You can always battle against friends, but that kind of PvP-oriented competitive play can be intimidating to some players. Specifically, what we wanted to do with Max Raid battles was give a cooperative battle experience. Really with a similar goal of having more ways for players to kind of play with each other. SO: I think both features were being developed around the same time, both the Pokemon Go raid battles and and Max Raid battles while we were working on development of the game. We translated some of that feeling into the Galar Region.Īnd for Max Raids, did you look to Pokemon Go for inspiration the raid battles that are in that? And what do you feel you're going to do with Pokemon Sword and Shield that'll take Max Raids to the next level? I've been to the UK on trips, and I just get a kind of sense of strength and greatness from the region, you know, the home of the Industrial Revolution, and all these people trying to aim for greatness. Being on the Nintendo Switch, I wanted to really challenge myself to create the greatest Pokemon experience yet using all the hardware power we didn't have before. SO: It kind of ties in to the main scene we have for the game, which is this idea of being the strongest or the greatest. Looking at the Galar Region, why did you look to the UK specifically for inspiration, and what do you feel are the defining characteristics of the UK that you wanted to bring to bring across in the Galar Region?
It also kind of creates a situation where you have to read your opponent, because you don't know which Pokemon they're going to power up in battle. So that gives the chance for any Pokemon to shine in battle. We've had power-up gameplay features like Mega Evolution and Z-Moves in the past, but Dynamax is something that can be used with any Pokemon in the game. SO: It's going to add a whole new layer, a tactical element to the battles. Talking about the Dynamax, how do you feel that changes the way players are going to approach Pokemon, and what sort of opportunities did that add for you to change the way people play Pokemon battles? That was one of the reasons we decided to try the Dynamax feature, which has Giant Pokemon appearing, and the Wild Area, which is a big, open area, which is something we wouldn't have been able to do with the previous hardware. One of the things we really wanted to challenge ourselves with this time is since we have much higher resolution and we can put them on the big screen, we could finally really show the difference in size between Pokemon. We were able to use those two games as a kind of a base for developing Pokemon Sword and Shield, and really taking advantage of the hardware even more. Shigeru Ohmori, Director: So with Let's Go Pikachu and Let's Go Eevee being the first games we developed for the Nintendo Switch, we did a lot of technical exploration and experimentation, and we learned a lot. USG: So, to start off: Bringing Pokemon to the Nintendo Switch, what were some of the things you wanted to do with the extra power and the extra things you can do with something like the Nintendo Switch compared to a handheld?
Read on for our full E3 2019 interview with Masuda and Ohmori about where Pokemon Sword and Shield right now, and where it's going in the future. One takeaway: Game Freak is keenly aware of the opportunities and challenges of moving to the Nintendo Switch. To get an idea of what to expect from this generation, we sat down with director Shigeru Ohmori and producer Junichi Masuda to talk about the implementation of the new Dynamax forms the potential of Sword and Shield's postgame, and the decision to stick exclusively with the Galar Region Pokedex. That means all manner of things for the series, from how it handles random encounters, to the decision to pare back the number of Pokemon that can be transferred through the new Pokemon Home app. For the first time ever, a mainline generation will be available on a dedicated console.
Pokemon Sword and Shield is a big moment of transition for the long-running monster training franchise.