Game Freak’s Junichi Masuda On Listening To Fan Feedback And Sun & Moon’s Online Features

Pokémon Sun & Moon’s release is just on the horizon, and the game’s developers have been making the rounds and giving plenty of interviews. In this latest interview with UK magazine GamesMaster, Game Freak’s Junichi Masuda spoke a bit about the importance of fan feedback when developing Pokémon games. He also explained the process behind creating a new Pokémon, as well as the online features players will be able to use in Pokémon Sun & Moon. [Thanks, NintendoEverything.]

First off, when asked how they go about listening to and considering fan feedback, Masuda had this to say:

“We do always listen to our fans and their hopes and what they have to say about the game because it’s really important. But if we just take their ideas and put them into the game then that’s not going to be very surprising for players, because they’ll have already thought of those ideas. What we really try and do is listen to those ideas, but then take that and think, “How can we use this to surprise players? How can we give them something new that they perhaps haven’t thought of?” This time around, as an example, we’ve got the Alola forms. A lot of these are Pokémon from the Kanto region that people are really familiar with, but now we get to see this new form, these new evolutions, and by doing this we’re able to provide them with a surprise that they never even thought was possible.”

Next, Masuda was asked to elaborate a bit about the process of designing a Pokémon from the initial concept to the final product:

“There’s really no set process in the way we go about designing Pokémon. Different designers have their own personal way of going about things. One designer might first consider a real world animal and start from there. Another might think of a Pokémon that would fit well with the feel of an area. Another thing designers can often do is think about the battle system, so perhaps one Pokémon type, or one particular Pokémon is really strong, so we’ll design a Pokémon that would work well against that. There are all these different ways we approach designing Pokémon, I think this actually is what gives us such a great range of Pokémon and different styles across the games.”

Lastly, Masuda when into a little more detail about the online features in Sun & Moon:

“So just like previously we’ve got the GTS feature where you can use wifi to connect with people all over the world. This time around we’ve also added the Quick-Link feature where you can quickly open a trade with another player, and just get straight into it like that. There’s also a simple chat feature in there so you can exchange fun greetings or messages with other players, so we really think that these sorts of small additions will add an extra layer of enjoyment to the communication features in the game, and hopefully allow players to have a deeper experience on that side of things.”

Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon will release for the Nintendo 3DS on November 18th and in Europe on November 23rd.