Nintendo, The Pokemon Company, and Game Freak’s Pokemon game series may abandon its classic battle system going forward.
During the third part in an official video series from Pokemon developer Game Freak, developers Shigeki Morimoto and Kazumasa Iwao discussed the development of Pokemon Champions and the future of the series’ battle system. According to them, the battle rules may gradually evolve in the future.
The developers explained that Pokemon Champions was partly created because Game Freak did not want to simply replace the classic battle system while leaving longtime players behind. They noted that people have been playing Pokemon battles for decades, “from Red and Green,” and that telling those players to simply move on to a new system would not necessarily be a good approach. As such, Pokemon Champions was conceived as a game where players could continue enjoying the classic battle system they are already familiar with. At the same time, the developers said they still want to pursue “new challenges” within the series.
Rather than requiring players to spend large amounts of time catching, raising and leveling Pokemon before they can compete, Pokemon Champions is designed to get players into battles much faster. The developers mentioned that they wanted to change the traditional progression because spending too much time raising Pokemon could delay access to the part of the game they most want players to enjoy i.e. battles.
According to the developers, battle animations, messages and the user interface were adjusted so matches could progress more quickly. Pokemon Champions also displays precise probability information, rather than relying on vague descriptions such as whether an attack is likely to hit. This was intended to make the game feel more competitive and fair.
In related news, known Pokemon insider The_BallGuy recently claimed that Pokemon Winds and Waves will be directed by Hiroyuki Tani, the director of Pokemon Sword and Shield DLC, and Katsuhiko Ichiraku, the director of Pokemon Scarlet and Violet DLC. If true, this would mean that Shigeru Ohmori will not be the director of a new Pokemon generation after a whole decade. Read about it here.
