04/10/10 Black and White Screenshots

So we have CoroCoro scans with screenshots.

It seems like everybody is creaming their pants over the graphics for some reason - am I the only person who thinks it pretty much looks like D/P with a lower perspective? :/ I mean, that's fine and all - it's not like they could have much of a mind-blowing graphical upgrade while staying on the same console - but really, it isn't especially noteworthy.

What I'm far more interested in is the battle screenshot, showing an actual full-body back sprite for Zoroark instead of the partial shots we got before. Even more interestingly, that back sprite looks pixelated, which Zorua's front sprite does not. This leads me to believe that these games will actually show the Pokémon moving across the battlefield when they attack, resizing the sprites as they go nearer or farther away. (See what I mean by there being much, much more interesting stuff here than "omg, slightly more 3D!")

We also don't see a textbox with battle messages or HP bars - presumably that will be moved to the touch screen. Which brings us to the next thing I find interesting here - we see a speech bubble-esque textbox where the female character is speaking to the Pokémart clerk, to make it point to the guy who is speaking. Why would they do that? There is no reason to specifically add something like that to the series as it is. The only reason I can think of to do this is if it isn't always obvious who is speaking, which leaves two possibilities, as far as I can tell:

  1. You can talk to people you aren't actually facing using the touch screen. This would also imply the overworld would be on the touch screen.
  2. ...or, a much more interesting possibility, you will actually speak sometimes and they need a way to indicate this.

If the player character speaks, maybe these games will be more story-based than the previous ones. It would make sense with the whole hype about a fresh start and a new formula and so on.

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