I was quite surprised. GF literally never cared about lore, and I would have never expected such a game. I'd say Johto would have been a more fitting region for this kind of treatment - and I'm not only saying that 'cause I grew up with Gold and Silver, I swear. As for now it's way too early to judge, but the game is hella promising; however, I think the remakes are worth the wait too. I like their style, they remind me the glorious DS era.
maybe its because I loved breath of the wild, but the new mechanics look really cool. i feel like it makes sense to sneak up on wild pokemon to catch them instead of beating the shit out of them like in any other game. and while i never really cared much about pokemon, im excited for some ePic lore
While I do enjoy a new direction taken for Pokemon games, I do not trust Game Freak to develop a competent Pokemon game. At least they didn't split this into two versions. Game looks really rough around the edges when the trailer showed establishing shots of Piplup and Bidoof. That Chingling stopmotion. The physics on the hair looking stiff. Stop-motion Riolu. Lighting just not good. The music and art style feels very derivative of BOTW, which I don't really take as well since, well, Pokemon has always a more childish feel compared to BOTW? Why does Game Freak often make the games look so utterly cheap?
I'm glad they gave Cyndaquil, Rowlet, and Oshawott (though I dislike Oshawott) a chance rather than three Kanto starters. But the rest of the game has got to hold up and I don't have great impressions on its trailer.
The trailer gave me a really bad first impression of the game. The presentation is simply awful. Not only did I see technical issues in the trailer (like my sister pointed out, the very choppy animations you see, especially on Riolu and Chingling; I know they're used in the same way lods are, but they're reserved for far away models for a reason) but the environment looks like a desolate wasteland with nothing interesting in it. It also looks generic and doesn't fit in with the style of Pokemon.
In this shot, you can clearly see where the trees become lod sprites rather than rendered models, which completely breaks any sense of immersion in the game. The shadows look atrocious in the early level of detail trees, look at all of that horrible patches of black on them while there aren't any rendered shadows at all in some places. The game also has an overally low res and muddy look to it, like there's next to no art direction at all. The character models appear to have a cartoony cel-shaded look to them while the environment looks like it was lifted from a Unity/Unreal template map, and there's a visible clash between them.
Pokemon DP remakes at least have a clear and communicated art style with their chibi look and pixel textures meant to imitate nostalgia. This? What even is this?
Am I being too harsh on a pre-release trailer for a game that will come in 2022? No. This was an ad I was shown, a first impression look on the game, marketed by the publisher who owns the IP rights to the biggest media franchise of the world. The point of this trailer is to persuade me to buy their product. All this tells me is that it looks terrible, that there is no care put into this game, and it very dampened my expectations for it. It's an uphill battle from here on out. If the game isn't ready to be shown off yet, don't show it.
(not to dig at the fanmade mod made on inherent restrictions of tools and zero budget, but I see this and I got reminded of overexposed Bidoofs and Rhyhorns in a release trailer by a big name in gaming)