168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Pokemon Sword & Shield are often criticised for a variety of different reasons, from the fact they’re apparently not difficult enough - er, they’re kids’ games - to copious complaints about Hop (168澳洲幸运5开奖网:who is actually great), uninspired designs (look at Corviknight, thanks), and the Wild Area. I generally agree with quite a bit of the critique aimed at the latter, which is best evidenced by our own Eric Switzer’s 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:excellent piece on how Sword & Shield’s semi-open-world section acts as more of a roadblock than playground. Still, it’s in the Wild Area’s failures that the future of Pokemon has the potential to be🐻come bolder, braver, and significantly better.
First of all, it’s worth acknowledging that Gen 8’s Crown Tundra DLC already drastica🥀lly improved on the Wild Area’s original formula. If there’s ever going to be a bona fide open-world Pokemon game, I would hope that Galar’s icy island serves as its core inspiration. We’re not here to discuss that today, though - instead, we’re going to talk about the Wild Area’s missteps, the future of Game Freak’s iconic series, and the hefty burden borne by 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Pokemon Legends: Arceus.
The Wild Area is a pretty good concept. In between a bunch of typically detached Pokemon routes, cities, towns, caves, and rivers, there’s a great big wide open space teeming with all manner of ‘mons and mysteries. The main problem 🦋is how evidently regimented the entire area is - it’s not wild at all. Corviknight always spawns in the same place, as do Doublade, Drapion, and Dreepy. It exists inside the map, but it’s not really part of it - a walled off wilderness. It’s a zoo more than anything else. While the weather changes fairly frequently, you’ll often find yourself in the Dusty Bowl surrounded by nothing but 1,000 hungry, hungry Hippopotas. Despite being touted as a major part of the core experience here, online play only pertains to dull Gigantamax raids and, like, slightly connected camping. You might find some bones for bone curry. Yum. The Wild Area does everything it claimed it would, although almost all of it is half-baked and hastily served.
Then there’s the disconnect between the Wild Area andꦚ the world around it. Although the rest of the region is explicitly divided into self-cont𓆏ained locales, all of these places are significantly denser than the Wild Area, which purports to be a sort of pseudo-sandbox at the heart of Galar. When you consider how much character is imbued in places like Glimwood Tangle, Hulbury, and even the pared-back streets of Spikemuth, the Wild Area is paradoxically tame.
Desp🔴ite all of these criticisms, however, the Wild Area is one of the most important steps Game Freak has ever taken - the future of Pokemon is much bꦺrighter because of it.
When we talk about the future of Pokemon, one thing that always comes up is the possibility of an open-world Pokemon game. The first Legends: Arceus trailer, which intentionally used similar shots to the OG Breath of the Wild one, looked as if it was finally about to make this long-awaited wish a reality. In actual reality, however, it appears that Legends: Arceus is going to transpire in a partial open world that’s cleanly segmented into several smaller semi-open-world areas. This, our editor-in-chief Stacey Henley argues, is much better 🌳than a big bloated world of quest markers and queued-up Quilava. Thanks to the Wild Area before it, Le💦gends: Arceus is all set to finally nail what the future of o𒐪pen-worldish Pokemon is all about.
Basically, the main problem with the Wild Area was that it wasn’t wild. From what we’ve seen so far of Legends: Arceus, the world is both adaptive and reactive. Wild Pokemon don’t just endlessly traipse along the same two-square-foot dirt path. Here, there appear to be actual ecosystems, a world of wild ‘mons that exists with or without your intervention. The real beauty of encountering Pokemon in their natural habitat is probably best evidenced by 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:New Pokemon Snap, where they interact with each other and their surroundings regardless of whether or not they're aware of your watchful eye. If Tyranitar clotheslined boulders in the Wild Area, I’d like to think we’d have been coloured impressed. Instead we get Braviary treading water except the water is the air - that’s how helplessly suspended in the same spot it is.
Arceus also appears to understand habitation in context. While the most recent horror ARG footage centred on Hisuian Zorua and Zoroark - which have finally convinced me that 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:regional variants are decent - wasn’t indicative of actual gameplay, the fact it had a proper sense of place has convinced me of Legends: Arceus’ value far more than any sweeping panoramic shot nicked from Zelda ever cou🌸ld. Combine this with the actual gameplay footage of trainers leaping off Basculegion and chucking Poke Balls mid-air and you’ve got what appears to be a distillation of the Wild Area’s most brazen mistakes corrected.
I understand when people give out about the Wild Area. It wasn’t quite what I expected from all the promo material leading up to Sword & Shield either. I don’t hate it as much as some of you seem to though, and have grown to like Sword & Shield a whole lot more since replaying them with so🉐me much-needed critical distance from launch.
♉Still, while I’m quick to defend Gen 8 above objectively weaker games like X &a🧸mp; Y, Galar’s mistakes are what truly make it special and worthwhile. I have long argued that Pokemon spin-offs are where the vast majority of the series’ most valuable experimentation comes from. While Sword & Shield aren’t quite as invested in oddity as Snap or Let’s Go, I think they’re a lot braver than most people like to give them credit for. I mean, the fact the Wild Area exists at all is a clear testament to Game Freak’s willingness to try new things, even if they’re not always going to be popular.
The Wild Area is one of the most important ideas Pokemon has ever had, let alone attempted to iterate on in a mainline game. Yes, I know it’s not nearly as good as it should have been. That’s my whole point. Not everything important has to be brilliant, because brilliance often comes from mistakes that are learned from - if that doesn't make them important, I’m not sure what does.