Game Freak On The Small Amount Of Pre-Release Reveals For Pokemon Sword & Shield, And More

Game Freak recently held a demo event for media to try out Pokemon Sword and Shield, and at the very end, a Q&A session was held where series producer Junichi Masuda and director Shigeru Ohmori answered questions regarding the games. [Thanks, 4Gamer!]

Here are the highlights:

Q: This time, it seems that there have been a lot fewer new Pokemon reveals than before. Was this intentional?

A: “We wanted players to encounter and discover the new Pokemon for themselves, so we cut down on the number of new Pokemon revealed beforehand. The world will discover together on November 15 just how many new Pokemon there are in the game.”

Q: What sort of concept is behind the combined use of symbol encounters and random encounters?

A: “Symbol encounters themselves were highly praised in Pokemon: Let’s Go, Pikachu! and Let’s Go, Eevee!, so we also added them in this time. It’s because, when new Pokemon appear via symbol encounter, it makes you want to go catch them.

However, random encounters, where you don’t know what might appear, are a different sort of fun. For that part, we have made it so that Pokemon which don’t appear as symbol encounters appear as random encounters, so players can enjoy the excitement of anticipation of what will pop out.”

Q: How is the Pokemon raising aspect this time?

A: “We have made it easier to raise Pokemon, so that you can even raise your first Pokemon partner to take into online battles.”

Apart from the media event, Polygon recently also published an interview with Shigeru Ohmori and Junichi Masuda, where Ohmori talked about the concept behind Farfetch’d’s Galarian evolution Sirfetch’d:

First, why is Farfetch’d getting an evolution now?

Ohmori: “So the Galar region, the inspiration for it is actually the UK. We spent a lot of time researching and kind of referring to different things in the UK and I spent time there. One of the things I remember noticing was that the leeks that they sell in the UK are much bigger and thicker than the ones I see in Japan. So seeing that, I got the idea that the Farfetch’d that lives in the Galar region would maybe evolve in a different way than you see elsewhere.”

Pokémon Sword & Shield release for Nintendo Switch on November 15, 2019. A new trailer recapping all the officially revealed Pokemon up to this point can be found in our previous post here.