SwSh Not EVERY Pokemon will be able to transfer in Sword and Shield; More on Dynamax

[Mercedes-Benz]

In an interview with Junichi Masuda, he brought up the selection of Pokemon for the Galar Region. He states:

"There are a couple of different parts to the thinking behind it, but really the biggest reason for it is just the sheer number of Pokemon. We already have well over 800 Pokemon species, and there's going to be more added in these games. And now that they're on the Nintendo Switch, we're creating it with much higher fidelity with higher quality animations. But even more than that, it's coming down to the battle system. We're making sure we can keep everything balanced and give all the Pokemon that appear in the games a chance to shine.
We knew at some point we weren't going to be able to indefinitely keep supporting all of the Pokemon, and we just found that Sword and Shield would probably be a good point to go back and reevaluate what would be the best selection of Pokemon that appeal to the widest audience while keeping into consideration the balance of the battle system. It isn't just going to be all-new Pokemon in the Galar region Pokedex; there's still going to be a lot of favorites that fans will be able to bring over that they've adventured with previously. But yeah, it was pretty much just balancing and getting this optimal selection of Pokemon for the adventure we wanted to provide."

It was also confirmed by Serebii.net.

" Within the interview with Masuda and Ohmori, it was confirmed that there is currently no decision to bring the existing Pokémon that can't be in Sword & Shield back into the game using patches, but those that don't will still have an active role in Pokémon HOME. It also stated that Mega Evolutions and Z-Moves will not appear in Sword & Shield."

With this, Mega Evolved Pokemon and Z-Crystals have been entirely removed from Sword and Shield, making Dynamax Pokemon the prominent battle mechanic.

For those unfamiliar with Dynamax, it is a new mechanic exclusive to Pokemon Sword and Shield in which a Pokemon is super-sized for three turns, giving it a buff in its stats as well as access to upgraded moves in the form of Max Moves. It has also been revealed that each Pokemon has a "Dynamax Level", although nothing is clear on this. Perhaps it is a charge mechanic; after a certain amount of turns, Pokemon are able to Dynamax and use Max Moves for 3 turns.


This topic certainly has got a lot of mixed reactions and has sparked some controversy in Pokemon's community. What are your thoughts and opinions of Game Freak not being able to implement every Pokemon species into Sword and Shield, as well as removing Mega Evolution and Z-Moves entirely?

 

[InfiniteDream]

Honestly they could just delay the game and prepare the models and animations to last generations maybe give more popular Pokemon more special treatment, i don't think we NEED a new Pokemon game every 2 or 3 years I just want a solid no hold back experience, very little gimmicks just mastering the mechanics we have now. but oh well I don't think Pokemon is for me anymore hope everyone who plays will enjoy it

edit: I would be accepting if they added Pokemon in updates though . still I feel like there is much more they can do than what they are.

 

[James]

Honestly they could just delay the game and prepare the models and animations to last generations maybe give more popular Pokemon more special treatment, i don't think we NEED a new Pokemon game every 2 or 3 years I just want a solid no hold back experience, very little gimmicks just mastering the mechanics we have now. but oh well I don't think Pokemon is for me anymore hope everyone who plays will enjoy it

edit: I would be accepting if they added Pokemon in updates though . still I feel like there is much more they can do than what they are.

They could delay the game, but it'll make everyone unhappy.
I do agree that we don't need a new Pokemon game every 2-3 years, but..

 

[Artisan]

If they want a balanced Pokémon game then getting rid of legendaries is the way to go. They can appear and just not be caught making it more feasible to be a trainer and not make Pokémon more fake. Eliminating Event Legendaries from later generations or mons with exclusive typings might help too. Imo I want to see a gen 3-5 battle system where there's no OP move or Mega and still have a lot of variety with the Pokémon and moves but take a couple moves out as well. We don't need multiple moves that have the same or similar effect like Splash or oddball moves like Confide or Attract. The typing chart looks alright and there isn't really a whole lot of busted mons until you try Doubles strats like Frost Breath Anger Point or Skill Swap. We also need a doubles ability that is like Intimidate for special attackers. I think if they change a lot of little things it can be an even better series and I'm curious to see which Pokémon are thrown in the Trubbish.

 

[InfiniteDream]

They could delay the game, but it'll make everyone unhappy.
I do agree that we don't need a new Pokemon game every 2-3 years, but..

People won't be happy but we spend so much money on pokemon and get just a taste of what it could be. There is a reason other games take much longer development cycles. It pays off in content and we avoid the problem we have now where there are more pokemon than the series can evolve with. But once again that's just my opinion if it's a good game then that's great. I still think pokemon could benefit heavily from dlc(if reasonably) which im hoping this is the route taken

 

[TheSpiritedWarrior]

I play Pokémon casually, and I'm sure it's the case with most people. Very few people collect every single pokemon from all the games and transfer them, so more development time towards porting older pokemon isn't worth the wait for a small percentage of hardcore pokemon players.

 

[Pandaxclone2]

I find this to be quite ridiculous on Gamefreak's behalf. Their reasoning for not including all the Pokemon boils down to basically animation and modelling that they can't implement in time for their release date.

The models are by far the most ridiculous reason, since all their previous Pokemon models from XY up to USUM have higher poly-counts than the 3DS needs. They've been effectively future-proofing those models since 2013, and those have been used in both Pokemon GO and Pokemon Let's Go, so it's not as if it's going to be hard for them to import those models (and their incidental animations) over to Sword and Shield.

The animations seems to be their next reason as to why they can't pop them all in, as even with those models, they still need to polish the animations up to work with the Switch. This would include the Dynamax feature. I would argue that at least having the complete National Dex list of Pokemon would take priority over any custom animations they might want to add, since as far as we've seen with the footage in Sword and Shield the animations are still quite minimalist.

https://twitter.com/shofu/status/1138881819523182592

Even giving them the benefit of the doubt that this is not the final game footage, it wouldn't be too hard to ask them to insert new custom animations with DLC updates.

The only other excuse they have going for them is the release date, which has been strictly set by themselves. It should go without saying, that if they need more time (which is a big "if" since they've been working on these games since at least 2016), then they should delay the release of Sword and Shield until they have all the Pokemon inserted in the game. As for the possibility of adding the Pokemon in via patches, that idea has been pretty much shot down by Gamefreak too. They would rather let this be a fresh new start with an incomplete Pokemon list, than implement all prior Pokemon through patching.

Quite frankly, I am not happy about this as a Pokedex completionist, as well as many other fans who can't play the game with their favourite Pokemon. This is a dangerous move that Gamefreak is playing, so for their sake I hope they come to their senses and put the National Dex list back in.

 

[Dowhat?]

The only reason I like this, is cause it will be real easy to complete the Dex and get shiny charm now. Hopefully they at least have all starters in or I'll be sad.

 

[Hibiki_Kuze]

Can't help but feel Masuda's response to this whole controversy will only fuel the flames. Not helped by the fact that the animations are unchanged. This isn't just about "my fav pokes aren't in the games" thing imo - if the animations were vastly improved and optimised for the Switch it'd be fine, but Gamefreak just seems to be cutting corners without actually improving anything. All my opinion of course.

Thank you to all of our fans for caring so deeply about Pokémon. Recently, I shared the news that some Pokémon cannot be transferred to Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield. I've read all your comments and appreciate your love and passion for Pokémon.
Just like all of you, we are passionate about Pokémon and each and every one of them is very important to us. After so many years of developing the Pokémon video games, this was a very difficult decision for me. I'd like to make one thing clear: even if a specific Pokémon is not available in Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield, that does not mean it will not appear in future games.
The world of Pokémon continues to evolve. The Galar region offers new Pokémon to encounter, Trainers to battle, and adventures to embark on. We are pouring our hearts into these games, and we hope you will look forward to joining us on this new journey. .

 

[Scraggy32]

Honestly, I don't care about the limitations speaking in terms of transferring Pokemon. I'm sure it wasn't an easy decision for Game Freak to make. When you consider that the Pokemon count is almost at 1,000 it would be clearly obvious that they knew that at some point they couldn't add all the past pokemon in there. I've seen a lot of toxic stuff on twitter and I even heard that people were sending death threats over it! It's just plain wrong. I still plan on getting the Sword and Shield games and it would give me a great opportunity to use some of the New Pokemon that will be in there. I have always respected Masuda to this day, and I always will.

 

[Starry Windy]

As for me, when I first heard about these Pokémon transfer omissions, I'm a bit disappointed even though I don't quite mind as long as I get to have some fun gameplay in Sword and Shield. While I understand that there are so many Pokémon to manage with, I'm also saddened when this news caused huge backlash, so at the end, I'll look cautiously on how it will bring, even though I'm still considering to get Sword and Shield regardless.

And maybe it's a wishful thinking from me yet, but I hope they'll add the rest of the Pokémon via updates of some kind to ease the tensions from several fans.

 

[Scraggy32]

Lately on twitter I've been coming across posts about people claiming that Masuda has raped them! This whole thing is really starting to get out of hand. Everyone is acting like as if there isn't gonna be a whole lot of pokemon in the Gen 8 games (We don't even know the full pokedex yet and already people are jumping to conclusions) It's just sad that people would say stuff like that to Masuda!

 

[InfiniteDream]

Lately on twitter I've been coming across posts about people claiming that Masuda has raped them! This whole thing is really starting to get out of hand. Everyone is acting like as if there isn't gonna be a whole lot of pokemon in the Gen 8 games (We don't even know the full pokedex yet and already people are jumping to conclusions) It's just sad that people would say stuff like that to Masuda!

its the internet and crazy people exist for attention. which is being given to them... so don't give it to them