in the days to come! Honestly, I'm in a huge Pokemon mood right now after the dual trailers of Sword and Shield and the Detective Pikachu movie. I'll whip up something to recap my progress through Let's Go Pikachu, and then we'll see if I can't do some Pokemon-related reviews.