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.