u/Thisisthewayto95

… for the game to just feel more fluid. For instance you initiate a wild encounter, maybe a ! appears and the corners of the screen highlight to indicate battle mode. Pokémon appears instantly by your side to battle.

But you can press B to instantly flee. Basically things should feel more ‘on the spot’ rather than a transition to where you as the player repositions and you get taken away from your spot.

If your avatar is standing too awkwardly close to the Pokémon, your avatar can just auto move back to make some distance while your Pokémon are battling with each other.

Trainer battles on the other hand should work like in Champions, maybe even with the full animations, since I think battles are more of a spectacle.

Like say it’s still turn based, would you prefer the mapping to moves they did in z-a? It would still slow it down a bit so it’s focused on strategy.

- Graphics - yes, but how flattering they are also depends on how smart they are with the camera. If it's constantly zooming in at the wrong time, it'll expose low-res textures.

- Battle speed - I definitely expect it - battles will initiate more fluidly, and I think you'll be able to physically yeet yourself (RUN) out of battle like in Legends. I think this is going to improve gameplay quite a bit.

- Animations - spoiler alert - I think this will be smoothed out to some degree. The fast-catching leak showed the character moving sideways, and they had more fluidity to them, it didn't feel so janky.

- Exploration - even if they still do 'passageway caves' or uninteresting caves in general, we know we are getting spoiler alert - deep sea exploration, and Pokémon that can help us navigate, like Lumineon lighting up the water, which already guarantees more immersion.

What other improvements do you think are inevitable?

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Do you think missions is going to be a thing, like a constant achievement loop of ticking boxes, getting achievements done as you go along? So say you rock up at an area with certain types of Pokémon and unlock a mission to do X amount of this, which can help you toward your main goal (like get a special item to help you defeat a guardian Pokémon).

This means you can't just charge in to go beat the boss Pokémon (well you could try), but you also have choices of 'how' you're going to carve your path to get there.

Also spoiler alert, fast catching seems to be returning (at least they were testing it), so I can imagine a faster paced game. That is why I think having a lot more to do overall is important, otherwise you'd just power through. What are your thoughts?

This isn't a post to bash the game, I really think it will push boundaries, but I'm also expecting things to not be in it, too.

The biggest compromises I expect are:

• No rideable Pokémon - just Rotom Scooter
• No petting Pokémon with your trainer's hands - a pop up appears and you just pet your Pokémon with a cursor
• Another basic cooking feature - Indonesian style, like skewers served on big palm leaves. I'd like to be able to feed Pokémon like we did with poffins.
• Postgame is just rematching guardian Pokémon/gym leaders/doing raids.
• DLC is just one part again, and focuses on an area which reuses existing game assets (like lots of mini islands), but adds new quests, Pokémon and legendaries (plus some juicy story, like how S/V did)
• Most buildings aren't enterable, but at least Pokémon Centers are (trailer shows interior)
• No secret bases, but DLC adds a little area in an island where you can do some customisation
• Game adds missions, though it's mainly fetch quests like in Z-A, but the main story beats are nice

Spoiler alert.

On the positive, though, I really do expect:

• Fast catching added (a leaked video showed this mechanic being tested)
• Better animations - when the character moved sideways in the leak it was less stop-start and more flowy. I think nicer animations would vastly improve the game, making it feel tactile, rather than a clunky engine spitting out scenes.
• More fluid feeling battles - another spoiler - leaks say you'll be able to move around in battles like in Arceus, which made it so much more enjoyable, and more tactile.
• A better storyline - I enjoyed S/V's twist, and I expect some cool twists and turns, especially with spoiler - a land development villainous group being involved, and potentially a really interesting champion.
• Better exploration - spoiler - we know for sure that there's deep sea exploration, and a Pokémon that lights the sea up for you. That on its own is a huge step up from S/V, which just didn't feel it had variety in biomes. The most it had was boring caves that didn't deep enough that you felt far away from sunlight.

Would I be happy with these compromises? Yes I would, only if the game gets its main focus right. I don't think it's about quantity, but rather sticking to the experience it wants to and seeing it through.

What are your thoughts? What features would you really want and be happy to compromise for (and what?)

For those convinced Winds and Waves will still not be the standard we want from Pokémon, what do you think WILL be better? What does your gut tell you that despite the setbacks, is inevitably going to improve?

I know they had PLA to test things out in between, but do you think WiWa will be considered a big a leap as Sw/Sh was to SV, or more incremental?

I mean ideally in my head, it will be more incremental. We saw in Tera leak their early prototypes had way better graphics (barred by switch 1) so it’s just a matter of doing more of the same but with extra polish and more reason to explore. This is good because it’s not that huge a jump for them, so they spend time on refining.

Or you may disagree.

Your thoughts?

It often gets overlooked as the popular topic is new forms, new Pokémon, legendaries, etc. But what features or cool new aspects of the game would you like to see? Things that just add to the game and make it more fun.

Spoilers alert.

I'm going off a lot of concepts from the Tera Leak.

Wishlist item 1 - Good exploration

According to the leak, a key theme is exploration.

Leaked screenshot of possible deep sea exploration

I feel that incentive is important for exploration. And I have a simple idea, that isn't a fancy achievements list, but simply "how can Pokémon help us?"

Imagine catching a bunch of Lumineon then having them all light up together.

Likelihood of wish - 3.5 out of 5

It might end up being a basic "flash" replacement, but I'm hopeful they'll take it further since it's Switch 2. It would entice us further into the world, opposed to just lots of empty space.

Wishlist item 2 - Better catching and battling

https://preview.redd.it/j3lhyj4gnygh1.png?width=642&format=png&auto=webp&s=4a53bc857f7922b0a2bd37d35e5a470819d84ffc

A recent leak suggests fast catching may be coming. To differentiate it from Legends though, if a Pokémon isn't caught, you get pulled into battle. Also if Pokémon faint, you can't try to catch them like in Z-A.

I'd bring back the auto-battle feature, but this time you can 'sneak' auto-battle (to replace SV's sneak throw a ball and start a battle). This just saves your Pokémon from losing some HP in the auto-battle. I'd also keep wild encounters the same but make running away easier.

Likelihood of wish - 4.5 out of 5 - I really do think this will mostly happen, and it will be a noticeably smoother experience. SV feeling clunky (due to hardware too) is a thing of the past.

Bonus Wishlist Item - 'Charging' Pokéballs to fast catch

The leak appears to show a 'charge' meter. Perhaps you accumulate energy (through battling or collecting?) which increases your meter (or it's a focus thing?). Again, this layers the system, so you aren't just spam catching Pokémon, and it distinguishes the game from Legends.

Wishlist Item 3 - Riding and petting Pokémon

They can add a new petting UI by pushing the joystick down, triggering a 'ring' style menu with petting options

To me this is actually a big deal. This is what will make the game feel "next generation". Look at Palworld, they are doing this already and it's time Pokémon make a case.

Let's hope the extra dev time allows this. I'm fine with the game having 400 Pokémon vs 500 just to get rideable and pettable Pokémon. The leak so far also shows Pokémon syncing to Rotom Scooter. No I don't want that - I want rideable Pokémon (or hold onto them, like Lumineon's fins).

Likelihood of wish - 3 out of 5

The petting I'll believe when I see it. I'm not too optimistic on riding because of the Rotom Scooter. But if they have to, at bare minimum, have 20 rideable Pokémon, and an explanation like 'special traversal' Pokémon. To be honest though, I still think that's not enough and we should have every 'mon big enough rideable.

Wishlist Item 4 -

5 storylines

On another note, get rid of the left side menu in map UI. Too much going on.

3 main stories like SV, with an addition of 2 minor ones. Improve writing so it's not 'oh I happen to bump into the same guy in different spots across the map - what a coincidence.' Have a few moments where, say a rival pings you that they are nearby, but you can say no to meeting. This makes the world feel more like yours.

Also vary the stories a bit - in SV, the Team Star and Titan stories were same-same - raid a base and fight a boss to get Herba Mystica. This time, each storyline should have different events within it - evil team shows up here - a boss Pokémon rampages here - etc. so it's less 'things waiting for you' and more 'what's going on over here?'.

Gyms could also have extra storylines e.g. A gym needs to be relocated due to a storm, or even a gym receives unauthorised sponsorship from the evil team, resulting in a leader needing to leave.

Likelihood of happening - 3.75 out of 5 - l definitely think there'll be more story, as it's been a focus of theirs, but neat touches like the ones I've mentioned, I'll see when I believe.

Wishlist Item number 5 (final) - Improve cutscenesssss (please!)

https://preview.redd.it/v0f3wdnjwygh1.png?width=860&format=png&auto=webp&s=168fb27682eab8997db5939a61c02bbdd7fe52e6

Initially I had an idea of cutscenes you can move around in them, so it feels like things are happening with you. That would be nice, but at this point, I just want better cutscene editing.

What I mean is - less time watching your character stop what they are doing, reset to a neutral position, then turn their whole body to look at something.

I also feel cutscenes just happen too often. Legends Z-A was egregious for constantly stopping you. It had the longest tutorial ever, and I felt it badly in the DLC, when I was just trying to get to Darkrai but the game kept stopping me for dialogue.

Part of being a 'next generation game' should be making it feel like I'm 'still in the game' - I think too many cutscenes take away from that. At the very least, a skip button for long ones please?

Conclusion

If you've read this far - thank you. What are your thoughts on these ideas? What are your ideas? Please share!

Game Freak have reaally experimented with the UI the last few games, with PLA, SV and ZA all having pretty different UIs.

They tend to change the UI up every game so each one is distinctive, though I notice Legends games are more distinctive than title pairs, which makes sense.

What would you like to see the same / see change, do you think it should take anything from ZA’s UI (like arrow buttons to throw a Pokémon out), be more similar to SV or something else entirely new?

We know from the past that game freak have team A and team B, now that was quite a while ago now, I’m sure they’ve expanded, and they’ve also been working on other projects like Beasts of Reincarnation.

Anyhow I thought, what if after Z-A Game Freak concentrated all staff on WiWa so they have all hands on deck until the 2027 launch, so we get a strong game. It’s by the far the most important game so why not concentrate all stations on it.

They can use the extra time/ resources for polish like a lot of rideable/pettable Pokémon and a more engaging world you can enjoy exploring.

I think with Palworld being a big topic, and how you can just jump on pals and ride them around, they’d be missing out if they didn’t add that.

Spoiler alert - a known leaker has mentioned recently that the developers want an experience where you feel close to the Pokémon. And I really think the first Switch 2 game should deliver that.

If we get a solid game in 2027, they might just do a non - major DLC (more of like extra quests, or challenges) so they can then concentrate on the next game, spoiler alert: I’d say being Legends: Galar (which looked amazing in teraleak) aiming for a 2029 or 2030 launch, and of course Gen 11, aiming for a 2033 launch (a 6 year gap but reality is things take longer now).

View Poll

Do you think it’s time to just finally add it in?

By that I mean, it won’t be this MMO kind of dream Pokémon game. Instead I think they are looking at Pokémon games as distinct experiences -

Winds Waves is the game where you meet new Pokémon and a new region. Since that hadn’t happened on a big scale since 2022 it’s a pretty big deal.

Gameplay will be similar to Sc/Vi with 3 main stories, etc. and we can expect overall improvements but mostly incremental e.g. a nicer feel to battles, cutscenes, etc. Co-op similar to Sv/Vi but smoother and a few additions like battle groups of wild Pokémon together with people.

Not ‘innovative’ but ‘a solid fun Pokemon game with more exploration’. I’m kind of also expecting just a minor DLC like Legends Z-A, no big new areas. (If the base game is solid DLC isn’t essential)

Then we’ll get Legends 3 which will be THE experimental game and (hopefully) be in another time era again, THEN after that we’ll get a game focused on multiplayer Pokémon experiences - whether you call it an MMO or not.

I find Champions really fun and imagine how fun it would be to just leave that arena and explore this world with my battle team.

A multiplayer game could be where they really add lots of layers like - petting Pokémon, small Pokémon can sit on your shoulder /attach to your backpack, dress Pokémon up how you want (this would be HUGE), cook a whole bunch of dishes for Pokémon (in depth cooking features), more crafting, secret bases etc.

It could be packed with features as they release it all incrementally. And you just really immerse yourself in this world where you really feel like Pokémon are your companions. Who doesn’t want to just go on their phone and hang out with a cute Pokémon in their secret base, pet it, cook something together then go meet some friends with their Pokémon.

Scarlet/Violet was a lot more seamless than Legends but it was limited to one Pokémon.

How do you think the game will handle it without it being clunky?

Scarlet Violet had like a floating on top menu whereas legends z-a went back to full screen menu (though transparent) which I liked personally and found more intuitive.

How do you think they’ll adjust the menus?

I've been thinking about how Winds/ Waves can modernise wild Pokémon encounters.

My idea is you still get 'stopped' for a wild Pokémon encounter but can hit "R" (auto battle) to immediately knock the Pokémon out if it's weaker than you. If it's slightly stronger you may be able to KO it but take substantial damage.

This way, you don't lose too much momentum while traversing an open world. If you happen to walk into a swarm, instead of individual wild battles continuously triggering, you can just hit R within a timeframe to auto battle the rest.

I think wild encounters still need to stay otherwise the game becomes too similar to Legends. I just think if the low-level ones not worth selecting a move for can take 1/3 of the time that they do in SV, it would make the gameplay experience more seamless.

I also think with a larger world, more missions and more to do, they don't need wild encounters draw out gameplay time, which they like to boast about being longer than the previous game (I remember reading a write up by Nintendo about how SV had the longest gameplay time).

What are your thoughts on this? Agree/disagree/better idea? Wild encounters are a bit of a controversial topic, as they can feel bothersome, but they kind of are the core Pokémon experience.