[UPDATE] There’s been quite a lot of commotion since this article was shared to Twitter, and we understand the criticisms leveled against it. The author has since volunteered to amend the post with a more fair perspective on the situation. If you wish to read the original article, you may click this link to view the old report.

Earlier this year, fans called out Game Freak for rehashing battle and NPC animations wholesale from the Pokemon 3DS games in Pokemon Sword/Shield. Those complaints appear to be far from over, however – as some began pointing out that the same would be true for the recently-revealed ‘Pokemon Camp’ feature.

As we reported earlier, ‘Pokemon Camp’ will allow players to interact and cook with their Pokemon to boost their stats in battle. Upon further comparison with past Pokemon games, however, some fans were quick to accuse Game Freak of recycling old assets again – claiming that the Pokemon Camp animations were mostly recycled from Pokemon X/Y’s Amie mode and Pokemon Sun/Moon’s Refresh mode.

This revived old grievances toward Game Freak’s developers – whom had previously explained that many Pokemon would not be playable in the new games due to the burden of creating new animations. In this regard, the apparent lack of new animations in Pokemon Camp was ample proof for these upset fans that Game Freak was being insincere in its statement.

Pokemon Camp reuses all Pokemon Amie animations from 6+ years ago:https://t.co/wnk3G0ag3n pic.twitter.com/hPdcnHUytw

— Jerm D. Kingdom (@DistantKingdom) September 6, 2019

https://twitter.com/HimboBird/status/1170324360583942145?s=20

Nope Joe, you’re ignoring one important part: they actually cut the dex to work on graphics and better animations, but where is it? Where is all they promised? And don’t tell me that they worked on good animations for Pokémon Camp, because those are reused from Amie and Refresh

— B (@speedforcesenpa) September 7, 2019

However, many fans also rose to Game Freak’s defense regarding Pokemon Camp. Some were quick to point out that there were indeed small tweaks and additions in the animations of some Pokemon. Others accepted that the assets were indeed recycled from previous games, but argued that the Amie/Refresh animations were already good enough that there was no need for Game Freak to waste resources on refreshing them for past Pokemon.

https://twitter.com/Hymdall/status/1169897469737455618?s=20

Pokemon amie? They dont even walk or jump all over the place in amie, did you saw Rotom moving everywhere just like how Rotom is. This is a huge upgrade and it has a look and feel just like Nintendogs

— Tuna @Ready for Autumn? (@HappiTuna) September 6, 2019

About that new Pokemon Camp footage going around: I really don't mind using the same assets for making the next game in a series. It's the story you tell with those reused assets that makes the difference….. and that's how it is for a lot of things, really

— this mayu refuses to be a thrown-away brick (@mirayumiii) September 8, 2019

https://twitter.com/quartz_william/status/1170126327891935232?s=20

As things stand, it looks like fans from both sides of the fence will continue debating passionately over the concessions made by Game Freak in Pokemon Sword/Shield. We can only hope that tensions finally let up once the games actually release on 15 November 2019.