12/15/06 Battle Revolution videos
So we have some longer Pokémon Battle Revolution gameplay videos from a Japanese person who owns the game.
I don't think I mentioned this yesterday, by the way, but the announcer from the Stadium games is definitely back.
So, let's get right to the first video. It's a single-player battle on a happy fun parade arena of some sort. And as we see the trainers send out Ledian and Smeargle, we see that they are, indeed, recycled Stadium 2 models. Bummer, although Smeargle and Ledian are among those Pokémon that never really looked that bad before. But then out comes Butterfree, and to my great disdain, they're recycling it as well. Seriously, that Butterfree always bothered the hell out of me. << Oh well.
The Pokémon are still not animated when they come out of the balls, but while the move selection screen is up, your Pokémon performs its "special attack" animation in the back, which is kinda cool, because even though the awful rabid-grasshoppers-on-steroids breathing animations are back, you don't notice it as much because you don't have to look at your Pokémon breathing all the time and instead can watch it do backflips or whatever it is that it does, just as a show-offish thing. Which is nice. It looked too awfully unnatural on Colosseum and XD. We can also see that the game is navigated using the Wiimote as a pointer.
They're recycling attack effects as well; many of them look very similar to those found in Colosseum and XD. However, some have changed; most notably, they seem to have made some effort to make some attack animations faster, especially Sleep Powder and Ice Beam somewhat as well (in fact, I love how Ice Beam looks now...). It's a little disappointing that the Pokémon are still just continuing their breathing animations when they're asleep, though, and not moving at all when they hurt themselves in confusion just looks silly. They should have done something about that.
Some more creative camera angles than in Colosseum and XD as well.
Now, on to the first Wi-Fi battle. Again, the guy uses Ledian and Yukimenoko, which annoys me a little; if he's posting videos of the game on YouTube, he really should vary the Pokémon he uses a little, y'know? I mean, we all want to see how the new Pokémon look.
I don't think there was really any real physical contact in the previous video, but there is quite a bit here, and it looks nice. I love the area the battle is taking place in as well; it's a crystal cave, and it looks very cool.
We see that Mawile, Walrein and Shadow Ball's animation are recycled (albeit smoothened in the case of Shadow Ball) as well. One thing that I really like in this video is how after Yukimenoko uses Hail, we see the Hail still going on during the move selection - I was really hoping for that - although for some reason not while the Pokémon are attacking or the trainers are commanding. The camera becomes covered with frost during the hail and becomes wet during Surf - nice bit of realism there.
The next video has another Wi-Fi battle, and yet again, he leads with Ledian, although his other two are now Erureido and Crobat. The other guy leads with Aerodactyl, which I can't tell if is recycled or improved or whatever because I don't think I've seen it before on Colosseum/XD, but it doesn't look too bad in any case. Interestingly, this battle appears to be taking place in the arena that we saw in the very first video - the one with Pikachu and Groudon versus Wailord and Deoxys - or one very similar to it.
Crobat and Blissey are recycled as well (much to my dismay, Blissey still does that ridiculous, pointless stepping back and forth in her breathing animation - bleh, rabid grasshopper on steroids), but Seismic Toss has a new, AWESOME animation. While it looks kinda tacky to have Blissey suddenly run (ridiculously slowly) to the camera and motion for some sort of a throw without touching Crobat in any way, what comes after makes up for it, because there we see Crobat actually fly an exaggeratedly high distance upwards and then crash back into the ground. That animation OWNS. I'm going to have to give a bunch of my Pokémon Seismic Toss now.
The worst part, I think, is that they have not opted for physical contact for cutting moves. We just see Aerodactyl spin a little in the air before a red cut appears across Crobat. I guess it would have been difficult to do cutting animations properly for all Pokémon, but meh. :/
The fourth video has him, yet again, lead with Ledian and then use Erureido. Admittedly then comes Dodrio, which we haven't seen before, but I'd really like to see that Jolteon, you know. <<
Here we see that Weezing and Dodrio are recycled as well. Yet again, Dodrio runs ridiculously slowly. Come on, it's supposed to be fast. It's not going to be prancing around lifting its feet all high but moving only a couple of inches in each step.
I just noticed that Pokémon are still not being animated when they miss with an attack. Bleh. Come on, what IS so difficult about animating the first half of the animation but not the second (the one where it actually hits?)
Explosion looks neat, though.
Now, the last video I find especially interesting for one reason: It has Scyther! :D And what's more - wait for it - Scyther is NOT recycled. In the older games, Scyther used to be kind of hunched over moving its scythes; here, Scyther looks more like it's sitting, which is admittedly not much of an improvement, but hey, you've got to give them points for doing something. And annoyingly enough, it also flies ridiculously slowly towards Ledian to attack. Come on, you're speeding up battles; why don't you allow the Pokémon to run/fly a little faster for physical contact? But then it slashes - and oh, I adore that one fraction of a second where it's slashing. The model is awesome, even though it has a stupid-looking breathing animation. <3 LOVE.
Anyway, to summarize: The slowness of the Pokémon running up to attack is probably the biggest problem with the game so far. It looks odd for Goukazaru, Blissey, Dodrio AND Scyther. Just what did they do that for? I don't get it. I mean, the Pikachu in the preview video is running much faster, really. o_O Bleh. And another thing I miss from that first video is how Wailord's fainting animation came seamlessly after it was struck by Thunder; now we see a little jump between the recovering animation and the fainting animation (although it's nonetheless leaps and bounds ahead of Colosseum and XD, which actually gave us a short, extremely tacky fade-to-black in between). Oh well.
Now I'm feeling an urge to see how a Pikachu using a physical attack really looks in the game.
Comments
(Comments are closed.)
Negrek (Website)
I'm disappointed with them recycling old models as well. They have a much more powerful graphics engine at their disposal; why not actually do something with it? And what changes they did make seem to be arbitrary (scyther is the only one out of any of the pokémon shown that was noticeably altered). Arrgh.
However, this still looks wicked fun. Controlling with the wiimote looks funny, but I'll get used to it, I suppose. And I hope there's some way to turn that announcer guy off--I think it would get old fast. If I was in, say, a Wi-Fi battle and losing, I could easily see myself shouting things like "STFU you stupid old guy!" whenever he commented on how I was getting pwnt.
But ugh, so much double teaming going on here. I'll need to be packing more guaranteed hit moves when I go to play over Wi-Fi. And I'm surprised that there was only one uber shown--that mewtwo that some guy had but which didn't fight--I figured the battles'd be crawling with 'em. Either people are more courteous than I expected, or there's some way to restrict what sort of pokémon teams you face over Wi-Fi...
Anyway, although there are some minor disappointments here, I can so easily see myself getting totally addicted to Wi-Fi battling; I bet it'll be real hard to lever me out of my chair when I sit down to seek out some battles. The game could've been prettier, but it's danged pretty as it is.
And that seismic toss animation is hilarious.
Butterfree (Website)
Yeah, isn't it? I don't care anyone says; an attack animation that shows you flying halfway to the moon just owns. XD
Meowth
Wow. While I don't really care much about graphics and such, I suppose they really could've remade the models a bit more. At least the gender differences are in... I mean... look at Scyther. *cough*
Piika
That Pikachu Backpack looks so ridiculous! Oh well.
Aerodactyl is recycled, but the spinning thing is new. I think. And Blissey vs. Crobat is hilarious.What I liked most was Probably the attacks. They look really nice.
Blazepert
ugh...I hate the models. they recycled half of them. Crobat looked fat and drunk, Blissy looked like a painted egg, and Scyther looked a bit too chubby in my eyes. The attacms are nothing special, except maybe seismic toss (How the hell did blissy throw him that far without even touching him?).
PichuPi
I'm disappointed. Most of them didn't make REAL physical contact. I mean, look at the preview video! Pikachu just makes a head-on collision with Deoxys! But now, you just see them run up three-fourths of thee way and attack. Didn't anyone notice that with Scyther's slash attack? (Gee, I wish it was translated. >_>)
Or maybe my eyes are playing tricks on me.
Why DOES that guy like his Ledian so much anyway? I agree with you, Butterfree; he shoulda sent out the Jolteon. =\
Butterfree (Website)
As I said, cutting/biting moves don't appear to have physical contact in the game although tackling/punching moves do, and technically I understand that - it's more difficult to animate a "generic" cutting or biting animation, which requires a significantly greater precision and would make it look glaringly obvious when the target Pokémon doesn't fit into the frame that they assumed when they actually created the animation (e.g. when the Pokémon is really small).
Negrek (Website)
Here's a video in which he actually uses jolteon. Double battle, too. I think the jolteon model's been updated, but I'm a bit foggy as it's been a long time since I've seen one in Colosseum/XD.
Malachite Treecko
I haven't played Stadium/Colosseum/XD so I think the graphics are cool adn don't know anything about those recycled PKMN. I think Yukimenoko has good animations. Seismic Toss looks really cool, but EQ is cooler.
Mr. Pelipper
I like the graphics, and I think they made good choices for which pokemon to recycle and not to. However, I do wish they HAD recycled scyther, because it's new one kind of sucks.
But I'm not one of those kinds of people who likes video games for looks, so I like PBR just as much.
PichuPi
I also expected somewhat-high-quality Pokémon, as in seeing some fur texture or scale texture. But it appears we can now do as good as them... =P
Anyways, PBR would probably be rated T if you could see a Mawile bite a Roselia for real. O_o
Let's see a Muk out there Body Slam something. =D
CasMat
The contact attack animations look very slow and more awkward than I would have been okay with, and the Agility animation is just horrible. I would say something about the models but all I could say has been said already. And if they were going to make the environment destroyable, why does the effect of Earthquake just dissapear? I'm not denying that the game is an improvement, but it seems like it could have been much better. Maybe in the next installment...
MoonlitUmbreon
That Seismic Toss animation is hilarious! And I really hope they didn't recycle Machamp. The current model looks like it's on crack.
Butterfree (Website)
I can happily announce that they fixed Machamp. Well, I don't know if it still looks like it's on crack to you, since it was mainly Machoke that bothered me, but it has actual fingers now, for example.
Wyvern
Well, I'm disappointed. Firstly, that guy recording the videos bugs me; for one thing, he always uses the same Pokes, also, he takes aboiut 40 seconds just to choose them! The Pokes, on the whole, look rubbish, especially Scyther. He looks CONSTIPATED. They are also too slow. The only positive thing I can find is the Seismic Toss animations. THAT is pure brilliance.
So meh. Hopefully it'll be better to play than it looks. Colloseum and XD look far better than this does.
Shadowater
...The idiot led with Ledian... AGAINST A POISON TYPE TEAM! Seriously, hasn't he heard of a little thing called TYPE ADVANTAGES?
Anyways, with Hikozaru, how it just stood there and used earthquake was lame, and made no sense. They should of had him jump, at LEAST.
Also, with how they manipulated the camera angles with the cutting/biting attacks, it looks better than the C/XD ones.
With Scyther, I could have done a better attack animation for slash. Why not have the Scyther, oh, I don't know, shoot up into the air at high speeds, then bring down the scythes with its body so fast that it is a blur? Then they could have even had it make contact, AND look like if it had a little too much to drink.
Overall, I give it one thumb up. The fact that they do not make contact too often, and the fact that the arena damage part seems to have mysteriously disappeared is disappointing...
Butterfree (Website)
It's obvious why Scyther isn't flying faster or doing anything interesting while it uses Slash; when they program the game they make GENERIC animations and GENERIC rules for what happens. Not every Pokémon can shoot into the air and then come down so fast it looks like a blur! They make all those big, fast Pokémon move slowly across the arena because they also have small Pokémon with tiny feet like Mawile to accommodate.
And how the HELL do Colosseum and XD with their hideously polygonal Pokémon and not even an attempt at physical contact look BETTER than this? o_O I think you haven't played them for a while...
Wyvern
I have played them recently, and I prefer their graphics. I like how the Pokes look. Physical contact was too much for Nintendo to manage, seemingly, and EVERYTHING(nearly) suffered from it. Seemingly.
Mozaco
Is it just me, or does anyone else see Scyther's abdomen kinda sinking into the ground in some shots?
PichuPi
If Scyther's abdomen looks like it gets stuck in the ground, then that's what they get for making Scyther stoop down so low like that.
Scyther: Why, <i>whyyy</i> do I have to do the cha-cha with my butt stuck in the field? Think about it, you're lucky you didn't put contests in, or everybody would be staring at me! <i>Waaah!</i>
No offense to Scyther, though. Or any Scyther fans. =\
SS
WHY does he always lead with Ledian? It usually faints easily.
Underminer
Ledian is C.R.U.D.