#Galar looks so much better compared to sword and shield

[mokeonn]

Hey quick question, why the fuck was everyone angry at sword and shield for being ugly, rushed pokemon games but was pretty much completely fine with Scarlett and Violet being worse?

[rassicas]

Hey, tried to reach you on CuriousCat but didn't hear back. Saw your work on the wiki with regards to Splatoon alphabets - we're dealing with a very similar problem with the uppercase 'Galarian' alphabet in Pokemon Sword/Shield/Scarlet Violet. Lots of gibberish, no 'valid' translations that we can see, lots of letter inconsistency (the F of GAME FREAK is an R for GALAR, fun stuff like that). Any advice on getting the 'true' alphabet out of this mess? Tried a bunch of stuff, but it doesn't seem to be working. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tz06e1q9dnXo29q9SpxELO_eDGEd6S08iA3NbkNHb8g/edit?usp=sharing https://www.pokemonaaah.net/research/galarian/galarwords/ ^our work so far, plus a decent chunk of the in-game body of text

Yeah my curiouscat is just about abandoned, this is a better place to contact me. Funny thing, I am aware with your guy's deciphering work of the Galarian (on the second website linked)! I remember it coming up in conversation some time ago while working on the deciphering of Splatoon's scripts. But the doc is new for me, and looking through that...i mean this with as much praise and respect as possible, you guys are insane. in the trenches over here. my god. I see some the progress on the lowercase, we used similar methods in solving some parts of the inkling languages too. for the uppercase...Going through and seeing real world decoding techniques applied... for a fictional script that likely was implemented for the sake of design rather than as a thing with secret meaning/consistency, you guys already figured it out, but it doesn't work. My two cents is that Galarian could be something like Splatoon's "Bold Script". this script has many letters that kind of look like latin script, and is often used to write things in game that look like real english words. when trying to decipher it however, there was a similar problem to Galarian: same symbols would be used to mimic different letters, just too much inconsistency. For years, it and the Inkling language as a whole was assumed to be totally indecipherable.

(TOWER RECORDS HICOLOR) But then the "true" alphabet that the splatoon team was using internally was solved for, and...

most of these don't resemble their latin letter counterparts at all, and then a few seemingly random repeats. There's also some glyphs we've found that looked like they'd be part of the deciphered form of the script, but only appeared in limited contexts and ended up not being a part of the alphabet. I think those extra letters were arbitrarily assigned to symbol keys, but its kind of impossible to know which. (those rare letters, like the G in game freak/galar could fall under that category of being an "extra" letter in the font and not part of the main alphabet?)

The "true" alphabet of Galarian may be something like this: comprised of many letters that resemble the latin alphabet that in font form, are assigned seemingly arbitrarily across the alphabet. And then to make something readable to the viewers, those letters are hand picked or modified to mimic words. Why go through all the effort to do that instead of doing a simpler decode-able thing? no idea other than "looks cool" "don't want people to solve it too easily" or "conveys information to the player". The splatoon team does both in the same games in the same writing systems. One key difference between Galarian and Splatoon's scripts is that splatoon has multiple scripts used within the same game, vs SWSH sticking with the one script. a lot of the deciphering work for Splatoon has involved comparing matching lines of text between a solved and unsolved script. If you're interested in the history of the deciphering of the Inkling language... there's a video for that ;) Without such points of comparison, and if the only way the script is used is to mimic words and doesn't exist in large bodies of text, the "true" alphabet of uppercase Galarian may be just about impossible to solve. (this is the case for a couple Splatoon scripts, like the Deepsea scripts)

ofc i'm not the one that's combed through Galarian so i'm not gonna claim to be an expert on it, but that's my two cents as someone who has extensively rotted their brain deciphering fake video game writing.

[marcussour]

In preparation for the release of Scarlet/Violet, went back to play Pokémon Sword. I had completed the main story and the post game content, but actually never completed the dex, or got everything, and never even got around to buy the expansion pack. Here are some random musings (TLDR in advance: it was okay):

- My memory of the game was that I liked it more than I remembered. Now, of course, it’s different going back to the game after the main things were completed, instead of playing the story as it went along. But as I was playing I started noticing the shortcomings even more, and basically what kept me from dedicating hundreds of hours to this game like I’ve been doing with pretty much all of them since gen 1.

- I mean, I think it’s a serviceable 6 or 7/10 game. There’s a lot of stuff to like but that’s like, barebones or showing some promise that eventually would’ve been capitalized in future games (nothing new for pokémon in that regard, but I think it’s far more noticeable in Sword/Shield). I think the main example it’s the Wild Area, it’s by far the best and more memorable bit from the game, and it shows the promise of roaming in an open space and what wonders that can do for pokémon, so it’s no wonder that it was expanded to full areas by way of Monster Hunter, in Legends: Arceus, and from there it was a natural progression to a full open world game in Scarlet/Violet (and if anything, it’s kinda remarcable that a studio so slow to adapt and evolve like The Pokémon Company went in just 3 years from Sw/Sh’s Wild Area, to Scarlet/Violet open world).

- It’s amazing in retrospective how this was probably the best pokémon game in term of trainers designs since the first two gens IMO. Specially when it comes to the gym leaders and main characters, almost all of them are really good, and there’s no wonder characters like Leon, Nessa or Marnie became so popular in so little time.

- I think the pokémon designs were really hit or miss (I know that people often said this about every generation, especially when they put their nostalgia glasses on to compare older generations to the newer ones). People often remember the more memorable designs (and this was the gen that gave us Scorbunny, Sobble, Corviknight, Wooloo, Galarian Weezing, Yamper, Sirfetch’d and many more), but I don’t think that there’s been any other gen where I literally forgot about many of it’s pokemon like with this one. Although I would be the first to admit that this might be due to the fact that, since the overall game experience was just fine and I didn’t find enough replayability value compared with other pokémon games, that might be the factor why I forgot about many pokémon.

- Not gonna go into story details, since this was about coming back to a file that already all that stuff done.

- I do think that the game’s main problem comes down to that it just feels like a new pokémon game, like, it ticks the requireable boxes and it’s certainly a pokémon game ™ in structure. And while it did try to innovate in some things (like the aforementiond Wild Area, or by tying the main story directly to the league championship), it didn’t went far enough and it shows. I know some people don’t like it for graphics reason or what not, but TBH, if anything, I think it looks better than I remembered (and also, I think in many ways Legends: Arceus felt like a visual downgrade, and yet, that game nailed it many beats to a tee -and it helps that it tried many new things, or new for pokémon at least-; it’s pretty telling that I almost never came back to Sword, but I dedicated many hours to Legends: Arceus until I reached 100% completion).

- Also, I kinda wished the game had leaned even more into the whole “pokémon battles are to Galar what football is to England” parallel. I mean, it’s ever present, and I love how the aesthetic of the game overall is kinda a look between football and punk (with even the gym specific uniforms resembling football jerseys). But I wished that they had included even more things, stuff like rivalrys (not only the one represented by Marnie and her hooligans) but maybe even more between the gym leaders or the different cities, like, Wyndon it’s one of the best cities design in all of Pokémon, and besides the League, there’s so little to do there (and what else there is, you can do it other cities). Also, if there was a chance to make a Pokémon World League or Championship, it definitively was this game (maybe they thought it would be too repetitive, since they had a similar bit in Sun/Moon with the Battle Tree). In that way, it’s great that the anime capitalized something that I wished the game had done.

- The soundtrack is really good and has some absolute bangers. We all know about the gym leaders battle theme, or Marnie’s theme (and Team Yell’s while we are on the subject); but I had no recollection that Circhester’s theme was such a great tune. And that’s just to name a few.

- Overall, like I said before, I think it was a fine experience. But coming back to the game it’s impossible not to feel a bit underwhelmed that it was basically a transitional game towards the experiences of Legends: Arceus and Scarlet/Violet, or that many of it’s best concepts and ideas were better used and capitalized by the anime. 

[despazito]

Complete list of all problems known so far in Pokemon Sword and Shield with data and/or proof for each problem

[I am copying this post from the pokemon subreddit from u/Terotu]

Seeing as there's a lot of people that don't quite know the extent of the issues and that there's no real compilation of the problems, I feel like everyone needs a list with info and sources of each and every current problem with the games, it's a long list but I've tried to put it all together, it's not just dexit people. I will post everything that is 100% confirmed and known so far, there's potentially other problems, but this is made as a somewhat "quick" digest with info that has been 100% proven, for anyone out of the loop that wants to know exactly what's happening with these games.

1. The number of usable Pokemon has been cut, only less than half are now usable, known as Dexit, it means that you won't be able to use these pokemon in the new games, you won't be able to transfer them in, and you won't be able to do anything with them sans sticking them in home for the foreseeable future (Home will probably be a paid only subscription based service just like its predecessor), for all intents and purposes, these Pokemon are basically removed from the main games franchise and they will take probably years to come back, if ever. An image with the cut/not cut pokemon can be found here, pokemon in green are confirmed to be in, pokemon in purple have galar forms, pokemon in yellow are in the data, but there's nothing for them, they could be leftover data like the items and other things, could be giveaway/event only, could only come from other games, etc, there's no way to know what's the plans for them at the moment, if any, pokemon in red are cut. The excuse GF used for this culling was that it let's them work on delivering better animations and a more carefully crafted game, since they don't have to put more time and effort into redoing the models. This is complete BS as the game polish is worse than ever, and the models seem to just be somewhat edited XY models.

2. Just like the Pokemon cut, about 144 moves were removed, 99 moves excluding the let's go and other outlier moves, this includes extremely important and used mainstay moves like Hidden Power, return/frustration and Pursuit, on top of extremely old moves that have been there since gen 1, some of these moves were important for the viability of several Pokemon, which may cause them to be way less effective if not way worse when it comes to battles, on top of this, it also removed some SIGNATURE MOVES of certain Pokemon. The full list for deleted mainstay pokemon moves can be found here Attempts at transferring Pokemon with these moves will apparently get this message: "This move can’t be used. It’s recommended that this move is forgotten. Once forgotten, this move can’t be remembered."

3. Short game, the first streamer beat the champion at around the 14 hour mark, while he did this by skipping a fair amount of trainer battles, other streamers are clocking in about 16-20 hours, seems like the average will be about 18 hours to beat the game. Here's one of the many streamers, he's right before champion and clocking in at 14:34.

4. The graphics are extremely mediocre, it constantly looks worse and less polished than LGPE, the textures are often inexcusable. Examples of the bad graphics seen here 1 2 3 4 5 6 A comparison with LGPE can be seen here and here Here's a game recently released for switch, another picture found here, the difference is unreal.

5. There's constant graphical issues, not just low quality graphics, pop in is present at all points of the game due to bad coding, trainer models will also disappear mid battle when an attack with a high number of particles is used, this also happened in SM, however, SM moved the camera away to avoid people seeing it, they didn't even try this time. This means it's either a carry over from SM and they just copy pasted most of the code, or they somehow have to remove the trainers to avoid a switch from somehow getting fps drops. The pop-ins can be evidenced here and here. Trainers dissapearing mid battle can be evidenced here

6. Animations, one of the main reasons why GF cut pokemon, at least in the interviews, are as shoddy as ever. There's extremely lazy animation all over the game, from normal attacks to key moments in the game, such as the encounter with the box legendaries. Most of the animations are also completely copy pasted from older games, one example seen here with Hau(the entire character of hop is basically a copy paste of hau.) Most of the animations for the camp are also copy pasted from xy amie, evidenced here. Pokemon battle animations are just as bad as before, if not worse, pictured here is a pokemon headbutting with its feet. Another example found here, THE MAIN BOX ART POKEMON CINEMATIC, THIS IS THE GAME CLIMAX, another example on the other version found here In fact, it could be considered way worse if compared to the last gen, example of upscaled USUM cutscenes. (Notice the graphical change isn't that big, the only difference here is increasing the resolution)

7. Cutscenes and restrictions, like previous Pokemon games the cutscene and story forcing and restrictions are insane this time around, seems to be even more intrusive and in your face than before at times, while keeping the same level of cutscene intrusion than past gen. The video for this point was taken down, but if you wish to see this you should be able to find it by searching the gameplay clips/streams online

8. The difficulty, just like the cut scene problem, this carries over from earlier games and it's even worse.There were constant heals, to the point where in the first routes you're not able to go beyond 3 trainer fights without getting a full heal. The first streamer avoided fights and didn't train at all, it still was one shotting gym leader dynamaxed ace pokemon.This can be seen here.

9. Post-Game is almost non-existant, as usual since masuda-Ohmori started directing, there's no frontier, there's also no frontier like facility. The post game consists of battle tower and a very short sequence of missions where you beat some dynamax pokemon for your rival to catch the other legendary. Not only this, but the battle tower is also an inferior version of past towers, it doesn't have super single nor super double battles, it has no triple battles and there's no "tower bosses", it's just random trainer npcs after another.

10. Problems with game design and behavior, beyond difficulty and progression, there's other problems in the overall game design. Examples of this is not being able to catch Pokemon in the wild areas until you got a badge allowing you to do so, which usually covers your current level. Meaning if you find a level 31 shiny or a level 31 pokemon you really want, you won't be able to catch it until you go and beat the next gym. For shiny hunters, this one is gonna be really important, you cannot see if your Pokemon is gonna be shiny or not in the overworld, this means that on top of the badge limit, you also got this potential problem. Evidenced here.

11. Removed past features with virtually no new additions, seems like this is a mainstay in Pokemon, removing older features so they become one of a time gimmicks, but unlike earlier titles this new game doesn't adds anything new except dynamaxing, which is limited to gyms only. This particular gen removes Mega Evolutions and Z moves, mega evolutions in particular were a huge deal and seeing them suddenly removed means that there's little reason to get involved with any new addition, no matter how mainstay or how much GF forces it when it will very soon be gone. A list of these removed features can be found here.

12. No scaling whatsoever, models are the same sizes of XY (giving more plausibility to them not really redoing the models).Any argument against this is thrown out of the window when dynamaxing exists, since the models seem to be edited XY models then the problem remains. Here's the non scaled model in sword and shield. Here's an scaled model, released in a game that came out 15 years ago for a the Nintendo Gamecube, something way less powerful than the switch.

13. No GTS, retera thread on the discovery found here, the only strings that refer to the GTS are leftovers from Let's Go code, as seen here and here. This is most likely due to Home(this means that you will have to pay for switch online+home for services older games already included) Thanks to /u/c_will for pointing this one out and gathering the info.

14. A 20 dollar price increase for less content than earlier 3DS games, with subpar graphics and removal of features, an overall shoddy release for a higher price point.

15. Performance, game is locked to 30 fps, and while that's not a big issue by itself, this is coupled with slowdown at certain moments such as dynamaxing, it can drop fps to the floor and turn the game into a slideshow for a while. Evidenced here. Still gathering more info on this one, as it's a relatively new occurrence that hasn't happened to all users, take this one with a grain of salt

16. The overall lack of quality, polish and effort put into the game, this is all the minor/somewhat minor but still very telling problems with the game. This is apparent in many ways all throughout the game, things like the wrong backgrounds or just voids for pokemon battles. Two example of the wrong backgrounds seen here and [here] (https://clips.twitch.tv/FriendlyCleanOstrichArsonNoSexy) One example of the void background seen here (these happen on indoor fights and some non indoor but scripted battles)Examples of backgrounds on indoor and everywhere else in both LGPE and colosseum, seen here and here. Then there's complete lack of music in the game story most important moments, seen here. Starters are also shiny locked. The entire world freezes when using certain objects, as seen here. To this, you add up the emptiness of the wild area and the badly implemented weather changes that don't make much sense, both seen here No animation for flying, no elite 4, no victory road, etc, this is added to all the other problems that show the lack of effort put into them.

This franchise deserves better.

You deserve better.

These games are not only a huge step down from earlier titles, but it goes beyond what used to be already barely  tolerable standards to way below standards, keep in mind this is the biggest, most profitable franchise on earth.

This is the first time a pokemon main game is released on console, people were excited for game freak to finally do whatever they wanted and it's been done with the most minimal of  efforts, all the money you've spent on Pokemon didn't went on making this a better game, it went straight into the pockets of the people in charge, those that made sure this was made with the most minimum effort and those that cut  corners.

Companies that made games decades ago on hardware less powerful than the switch shouldn't be doing a better job than game freak, and companies doing work in the switch have completely obliterated game freak when it comes to developing a video game.

Keep in mind that your purchase of these games causes this:

Continue the yearly release cycle that makes the games rushed and forces the devs to insane crunch time, creating the low morale problem

Tells them that you're ok with these problems, and they will keep lowering the bar and cutting corners on development

Your money will continue going into the pockets of those responsible for these problems

I implore you to be a smart consumer, I've played Pokemon since I red, ever since I was a child, I can no longer support this franchise, I probably won't buy a Pokemon product ever again if this is gonna be how they're gonna treat the games and its fans.

[mrslittletall]

I am doing a Bug only run in Pokémon Shield and I have to rant a bit. Nah, not that the game is too easy. I actually had a little bit of trouble with a few battles. It's about the world of SwSh and how boring it becomes quickly. You see, at the beginning of the challenge I still had more fun. I had fun up until I got the fourth badge and then the quality just... dropped... And I noticed something, it already bothered me the first time in Sword. And I have to compare it to the very first one, Red/Blue. See, in Red/Blue you start out pretty much as in SwSh. Just with the gym challenge. But! And that is a pretty big but! Before you even get the second badge the game lets you cross TWO dungeons, Viridian Forest and Mount Moon. ShSw doesn't have that. SwSh has the Galar mine which is pretty much just a straight line with nothing to explore. Then, after you get the second badge in Red/Blue, you will explore an off route to visit Bill. Nothing like that happens in SwSh. You pretty much only loop back to the town with the third gym. You could argue the Wild Zone is meant to be the explorable part, but the Wild Zone is pretty... barren... Okay, so back to Red/Blue. You meet Team Rocket first in Mount Moon. And since then they will be a staple in the game and appear a lot. You meet some grunts in Celadon City and then later after you passed Rock Cave (look ANOTHER dungeon), you meet them in Pokémon Tower (gasp, a DUNGEON) and then you have to fight them in their secret base (is that a DUNGEON?!) SwSh only lets you go through routes and gyms and it does that for... the fucking rest of the gym challenge! You meet Leon some times and he ... SOLVES the problems that arise! And while it is nice that the champ actually DOES something, that doesn't make for an engaging game. Why do they dangle a mystery in front of you and don't allow you to solve it? Let's recap, while our SwSh trainer got the badges four to eight, our Red/Blue trainer crossed several dungeons, beat Team Rocket thrice, had two battles against Giovanni and got four more badges on top. And if they want, they can even go and catch the legendary birds which are almost all in *GASP* DUNGEONS! Just... when did Pokémon decide it had to be a linear hallway game? Where are the off roads? The dungeons? The legendaries you can only find when you explore? I hate the SwSh world so much... the game would have been LOADS better if not for this boring boring boring boring world.

[light679]

Hey hun! Dunno if you're taking requests at the moment... but I saw that analysis on Leon's room and it got me thinking... what would Leon's early travels be like while he was taking the gym challenge? I feel like we didn't get to hear to much about it, other than Sonia saying a few things, but I was wondering what your take on it would be? Feel free to ignore this ask if you've got a lot going on at the moment! But thank you if you end up answering! ^^

Hello there! This ask makes me seriously happy! I’m so glad you liked my post about his room! I love thinking about young Leon and his gym challenge, I see so many pictures of him on Pinterest of him as a youngster with Charmander and I die of cuteness every time, so here's some hc's of mine to go along with this! :3 Thank you for such a lovely ask!

So first of all, I sort of hc that Leon and Sonia took the Gym Challenge the same year as Raihan, so all three of them became pretty close friends during this. Leon and Raihan probably met at the opening ceremony or at one of the gyms at hit it off, constantly arguing in a playful way about who was going to be stronger. 

The Wild Area was definitely a struggle for Leon. Sonia and her Yamper leading him to the right path, as she mentioned in the game? Definitely happened here 😂. Sonia probably did her best to not let him out of her sight, but of course when Leon gets excited about something, or saw a Pokemon he really wanted to catch or battle, he would just run off at a moment’s notice. He caught a lot of cool Pokemon that way, but often had to call Sonia on his Rotom phone to have her come find him, who gave him a light scolding later on lol. 

Leon learns how to cook in the Wild Area while he’s camping and such, but isn’t necessarily the best. He’s decent at making spicy foods, which are his favorite, although the reason they’re likely better than his usual is that he puts a lot of spices in to mask any other imperfections since the focus is mainly on the spice when you eat it. Sonia does a lot of their cooking. Raihan is a little more independent and does his own thing, but will pop in every once and while and set his tent up near theirs. Sonia and Leon set their tents up at the same camping spot together virtually every night to keep Leon from getting lost and to just have a friend nearby. In my opinion, Sonia develops a slight crush on him at least once over the course of their Gym Challenge, but it never really goes further than that. Leon’s so focused on his Gym Challenge and eventually Sonia realizes this, so she gets over it pretty quickly. 

In his journey, there’s probably a few spots that Leon really likes. Of course, the Wild Area is something he absolutely loves. It gives him a chance to get really strong and meet strong Pokemon, which as we know is something Leon really puts care in. Particularly the Lake of Outrage is a favorite of his. There’s a lot of really strong and interesting Pokemon there, and the Pokemon that come out of hiding in the different weather is incredible to him. And is also probably where he met his Dreepy, which he evolved into Dragapult. He also probably really likes the cold, mountainous area leading up to Wyndon. There’s quite a few strong Pokemon there too, and he can just feel how excited and eager those Pokemon are to join in some exciting battles, maybe feeding off the energy that comes from the city nearby. 

Which of course brings me to Wyndon. I hc that Leon absolutely loved the city life at first. Compared to Postwick, it’s so bustling, exciting and new to him, with a lot of people excitedly talking about Pokemon battles and the upcoming challenge. It matches his own passion and excitement for battles and the Championship Cup in a way a lot of the other places along his journey didn’t. Hammerlocke was probably the closest thing to matching his excitement, although it still had a different atmosphere that didn’t quite match his, although he was incredibly excited to see all of the history-related things in the city. Leon’s room is a clear indication that he IS smart, and that he enjoys learning new information. Just like he did with Pokemon, he also most likely went to all of those historical spots in the towns to learn about Pokemon, something a lot of challengers may not have done. Obviously in Sword and Shield you do since you’re helping Sonia make discoveries, but in reality, unless you have a strong passion for learning and history/science/etc, a Gym Challenger could easily breeze by something like that and ignore it. But Leon, despite being incredibly excited for his own journey, most likely dragged Sonia to all of these exhibits and areas to learn more about the history of Galar and Pokemon, in part because he hopes it will help him learn about Pokemon to make him stronger and in part for him to just continue learning. Seeing these places eventually makes something click for Sonia and she ends up being thankful that he’s brought her along to them. 

Naturally, every time they stopped in a city that had boutiques, Leon was quick to pick up a new hat. He picked up a new hat in just about every city he could. He might even have done it as a ‘reward’ for himself for winning a battle. Like, once he beat a Gym Leader, he treated himself to a new hat. Eventually Sonia noticed his bag being so full, seeing that it was full of caps and made him send some home. Partly to make sure he had room to carry actually important things with him and partly because it would damage the caps. Sonia liked fashion and clothes too, and would hate to see Leon ruin his new clothes too. After her lecture on how he was damaging the caps, Leon almost always had them sent home unless he wanted to swap it out. His fashion sense in buying other clothes was still absolutely atrocious, but still adorable. 

The Gyms were fairly easy for Leon, breezing through most of them, except one: Melony, who would have been old enough to still be Gym Leader during that time. Not only did he have a few dragon types that were pretty well damaged by Melony’s ice types, but her Gigantamax Lapras wasn’t weak to Charizard, and was in fact, strong against it being an ice and water type. Leon also doesn’t typically seem to use electric types, and there’s a solid chance that his Charizard wouldn’t have known electric-type moves by then (I hc he probably did some special training for that to happen/Pokemon have to go through some special training with Pokemon of that type to learn moves outside of their specific typing). He still won on his first try, but it was a very close match. The dragon-type leader was also probably a bit of a tougher match for him since dragons usually aren’t weak to fire, but still less of a challenge than Melony. 

Leon’s definitely the challenger that a lot of other Gym Challengers look up to and admire, and with him being favored to win their year, though Raihan comes in as a close second. A lot of people loved his adorable Charmander, but he was certainly seen as incredibly ‘cool’ once his Charmeleon evolved into Charizard. Charizard isn’t exactly a common Pokemon in Galar, coupled with it being incredibly strong, people grew fascinated by it very quickly. 

Their match during the quarter finals is really close and intense: Leon beating Raihan by just a hair. Many people were incredibly impressed by their match, for both men. Raihan was offered a position at the Hammerlocke Gym almost immediately after their match, and Leon received several proposals for endorsements contingent on his win against the Champion. Despite how intense their exhibition matches were in the subsequent years, many people still regard their quarter finals matches as one of the best matches in Galar history. There’s probably a rerun screening of it whenever Gym season pops up each year honestly. 

[punz4lyfe]

Pokemon Journeys Episode 45. Let’s review:

1. How are the news reporters not dead yet in that flimsy helicopter in the middle of this apocalyptic event?

2. The fact that Team Rocket were able to reach out to Gigantamax Meowth to have him control himself and try to take on Eternatus absolutely speaks grand possibilities for both funny and awesome Team Rocket moments in the future in the Galar region! That, and Meowth’s knowledge of G-Max Gold Rush, too! Hopefully, the writers won’t miss out on these blatant opportunities.

3. I swear Leon and Charizard cheated death like 4 to 5 times in this episode.

4. The Ash vs. Chairman Rose fight was really done, with Ash using Pikachu and Riolu’s speed to take advantage of Ferrothorn and Copperajah’s bulk and put them against each other. In addition to that, Rose shows how much of a villain he is by smiling throughout the beginning of the fight with sadistic intent, even going as so far to command his mons to attack Ash and Pikachu and crush Riolu. Great display of character, writers! And, of course, as we’ve all been waiting for, Riolu’s evolution into Lucario. Absolutely done well, with Riolu showing his strong friendship with Ash and Pikachu by defending them against Rose’s mons, despite all odds being against his favor due to the sheer size and weight difference. Absolutely perfect. And then Lucario used his aura to tell Ash “Screw Vacuum Wave, I got the Poke-Hadouken, now!”, which was a sweet callback to Ash and Riolu’s aura bond in the latter’s debut appearance. And once the battle was over, Rose showed concern for his Pokemon and not for his failing plans, showing that he’s still human on the inside and is really just in a lot of turmoil due to the trauma he experienced as a child at the mines. So yeah, great moment of the episode all around! On the other hand though..... ugh.....

5. Goh vs. Oleana. Like I said in my last review, I was not looking forward to how this would turn out due to Goh’s win being obvious, and.... yeah, there are some problems. Compared to Ash and Rose’s battle, the action in this one was a lot less impressive. At the start, it was mostly just Raboot using Ember, only to get countered and splooshed by Water Pulse every time. When it actually picked up with Goh using the environment, leading to Raboot’s own evolution into Cinderace to finish Milotic off with Pyro Ball, it was still not done well, as Milotic was knocked out by Pyro Ball and a few consecutive Embers beforehand, which should NOT be enough to make it faint. Look, when Ash fought Rose, it took Pikachu and Riolu a good number of hits to push back Ferrothorn and Copperajah before both were finished off by Aura Sphere, a super-effective move. In this case, Milotic was taken out solely by A FEW attacks its strong against. That shouldn’t have done it in, especially with how untrained Raboot is compared to Ash’s mons. Not to mention, it also kinda digs further a little problem there is with Goh and Cinderace almost always winning/achieving every little thing they do that I’ll go further in-depth with my future blog over them. And while I’m happy Cinderace is back to his enthusiastic self (with some of Raboot’s coolness still left in) and the moment where Goh communicated with Raboot to use the environment for his preferred Ember attack was a good character moment between the two, the cons of this part of the episode kinda outweigh the pros. Moving on, however.

6. Sonia x Raihan? That’s.... kinda cute honestly.

7. Seeing Ash run around with a Lucario at his side is probably bringing a lot of fanfics to life. That, or Lucario and the Mystery of Mew flashbacks. Man, that was a good movie, wasn’t it?

8. Ahh, look at those five dorks gawk over each other and fist bump. It’s stuff like this that makes 2020 better.

9. Remember that part in the original Final Fantasy VII where Sephiroth attacked the whole gang with shockwaves before the fight against Bizzaro Sephiroth? The scene with Eternatus escaping Leon’s Ultra Ball gave me flashbacks to that. And I don’t even know why lol.

10. Oh my Arceus! The up-close shot of Eternamax Eternatus was honestly a little frightening!

11. Chairman Rose...pl-please get away from the helicopter windshield.... That’s just.... creepy.

12. Eternatus’ onslaught of Screw-U laser beams. At this point, it’s natural for Ash and Pikachu to take this kind of stuff in the face everyday.

13. Becoming the Sword and Shield legend? Yeah, that was expected. Look, when it comes to stuff like this in the anime, it’s about as obvious and cliche as it can get to the point it’s really no longer a bother to long-standing anipoke fans. And Leon? Please, my boi, stand down. You just want all the credit to yourself. (I’m only joking please don’t attack me fellow Leon fans)

14. The whole final battle between the good guys and Eternatus was alright. It was really cool seeing the Sword and Shield doggos’ signature attacks in the anime, though, it would’ve been cool for Ash and Goh to actually command them a little just like in the games. (and Ash’s whole thing with Nebby should prove that you don’t necessarily have to own a Legendary to command it in a crisis) It also nice for Pikachu, Lucario, and Cinderace to give Eternatus another three-way combo so that the doggos could have their opening. How it ultimately ended though.... well....

15. GOH’s REGULAR Pokeball caught Eternatus. I repeat, a REGULAR Pokeball from GOH caught Eternatus. Yeah......

16. Legendaries doggos, come back! I wanna see our dorks scratch behind your ears! Ah well, it’s more than likely they’ll return in the anime, given usual tropes and cliches.

17. Chairman Rose and Oleana are also definitely gonna make a return someday, no doubt about that. We still gotta wrap up Rose’s whole character with his childhood and father!

18. PROFESSOR SONIA!!!!! I STAN THIS SO FREAKING MUCH!!!!!!

19. Oh, Goh. You and your love for catching. Unfortunately, as the whole thing with Eternatus kinda proved, the anime is willing to have you able to capture Legendaries. With a plain Pokeball no less. You’re lucky I love you, my boy.

At with that, we’re done with the Darkest Day Arc! Pretty dope arc, ngl! While there were some things I felt were missed out, like Pikachu Gigantamaxing or Goh using mons other then Raboot/Cinderace, given how the episode ended, I feel there will be more of that kind of stuff in future Galar episodes. So that’s worth looking forward to you!

For the overall episode alone.... it was okay. Again, there were some things that kinda made it avoid being perfect (which sadly all involved Goh), but what we got was still great. The visuals and music were all amazing, there were a ton of great character moments, and for the most part, the action was intense and awesome! I’d give this episode an 8/10!

Now, to end things off, who else is excited for Mewtwo next week?!?!

[artesesarthouse]

My Pokemon Shield team!

Decided to use my Friends OC as the character I play in Shield because she's british and well this IS the british region so it fits.

So I've beaten pokemon Shield, finished about 90% of the Dex, and have gotten about a third of the way through Sword, and for the most part, I'm having fun with it. I say, despite the bad news that kept pouring over the last few weeks, it has enough good things to keep it fun and fresh. That said, there are some issues because not everything is perfect, and I'll detail the pros and cons I find with most of the important things about the game. Keep in mind I'm not a professional in the industry. I'm a casual fan who likes to collect Pokemon and a fan of the creature design. That said, let's get into it.

TLDR: Pokemon SWSH is good; its good on the things it improves on and adds to make the game more helpful to the grind, but it has many short cuts that make certain features tedious and time-consuming. Buy the game for the new mons and quality of life improvements. Don't buy if you expect everything to carry over from previous titles.

The Dex:

Of course, I have to talk about this as it was the biggest thing that started to change people's minds about SWSH and is a controversy that continued till release. For me, when I heard it, I didn't care because, for me, the only Pokemon I care about are the new ones. My team for each game is only the new Pokemon (including the alola and galar forms). But I do understand why people are upset because once pokemon home comes around, no doubt pokemon bank will close and you'll HAVE to switch them over and thus not be able to use Pokemon you've had for a while until they get added in future games. Which could be years. But let's switch gears and talk about what was added. Then just over 80 new pokemon, not including galarian forms. Now, this isn't the smallest amount of new mons we've had. XY had the least, but it still disappointing that there aren't that many new ones. BUT the new mons we got are fun and creative. I have many new favs, and GOD do I love that they brought back regional forms and made them better! obstagoon isn't the only one that got a region-based evolution, and I LOVE that they brought more. I think one of the unique things about Pokemon from most other monster catcher type shows and games is evolution and a big disappointment for me is whenever there is a pokemon with no evolutions because it feels like there's no potential and it's boring, and yes there is no-evolution pokemon among the new mons. My final note, though, is that there are more new evolution gimmicks, and I am not a fan, stones? Okay, friendship? Annoying but with berries, it can help. Trade? It can be annoying if you don't have friends, but you can use the GTS (OH WAIT :( ILL GET INTO THAT LATER), but making it, so yanmask needs 49+ damage AND can only evolve in a specific spot? FOR SHAME.

Wild area and Dynamax dens:

The one thing that was advertised the most, the thing that was in basically every trailer and hammered to death, the wild are. SO how is it after all this hyper? It's okay.

Pros:

It's big, way bigger then I thought, I thought it was just that beginning area in front of motorstroke but nope! Way bigger.

The wild area is split up into sections that each has their spawns and weather separate from the rest. This allows you to build a variety of teams early on; you don't have to wait till the end of the game to get an Ice-type or Dragon-type. If it's snowing in one section, there will be plenty of Ice-type mons.

The Dynamax dens are a great way to help the grind that pokemon games tend to have. Not only do you have a chance to get rare mons, but you get EXP candies which help level up your mons from 100 exp to 100,000 exp, so you can use those to level up mons you don't plan to use but need the evolutions for their Pokedex entries! It helps simplify the grind and tediousness of the grind.

Cons:

It's very tiresome to travel around, there are many hills and slopes you can't move through and have to take the path around it, which gets annoying very quickly, especially if you are trying to get into the water, but you can only access it from a lower level, what would've been nice is a rock climbing upgrade for the bike so you can traverse up the cliffs and cut downtime.

Overworld pokemon aggro too much and get in the way. They are a lot of Pokemon that can only be caught in grass, and the way you have to trigger a grass pokemon is by moving in the tall grass, the problem is the Pokemon that some pokemon that wander around will notice and charge at you, stopping your progress until you end the fight. It gets in the way, and from I've seen, there's no item to make them ignore you.

Weather spawns, one worry I had when I heard about the changing weather feature was that some pokemon are locked into only appearing during particular weather, and sadly I was right, but it's even worse! Not only is that true, BUT some mons can only be gotten in individual sections too! So there's an even smaller chance at getting them! Weather also is daily, and every section can get nearly every single weather effect, so it could be literal weeks until you get the one weather effect you need in that one section for your damn Pokedex.

GMAX raids are too infrequent, one of the big things that made people get on the side of Dynamaxing was the introduction of Gigantamaxing, which is just mega evolution with extra steps, but you can only get them from raids. Except for Charizard, Eevee, Pikachu, and Meowth. And they are a very low chance even with the event going on that increases some of the spawns.

The Wild area is a good idea which they will hopefully explore and improve in future games, but only time will tell.

Pokemon Camp:

The new substitute after Pokemon refresh. And it's okay, leaning towards Tedious.

Pros:

It's fun to see the Pokemon interact and run along and even play fetch with them, Cute and fun,

Cooking curry increases their EXP, friendship, and restores their health. So it's very convenient if you don't want to use potions or don't even have them.

Cons:

No way to level up affection quickly, in Pokemon Amie, you had those special cupcakes, and in Refresh, you had the rainbow beans. Not in this one, though, it's all involves the two toys you get. And it's slow and tedious after the 500th stick wiggle.

Getting berries for curry is tedious; this is part of the wild area problem, but there is no way to farm berries you need for specific curry, or in general, SM and USUM had the poke pelago which was a great addition especially the berry farm. But there is nothing to help with that in this game, so you have to resort to being lucky to get the berry you need from a tree and not be attacked by the squirrel.

No clear way of how to get the best rating for curry. It warns you about speed before your first curry session, but there are nothings to indicate how fast or slow you need to be for each section, additionally if you are using a controller, you can't stir as quickly as using each Switch controller separately.

Pokemon camp feels like a simplified pokemon refresh with a few improvements but not enough to streamline the process.

The starters:

Now about a week or so before the release, the whole Pokedex was leaked, including the starters, which stirred up controversy due to how they look compared to most other gens. I think they're fine. Each has its positives and negatives like every other gen. For me, Rillaboom is the best because it has a freaking drum set and is a big hunky boy. Then why did I not choose it as my starter for the pic above? Because of my complaint about the starters. They aren't dual-type, So they had no guarantee they could learn other move types from their base type, which for the most part, is true unless you use TMS or TRS. So it was either Intelleon or Cinderace because grass-type has so many weaknesses. I went with Intelleon because Cinderace just looked the most boring to me? It looks like a rabbit wearing pants, not that I don't get the theme, which is Cinderace as a soccer player, but still, it was engaging to me. Intelleon stirred up controversy due to its smug look and big hands, but I saw someone explain why he might be like that which helped warm me up to him, It's based on a lizard that is long and lean with big hands, and most likely is based on a spy theme. Especially with that official art of it doing a dodge with a finger gun attack (which it has in the game), so that made him more interesting to me. I think the biggest problem with Intelleon was that is has nothing to do with sobble's gimmick. Scorbunny kicks? Turns into a soccer player. Grookey using a stick to hit things? Turns into a drummer. Sobble cries a lot? Turns...into...a spy? Like the crying thing doesn't play into his final form at all, and that is probably why people were so off-put by the idea. Honestly, I say some of Drizzles design should've been for sobble. That way, it could help learn into the edgy lizard design. But I think the BIGGEST problem with the starters is that WE DIDN'T GET TO SEE THEM BEFORE RELEASE. I'm okay with not showing all Pokemon, but the starters are NEEDED. It's the first Pokemon we get and will spend hours leveling up. I honestly think the leaks helped save the game because if we didn't know the final evolves before the release and found out after, many more people would have been upset. The leaks helped give people a week to process and get used to them.

That's enough about the Pokemon, let's get into the story elements.

Rivals:

This game has three Rivals, and each represents the arch-type of Rival we have gotten over the years. Hop represents the friendly Rival who fights to get to know you and become strong with his Pokemon. Marnie represents the Rivals who are kind and respectful to you but also battle to be competitive and prove themselves. Bede represents the asshole Rivals, the ones who, no matter how much you beat them, they think they're better than you and won't shut up about it, but they might have a tragic past that makes up for them being jerks. My favorite is Hop, mostly because he gets the most development and because I like the friendly Rivals. It started for me in XY actually, when you got that group of friends it was nice because ironically in a game about companionship with pocket monsters, you're very alone. You only see your Mons when you fight or use Amie, Refresh, and Camp. So having a friend come around every once in a while feels nice and helps that feeling of loneliness. Anyways Bede and Marnie are nice but don't get enough time, but they serve their purpose.

Gym battles:

I love what they've done with the gyms; they are spectacles thanks to the crowd, the music (by toby fox C:), and Dynamxing makes each gym battle feel as epic as it should be. The pre-gym fight challenges and activities range from okay too annoying (looking at you pinball and collapsing trap puzzles), but they serve their purpose for getting more EXP before the final fight.

There is no Elite four, which makes sense since the game builds up Lee as the champion. Even without the Elite four, I do like the tournament aspect, it makes sense for the region, and you still fight four powerful trainers.

The antagonists:

Spoilers alert, if most of what I said isn't already a spoiler. Team yell felt disappointing; they weren't involved that much unless to block off an area until you beat a gym or something. But I did like Piers and Marnie's relationship that developed from around the team. Rose and Oleanna were great because Rose had charisma and was generally kind, so you can see why he gained the respect of the region. And his plan makes sense, but he went about it the wrong way by rushing and imprisoning a pokemon that caused a significant problem years ago. Oleanna was a treat because of how dedicated and stone-cold she was, and when she battled you, her expressions were priceless. Sordward and Shielbert were total jerks, and it was satisfying enough to beat them. The antagonists are alright, I say the plan from Rose came in a bit last minute, but it was still a good threat.

The story:

Now Pokemon stories aren't complicated; You want to become champion, you get a Rival, the evil team gets in your way, so you get dragged into a major conspiracy, you beat them along your journey and then become champion. There can be things to read into, and development for some characters that make them exciting and put simply, SWSH follows the same formula. I think the best part is Hop's journey, and seeing Sonia grow as well, most of the other major players don't change all that much till the end of the game. So it's not a bad story, just the same formula as before. It IS a kid's game so that I wouldn't expect anything complicated anyway.

The end game story:

This is where Sordward and Shielbert are introduced, and they fill the role of villains who only care about themselves if you didn't like what they did with Rose. Sadly they weren't introduced or even mentioned throughout the game, so it's not as fulfilling to beat them due to them just appearing out of nowhere. My only problem is that we have to go to every gym to fight dynamaxed Pokemon, but we don't get to capture them, and its a long road till we get to catch the game legendary finally.

The story offers new aspects, but for the most part, follows a formula, so don't expect something complicated or nuanced. Now on to the technicals.

Improvements:

They have made quite a few quality of life improvements that have helped make things tighter and more comfortable to access.

In battle, they made it so you can press X to go to pokeballs quickly for easy catching.

The PC link box. You no longer have to travel back and forth between poke centers to get Pokemon from the box so you can level and evolve them, now you can access it on your person anywhere which is convenient and handy.

The name rater, move reminder, and deleter is all the same person and in every poke-center at no additional cost too!

From SM-Lets go, there were ride Pokemon that took up the task of the bike and the Hm moves, which was great! No more annoying Hm moves you couldn't get rid of and had to have to move around the world. Now it's improved further with the bike being able to slip between land and seas without any menus, you get the ability to fly very early, AND there's nothing for strength, cut or flash. Less tediousness and more easy-to-access features, thank you.

You can organize the menus to your preferred order. The bag is easier to understand, and you can favorite things and organize it by favorites so you'll always be able to see them. There are more options in the settings to help skip through dialogue-heavy parts and make the game more accessible to get through if you want.

Bad advertising:

I think one of the things that hurt the game pre-release is that the advertising was crap, barely any of the improvements were shown outside of the wild area and Dynamaxing. I mentioned before how stupid it was that we didn't get to see the evolutions for the damn starters. I don't mind that we didn't get to see all the new Pokemon, I like the surprise, but we should've seen at least the other exclusives, so help people decided what to buy. I do say you shouldn't show everything, but the starters and exclusives are necessary for people to decided what to buy and who they are going to choose.

The worst thing about the game:

Now I can see the problem with Dexit, and I can see the problem with the battle animations, BUT I believe the worst part about the game is the Ycomm feature. It's the replacement for the multiplayer menu from the DS games, and it brought over the worst feature from let's go. No Global trade System. So if you're looking for exclusives or low percentage chance pokemon well you're on your own, there's nothing to help you find the Pokemon you need. There's link trade and surprise trade and no way to specify what you want if you have a friend who got the other game, then your lucky. If you don't have any friends? Well, your fucked, sucks for you, you friendless loser lol lol. That's not it, though, and there's no friends list either. You have to use a four-digit link code, which by the way a random can also use it as well. But you know what they do have? League card trading section, League cards are fun and cute but a section to getting them from randoms when it means nothing? Pointless, that slow should've been for the GTS or at least a friend list section. They do have a way to search through stamps so you can find battles or trades and even Dynamax dens, though! Oh wait... the list barely updates frequently enough until the person searching for a raid team has either quit or started anyway, but the game won't tell you that until you attempt to join!

Pokemon Sword and Shield is a good game with shortcuts and flaws that are tedious and frustrating, but the improvements and good things that were added make up for its shortcomings. Heres hoping next year's game will carry over the good changes and improve on SWSH faults.

[medea10]

Medea Plays Pokemon Sword: Part II

After a long week of work and watching idiots doing idiot things because they’re idiots (a.k.a. Impeachment Hearings), it’s time to sit back and spaz over cute Yampers doing cute Yamper things.

I know, I’m a Clefairy-line fan. And I cannot wait to get one so I can get my Missy the Clefable. But...

Look at this cute, wittle breadloaf.

Aw, I want to be with you forever too, Winston Corgles Ein Handbanana the Breadloaf.

Hey, no! No.

We’re not evolving you...yet.

On another subject I forgot to mention in the last shit-post. If you played Let’s Go Pikachu/Eevee, there’s a fella that gives you a Pikachu and Eevee. Downside is, NO you cannot evolve them. And on another another subject, check out the first sentence on Piki’s bio.

Piki is total bad-ass. She’s a lost member of Naughty by Nature and is down with O.P.P.

I will always be a child of early 90′s Hip Hop. Back to the shit-post.

Another run-in with this butt-wipe. Let’s see how far he’s past in my characters I hate list. Um, he is now at Trip levels!

Thinks he’s better than you and has this notice-me-senpai syndrome for an older gentleman. Let’s hope Bede stays at this level and doesn’t go any further than this.

I beat Nessa. And I now ship Nessa x Sonia. Now it’s time to...

What crawled out your vagina to make you so fucking crabby?

Yeah, as you can plainly see I still have severe distrust for Chairman Rose and bitchy-locks here.

Hey, a thought occurs. What pokemon am I eating at this seafood restaurant? I know I love calamari. Am I eating Octillery? Oh God, I’m a monster!

Oh my God, this game is making me question everything in life and it’s getting too real man. Show me some cute pokemon!

Close enough. This would probably be my mother’s house since Wooper is her favorite pokemon.

Oh, fuck me, guy! This turd again?

Okay, now we blast past hating you on the same level as Trip.

Bede is now at...

Motoyasu from Shield Hero. An asshole I’m hoping gets whammed in the nuts more than once.

So far this game is giving me Hau 2.0 and a rival I wish would develop cancer and die quickly. Is it so much to ask for that we get a rival that...

Oh shit, there’s Marnie. I know I haven’t seen her in a while, but I do like her.

*snorts* Her cheering crowd is funny sometimes. Just look at these tossers!

They’re so fucking stupid I just have to laugh whenever I see them. They’re so amusing.

Meanwhile...

Got my third badge. And now onto...YOU AGAIN?!

Okay, Motoyasu is starting to look good compared to you Bede-wipe. Even my co-worker called you a douchebag.

You are now at Dilandau from Escaflowne levels. Please Bede, stop frequently coming in my direction.

Okay, made it to Hammerlocke. Did some stuff here, like...

Help a young boy with saying goodbye to a possible crush.

And get me a Flapple.

Resisted the urge to laugh at this dude’s shorts.

And learned that Pokemon can still talk about poop.

Just like when Gary Oak found fossilized pokemon poop.

Season one will always amuse me.

Geez, Galar’s got some major pigeon problems too.

Well, I’m done here if I can’t fight the gym leader yet. Time to hit the road to the next town. But not before running into...

Swinging Belleville Rendez-vous

I will never tire of saying that.

Time for the next town.

Oh fuck, I think this kid’s about to learn what a “golden shower” is if he stands under Bronzong like that any longer.

Fought and beat Bea.

And as much as I give flack to Hop for being Hau’s doppelganger, what with the one-syllable name, the same animation movements, and a need to be as strong as *insert family member here*, I feel for the kid.

He ended up fighting Bede and losing badly. And I feel sorry for this guy.

*sighs* Yeah, it’s time I have to see this little asshole AGAIN. Like the fucking herpes, this kid doesn’t go away. What’s he doing now?

Fucking shit, kid!

Welcome to Shinji Matou levels!

I just pray that Bede gets punched like that in this game by Milo or Cinderace or Leon or anyone really.

That’s why I was actually caught off guard when THIS happened.

And he freakin’ strips Bede from being a challenger right in front of us. I’m just, wow. Okay, give a star to the potential bad guy.

Wait, what?

Fuck.

No. Not doing this. Nope. I’m sick of the sad backstory coming out of nowhere to make me feel sorry for a character who has been an absolute pile of shit since the moment you saw him. Hell, even during the PV stage of this game, you knew you were going to hate this kid. So, no. I still hate him. Now that may change as I progress. But for now, fuck him!

Next town!

Okay, officially found the place I would gladly live in the Pokemon world. Well, I’d still be in Pallet Town for certain stalking reasons. But vacation home here!

Time to challenge Opal...and also go through an audition.

I seriously got some severe deja vu here. I thought I time-traveled back to high school, it was that freaky.

Yeah, um, screw you. I like wearing all black. Clefable may be my favorite pokemon, but I dress like a goth-moth 24/7.

Leave me alone about not wearing pink. For fuck’s sake, you tripped me up with your stupid question about favorite colors. How was I supposed to know purple was your favorite color when you keep saying I should wear more pink?

Say it again. Say pink again. I dare you. I double dare you, mother fucker! Say pink one more time!

Okay, I thought I would go straight-up Sam Jackson here. But this is a pretty funny moment. Though this next moment does get a little too stranger danger-y for my liking.

HA!

Okay Bede, don’t come back until you’re back to a tolerable-Trip level.

Back on the journey and I saw...

Many inventive curries.

Another whack-ass, white boy rapper.

The love child of the cactus and centipede from the Mario games.

And...

WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?!

MA! CALL THE FUCKING COPS!

THAT FUCKING CAT IS BACK! IT EVOLVED!

Okay, I’m done.

To be continued.

[jaybug-jabbers]

Pokemon Sword/Shield: A review of my experience

So, I’ve rung in the new year in style with a bad cold. Fortunately, I received a new Switch Lite for Christmas and a copy of Pokemon Sword, so at least I’ve had something to do while sitting about feeling miserble. I beat the game last night, and I figured I’d say a few words about what I thought of it. There are major spoilers ahead!

Graphics & Music

First of all, it looks absolutely beautiful. I’m used to using my 2DS, so the upgrade to the Switch Lite was quite the jump. When compared to previous Pokemon titles, the game is absolutely stunning to gaze upon. What’s more, the environments are varied, creative, colorful, and just lovely. They were such a delight that when I first started the game and had control of my character, the first thing I did was simply stand there for a solid five minutes just gazing on the dynamic, gorgeous countryside, butterfree flapping in the distance, Wooloo rolling around, people going about their day. It helps that I do love the UK and I’ve visited it in the past, and I have to say they did an excellent job evoking the feel of those landscapes. Exploring the towns and the environments was always a joy. Their layouts were natural, intuitive, and walking around or biking around was easy and fun. I was eager to explore every nook and cranny. Accompanying the environments was excellent music. All of the tracks were on-point. They set the feel of the location and they were all great to listen to.

UI & Battle Mechanics

Another thing you notice right away is the UI has been beautifully updated. It’s logically and appealingly organized, it’s very speedy, and there are a lot of quality-of-life tweaks and updates– such as accessing your pokemon PC from just about anywhere. (or easy access to Flying from the regular Map menu!) These tweaks have really helped smooth and streamline things and make for a better experience. It took some getting used to some of the tweaks, such as a forced Experience Share for the entire pokemon party. I’m still not sure what I think of that, but I kept reminding myself that full-party experience is standard in other RPGs, so it’s not so huge a jump for Pokemon to adopt it as well.

Characters

The game is also populated by many characters that I enjoyed. The character designs were well thought-out and appealing, and the characters themselves were fun. Hop may have a bit of a doofy haircut and be a bit of a dork, but he’s still an enjoyable rival. Professor Magnolia seems cool, as does her daughter Sonia. As we meet each of the gym leaders in turn, I generally liked them, as well. They did a good job adding little bits of personality to each of them. And yes, I even liked Leon, the over-the-top and bizarrely-dressed Champion. He was hammy and I think it worked well for him.

The Sport of Pokemon & Dynamaxing

Something else I found myself really enjoying was how much the game was emphasizing the sport aspect to Pokemon battling in the Galar region. This is something the game has always had to a certain extent, but never to the degree it has here. Pokemon battling was a huge spectacle here in Galar, done in massive statiums to huge, roaring crowds. This is a world of difference when compared to the solemn, trial-like, solitary experience of the Elite Four. It just brings and entirely different energy to the experience. And I found I really liked that. During the first few gym battles, I wasn’t entirely into it at first, largely because the first few gym fights were incredibly easy. But after they got a little harder, I started to get into the feel of things.

Naturally, the whole huge emphasis on the electric thrill of competition and of huge, bombastic spectacle was tied into the gimmick of this particular game: Dynamaxing. And as lukewarm as I was about Dynamaxing when I first heard it announced (I’m pretty tired of these gimmicks– Z-Moves, Mega Evolutions and the likes), I have to give credit where credit’s due: it was at least tied very thoroughly into the plot and into the fabric of the game. It didn’t feel tacked on, and I wasn’t resentful about actually using Dynamaxing. It may have been a silly gimmick, but it was still enjoyable to use, because it made sense to help entertain the crowds with oversized spectacle, and because there was a certain amount of enjoyment in the added strategy it required. I’m glad I was able to get into it.

I think the highest point for me about the gym challenge experience was when I was facing off Raihan. Here’s the chap they’ve been hyping for a while about facing up against, because he’s the last gym leader standing before you move onto the Semi Finals and the Finals. When you walk through the dark corridor out into the pitch, you can feel the electric atmosphere; you can hear people cheering your name as their new favorite trainer hopeful; and then, Raihan, the man who always acted so casual and smooth and cool, suddenly shows his intense side on the field of battle. He flings out two pokeballs and brags about mixing things up for you with a doubles format and with the weather, and dares you to step up for the challenge.

My two front pokemon come out– Snowdrop, my Frosmoth, and Bazz, my Grapploct. After all that weather bragging, I decide to show him, and have my Frosmoth flip his sandstorm weather over to Hail. Surprised, my opponent acknowledges that was a pretty nice move on my part. I then Blizzard and Superpower his first pair of pokemon out of the picture.

I’m feeling pretty good, and then he sends out his second pair of pokemon. I have no idea what the heck the Duraludon is supposed to be. Then he Dynamaxes it, which takes me a little off guard, as I had expected it later, but of course this is doubles so there is no later. I stall for a little bit, trying to decide what to hit the Duraludon with, and my first few pokemon go down, and the sandstorm kicks back in.

I decide to send out my Corviknight out for Dynamaxing. But I’m still floundering over the best tactic for this unfamiliar pokemon. I try Max Airstream to see how much it does, but it’s not a very impressive chunk. Then his Sandaconda gets a Glare off on my Corviknight, which is a pain. I waste one of my Dynamax turns getting paralyzed. I’ve fainted several other pokemon in the process of things. I start to think I’m toast and I’ll need to replay the match. Then I realize this stupid-looking Duraludon is, of course, a Steel type. I’d just recently put Body Press onto my Corviknight for some move variety. On my final Dynamax turn, I use it. It utterly destroys the Duraludon, which had just lost its Dynamax.

My own Corviknight falls back down into its normal state. There’s only one pokemon left on either one of our teams; his damned Sandaconda and my half-health Corviknight. The sand is still up, but my Corviknight didn’t mind that at all. It did, however, mind the paralysis and the Fire Fang the snake kept using. Fortunately, Corviknight is still a tanky beast, and I blasted away with Drill Pecks. It was tense, really down to the wire. Would Corviknight tank enough hits to make it? Would he get paralyzed at an inopportune moment?

Fortunately, he makes it, finishing off Sandaconda and taking the match. As I cheer at the victory, my pokemon cheers too, amongst all the swirling sand. The crowd roars, and I feel a genuine respect for my opponent’s skill. It was a good fight. Afterwards, when I returned to the lobby, people were congratulating me on my victory, and it felt truly nice.

Moments like these are not common in pokemon games. At least, they aren’t for me. I had felt everything during that match– the magnificent spectacle of the dynamaxing, the tricks my opponent pulled, his keen desire to win, the crowd’s thirst for a good match, my desire to pull through somehow. As it turned out, after that, I didn’t have battle quite as good. The Semi-Finals and the Finals were a cakewalk for me. Even the Raihan rematch was ridiculously easy. He changed up his team and made it much worse, so that he had different weather-setters for each poke, lacking any team synergey at all. It was a shame. Perhaps the only reason that match was so close was because I had been briefly intimidated over the doubles format and confused over the  Duraludon, but I do wish those magical experiences happened more often.

Indeed, even my final battle with the Champion was a woeful disappointment. I got off one Dragon Dance with Dragapult and swept the whole team cleanly. That brings up another point, though: the difficulty level of this game. It is … well, not very high. It’s a shame. I realize it’s a tricky balance, since this game is aimed at a variety of age levels, and they don’t want it too difficult for the younger audience. Still, it would be nice for Pokemon to implement a ‘hard mode’ to help deal with this issue. Perhaps if they did, we could have more magical moments like the one I had with Raihan.

Character Development & Plot

The low difficulty wasn’t the only thing about Pokemon Sword/Shield that sometimes brought disappointment. At the end of the game, I also found the plot sort of ended up in a no-man’s land. Almost all of the plotlines felt unfinished. Marnie looked like a really cool character full of potential, but then nothing ever really happened with her character. Team Yell ended up being very different from all the other ‘teams’ of the pokemon universe, in that they were just very vocal and sometimes excessively involved fans of Marnie. I actually liked the idea of the ‘team’ not being a group of organized villians up to no good, but Team Yell’s plot ultimately petered out into nothing. The same could be said for other characters. Sonia was a cool-looking character design and again seemed to have a lot of potential as a character, but I never quite understood the point of her plot. She was … uninterested in research, maybe, but became interested? Or was overwhelemed with the work? Or … what, exactly? When she “earned” the lab coat, it didn’t feel like an accomplishment. There was no weight or clarity to her character arc in the slightest. She didn’t even ultimately contribute all that much, because she failed to even be the one to discover the Sword and Shield artifacts.

Again, we find this trend with others, such as Hop’s development. Hop is a cocky, confidant young lad who idolizes his older brother. Eventually he runs into a trainer who throws off his groove, gets into his head with some comments, claiming that he’s dragging his older brother’s name through the mud by being shite at pokemon battling. Then he starts to doubt and second-guess himself, reshuffle his team and his strategies endlessly, and so forth. Eventually, he seems to ‘get over it’ and gets his groove back, but we never are given a really firm reason as to why he gets his groove back. What brought about this change? We need to see why he’s learned and grown. And really, even when he does pull his shit together again, has he really learned much from the experience? I assumed his ultimate lesson would be to see his brother more as an equal, not as someone to idolize; as a human who can self-doubt and make mistakes just like him. But the writers passed up the opportunity to go that way with the plot. They just sort of … gave up halfway.

The most of a glimpse we get from that is something given to us from the animation itself, not the writers. Out on the pitch, during the final battle against Leon, when he’s just about to toss his pokemon out, there’s a moment when he pauses and taps both hands against his face. It’s a subtle little gesture, as if he’s trying to shake off any gnawing self-doubts and get his head into the game, and it echoes his younger brother, who we’ve seen do the same thing. It’s such a lovely little touch, such a human moment, and to me shows that both brothers have been vulnerable to self-doubt despite their swagger, but in the end can overcome it. I only wish the idea were explored further in the actual plot.

The ‘evil plot’ of this particular game also feels only half-baked and incomplete. The motivation behind Rose’s actions feels entirely absent to me, as does any logic whatsoever. What’s worse, the game leaves behind so many lingering questions. OK, so this slumbering Eternatus is the source of all Dynamax power, and he’s discovered the energy will run out in a thousand years or so. How is waking up Eternatus by feeding it Wishing Stars (which, as Magnolia later reports, are bits of Eternatus itself– so, what, feeding  Eternatus pieces of itself?) going to help with that? Will it produce more energy once awake? So he planned on capturing it and … sending it out whenever they needed more energy? Or just keeping it around as a power-giving pet of some sort? But at the end of the game, the player keeps Eternatus for themselves, so doesn’t that mean Galar is sort of screwed now? How can the power plant continue to function (and Dynamaxing) if the source of that power is now inside my pokeball? Also, how exactly did Rose wake up Eternatus to begin with/bring about the Darkest Day? Just release all the energy he had at once? There’s so much that’s confusing and unclear. Basically, the plotline felt very half-baked. I had the sense the writing for this game was frankly very rushed.

It doesn’t stop there. Oleana, the whole thing with Bede, and other characters are left with tons of lingering questions and unfinished plotthreads as well. I suspect the devs simply ran out of time. It’s a huge shame, because I enjoyed all of these characters and felt there was so much potential there, but that potential was never really realized.

Pokemon

This generation has a relatively low number of new pokemon, and you do feel that a little bit as you’re going along. The older pokemon that are mixed in were chosen well, in that they blend naturally with the environments they were placed in, and they’re spaced out nicely, so you encounter a mix of new and old at a nice clip, so they have that going for themselves. But even still, yes, you do start to wish there were a few more surprising faces. Still, there’s definitely fun to be had with new pokemon, especially for some of the cooler Galar regional variants. (I fully support regional variants and am happy they made a comeback in this generation.)

As you’ve no doubt heard by now, there’s also only a very limited set of old pokemon this game has access to. Any species not listed in the Galar dex simply cannot be transferred over. This has upset many people, but when I played the game, it did not feel lacking for that reason. The sheer number of pokemon in the overall franchise is now staggering. It makes complete sense to not include every species in every game now. They intend to include old pokemon on rotation in future games, and that seems like a fair compromise to me. Am I bummed that my favorite Parasect can’t be transferred to Galar? Of course. But I’m not too worked up over the fact. He’ll see another region someday.

To finish this section off, I’m going to do a rapid-fire list of my top 5 and bottom 5 of the new pokemon.

Top 5

Corviknight: An absolutely gorgeous design and easily the MPV of my team.

Wooloo/Dubwool: It’s an adorable ball sheep/ram. You simply can’t go wrong with that. One of the first to be revealed of the new pokes, but I can never get bored with it.

Dragapult: A very creative, lizardy Dragon/Ghost creature that adorably shoots its own babies as ammo. I love it.

Grappaloct: So beautiful. Love its design, its stance, the way one tentacle is a belt, love its colors and pattern, its eyes, its cry, everything. Such a badass and I love octopi in general, so a real winner. This is the octopus we’ve needed for a while.

Snom/Frosmoth: I mean, in some ways its design isn’t revolutionary, since we already have many moth pokemon. However, Snom is still adorable and Frosmoth is still beautiful, something you cannot deny. And it’s been long overdue to get an Ice/Bug. What’s more, Snom is based off real caterpillars (jewel caterpillars), which is wonderful.

Bottom 5

Inteleon: A very distinctive design style that doesn’t look like it belongs anywhere near a Pokemon game. Just feels very mismatched to me.

Alcremie: I hate sentient food. A massive pet peeve of mine.

Applin: See above.

Duraludon: Sorry, but I still think its design is ugly. I can’t get used to it.

Mr. Mime (Galar Variant): No. Mr. Mime is always horrible. Stay away from me. Keep your creepy variant, too.

The Wilds Area

Of course, a review of the game would be incomplete if I didn’t mention the Wild Area. This section of the game was really very lovely. I enjoyed exploring what was essentially Breath of the Wild: Pokemon, and I think it’s a wonderful direction for the game to take. Wandering around, finding goodies, rare pokemon, Dynamax dens and all the rest is very entertaining and it’s just beautiful. Really makes you feel like you’re out in nature exploring, and really encountering pokemon in their natural environment. I’ve read people predicting that Game Freak is using the Wild Area in this game as a test, and something they will probably expand upon in later games. If that’s what they are indeed doing, then I welcome the change. I can’t say I am super interested in fighting wild Dynamax pokemon with my friends, but I did enjoy everything else.

Summary

So, would I recommend this game to others? It would depend on who you are. If you’re a big pokemon fan, then yes, of course. You’ll enjoy the beautiful locations to explore, the new pokemon, and the excitement of the Galar sports arenas, as well as some colorful characters. However, you are going to find some flaws. The plot and character arcs are going to eventually end up a little lacking, and you’ll find there’s not as much new content as you’d have preferred. While some aspects of this game are very well polished and complete, others feel rushed. Overall, it’s going to be a mixed experience, but I think that if you like pokemon, you will still enjoy it.

This is a repost on a new blog. The original post was on Jan 1, 2020.

[welsh-gamer]

Finished Pokemon Sword and Shield

Spoilers below

Ho boy this one has been a doozy - it’s easily the most controversial Pokemon game so far, what with how many changes have taken place. 

Pokemon has managed with annual development cycles for the past 24 years. It’s not like every year has seen the release of a core series game but they’re out enough that you’ll find two or three on every Nintendo console. In fact I think the only console NOT to join in on the fun is the Wii U... It had a bad Pokemon Rumble game but that’s all I remember.  

I went into this game with very low expectations. Having played Persona 5, I knew what a good UI felt like. Persona was responsive, you pressed a button and something happened immediately. In scenarios where your teammates get hit all at the same time it happens, you don’t get hit one by one, and when you’re hit by multi-attacks it just..... shows the attack hitting you or your enemy rather than AGONIZINGLY showing each impact one by one. 

Pokemon is a game with no respect for your time and Sword/Shield do not show remarkable improvements for this area. This is by and large the greatest flaw of the game, which claims to be catering itself to a younger audience when we know no small child will put up with this boring crap in silence.  

The Galar region is a step back from the fantastic Alola region too, with a lack of any proper worldbuilding. In previous Pokemon games you would enter a town and some NPCs would tell you the purpose of the town. Not in this game, where there’s a desert, a snow city, a bunch of other places all with no lore whatsoever. You enter them, fight the gym leader, and leave. 

I think that the core gym challenge, however, is one of the best that has ever been in Pokemon. Instead of just fighting a bunch of randos, you complete minigames called a “gym mission”. Past gens have done this (a prime example being Generation 5), but you can tell that GAME FREAK are taking advantage of the console’s power during these challenges, compared to Gen 7 which had nothing of the sort. The game has actual physics in some of the Gym Challenges. 

Exploring the Galar region at my own pace, being able to selectively encounter Wild Pokemon which now appear in the overworld.... Biggest improvement by far over the previous gens. This one needs to stick. Your quality of life is much better when you can see all the cute pokemon bumbling around. 

I found the characters to be, eh, nowhere near the level of Gen 7′s cast, but pleasant enough to want to see more of. This includes all the gym leaders, the champion Leon, and your pseudorivals Bede and Marnie. Hop, however, is a pain in the backside who becomes more of a loser as the story goes on. I’m not sure if he ever stops being one. No kidding - In the end he just has to accept that he’s a loser and do something else with his life. 

The “villain” was just some guy whose home we invaded. He went “F*** it” and tried to solve the energy crisis, then cried to the Champion when it went wrong. This was all just leadup to the awesome final battle against Eternatus, which has no difficulty at all since you can just sit back and watch the fireworks, but has a rocking soundtrack and feels epic enough.  

The postgame is lacking, no fun minigames like Gen 7, no dark Ultra Beast story like Annabelle’s and Looker’s, but it was servicable enough. You beat up Jedward and catch a puppy.   

The multiplayer aspect is HIGHLY LIMITED. It’s fun to be able to engage in battles against Gigantamax Beasts but it’s repetitive and difficult to matchmake with since you have to join each match individually and many of them are just people exploiting the game’s clock to get the Gigantamax pokemon they want. These people will glitch you out if you try to join them. If you leave the multiplayer on in the Overworld, it has the quality of Dragonball Xenoverse where the ally characters may or may not pop-in every couple of seconds. It’s chaotic and it will slow your game right down.  

The pokemon themselves.... In  a static image they look super boring, but in the Pokemon Camp minigame and during certain battle animations they can look impressive. My favourite was the ladybug pokemon, which is covered in spots that will flicker in its middle stage and outright swirl in its final form. I also enjoyed Scorbunny’s epic kick, everything to do with Sirfetch’d, and a certain fighting type’s special move called “No Retreat” which has all 5 of its components band together in a Spartan march.    

Overall, I would not say the game is worth the high price tag of £50. Get it cheaper if you possibly can.

Ratings below:  

Gameplay: 5 - A servicable battle system but it needs to move much faster. 

Story: 3 - Even the other characters treat the story like it’s interrupting your true journey; Pretty much nonexistent, then crammed into the final 5 minutes before you fight the Champion. This game was better when it was just letting me do my own thing.   

Music: 6 - Not up to Sun/Moon’s standard. Wild battle theme is good. Hometown theme is among the best. Everything else is pretty generic. The basic gym leader theme fights Gym Leader Piers for supremacy. 

Presentation: 2 - Considering the amount of resources this company have and how cheaply it continues to present its games, the only way this could get a lower score is if they went back to what Gen 1 looked like. 

Replayability: 7 - Benefitted greatly by the Switch’s multiple profiles. I could see myself trying a nuzlocke run for laughs. This game also gives you more peace and quiet, making it ironically more replayable than the superior Gen 7. 

Timewasting degree: GAME FREAK. I christen this development team with its own category, because I cannot express enough how much they want to waste the player’s time on innocuous crap. God forbid I play a game which wastes my time more and create the “Worse than GAME FREAK” category. 

Overall total: 4.5 out of 10.  This game has its cute parts but you can do so much better. It’s time to start trying. 

[silverstrangequark]

A spoiler-free review of SwSh

I don't talk much, but there are things that need to be said, especially for the people out there who are still considering whether or not they want to invest on the new Switch titles. Here's what I've noticed of the several aspects of the game while playing it. Most of these impressions were already evident as early as before the first badge, and didn't change throughout the game. I'm still not done, but I've put a good 12+ hours in and I think that's enough to have an informed opinion of it. If anything changes, I'll update this journal. I fully realise that the following are entirely personal opinions and that some people may differ in their thoughts and impressions of the game. That's fine and understandable. I have written this journal respectfully and with no intention to attack those who are enjoying the games. I ask that you reserve me the same politeness and courtesy. 1. Story It's not a mystery that Pokémon doesn't have the best storytelling, with few notable exceptions like BW. SwSh doesn't really deliver anything exceptional in this sense. The story isn't terrible, just thoroughly uninteresting and hard to get into. The characters feel more like tropes and caricatures than actual people, though this is also a problem in a good portion of the mainline games, so I'll just count it as a point of neutrality rather than a full negative. [/] 2. Mechanics Up to personal opinion, but I find the new battle mechanics absolutely unnecessary. The Pokémon Company has stated previously in official conferences that they want to bring the franchise "back to the roots", and Dynamax is not the way to do it. I can deal with Mega Evolution and Z-moves being removed, but what was introduced in their stead is basically a combination of both with a different flavour (increasing different stats and changing the effect of special moves), at which point I'm really questioning why they didn't maintain the original mechanics in the first place, or just wipe them out altogether. I personally liked battling the way it was before. I don't find that new battle gimmicks make a game more interesting - they make it more annoying, if anything, as they basically force you into a specific battle style to keep up with your opponents. [-] 3. Gameplay What in the world is pacing?!? The game takes you through several hours of early-game tutorials (bits of which are skippable, so at least that's a good thing, I don't want to be shown how to catch Pokémon for the 20th time) which give the player the impression that the game will be long and rich. Once you get to the first gym, that very impression is crushed and you start steamrolling leader by leader in rapid succession. There are moments in the game in which you travel through literally ONE ROUTE and then the next gym is one town over. Kalos has sparked some complaints for awkward pacing after the third gym, but this is just a whole another level of bad game flow management. [-] 4. Designs This is likely the most personal point of all, but I find the new Pokémon okay. Some of them look weird, but overall the designs are true to the series and more or less what I'd expect from Pokémon. I don't have as many favourites in this generation as I do for the others, which means in general terms it didn't really impress me, but if Galar is your thing then go for it. I can at least give them credit for introducing regional evolutions, that's likely one of the most interesting things they've done in this game - one which I hope they keep into the future, as I'd like to see more regional variants and evolved forms thereof. [+] 5. Graphics The one selling point of this game according to its very developers! Graphics have got to be good, right? Nope. 5.a. The overworld is really well done. Cities and towns blend into each other seamlessly and there is a very three-dimensional sense of perspective throughout the region. Lighting is more realistic than ever before (for how realistic a Pokémon game can be, that is), and there is better texturing work than in the previous installments of the series. [+] 5.b. ...Unfortunately, that's about all I can say. The Wild Area, advertised as the game's major attraction, fails to deliver - at least compared to my expectations. While the overworld itself is well done graphically, the WA showcases several odd graphical choices and the shapes, colours and textures are all weirdly unnatural and simplistic. The character keeps glitching in and out of the screen (not sure if this was intended, but I didn't like it; please provide a consistent camera view). The area itself is not even that big and can be completely explored in maybe 30 minutes total. Considering that this game has half the average amount of routes because of the Wild Area, I don't think this is quite enough to make up for what was cut. [-] 5.c. Pokémon models and attack animations are all 100% reused from previous generations. They don't feel any more interesting or realistic and we still have Pokémon shooting Flamethrower and Ice Beam out of something other than their mouths in an average case, or a completely alien corner point of the screen in particularly bad cases. You would think in 2019 they would at least care enough to fix this, but they didn't. [-] 5.d. Battle backgrounds are completely awful and a huge step down from the Sun and Moon generation. If you fight indoors, you will have NO BACKGROUND. There will just be a flat gradient. Even outdoors backgrounds are not perfect, as there are several areas near the sea in which you will just get a weird grassy terrain background (usually recycled from the previous route or some other nearby location). Sun and Moon had individual backgrounds even for battles in the Trainer School, for crying out loud! Who thought this was a good idea? [-] 5.e. Characters look, move, and feel much in the same ways as they did in the 3DS games and I've seen some hilarious gifs comparing the new friendly rival to Hau. They use the exact same movements. I would give this a neutral point if they had at least made an effort. [-] 6. Variety Dexit is obviously an issue, but one that I had coming eventually. With the sheer amount of Pokémon ever invented, there was bound to be a cut somewhere along the line. The selection of around 400 is overall not too small but also not great, and leaves a certain amount to be desired. [/] 7. Music Likely my first time playing a Pokémon game and being thoroughly uninterested in the soundtrack. Several themes are reused throughout, not just in routes (which is average for Pokémon) but also in places like caves, and the city themes feel like an odd mashup of old generations in which the originals definitely did it better. Apart from a couple battle themes of "relevant" characters, I find it really hard to get invested in the music. [-] Appendix: Overall At 2 positives, 2 neutrals, and a whopping 7 negatives, I have to say this is the most disappointing Pokémon game I've ever played, and I've played every single main series release. I enjoyed Let's Go Pikachu and Eevee much more, because at least I knew what to expect and the game was exactly what I expected it to be. Sword and Shield were marketed as some mind-blowing innovative titles with amazing graphics and a whole new gameplay experience, and I can honestly say they don't meet that promise at all. The Dexit rage and #GameFreakLied hashtag have more than a reason to exist. 3/10 If you're a long-term fan, skipping these won't harm you at all. In fact, as a long-term fan myself, I can say it's pretty likely these games will leave a bitter taste in your mouth for how unfinished they obviously are. Some people are enjoying them as-is, and that's fine, I can respect that, but I don't believe they're anywhere near worth their current price tag. If you're not a long-term fan but just looking to get into Pokémon, please please start with a different generation. There are so many good games to play out there, that deserve your time and money more than SwSh do.

[hatsunemikuvevo]

Someone gifted you Sword, right? Is it as bad as you thought?

Pretty much?

I’ll do a review-ish thing for it. There’s gonna be story spoilers, on the off chance you actually give a shit about the plot. (There’s hardly anything to spoil. Which is why it’s in the cons)

Pros:

Trainer customization is improvedThat camping stuff is cuteDynamaxed Pokemon fucking exploding when you beat them is hilarious to meThey gave an actually good lore reason for dynamaxing EVEN THOUGH IT’S HIDDEN ON A RANDOM FUCKING SIGNThere’s some good new designs(Almost) everyone is hot

Hop is absolutely nowhere NEAR as bad as Hau and his “I’M THE BEST EVER” attitude smacks him in the face HARDSome of the signature move animations like Pyro Ball are actually real cool looking buuuuuuut....

Cons:

You still have absolutely fucking PATHETIC move animations like Double KickThanos snapping the roster is bullshit, seriously. The only, ONLY positive of this was Landorus-T going away. Eat shit, Smogon!Getting Gigantimax Pokemon without using the exploit is so fucking horseshit I wouldn’t have even bothered trying to get one if I couldn’t cheese it99% of the plot happens in the background. You never, at any point, veer away from the gyms to do something else. It has less of a plot than Red and Blue, somehow. The adults/champion/etc actually being competent for once is novel but I kinda would have preferred DOING SOMETHING. The “plot” really only happens after you get to the champion fight.Remember how Emerald and Platinum had MASSIVE post games? The fuck happened to that? Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon had a really fucking cool one with Rainbow Rocket too. Sword/Shield had barely anything of note. Pretty lame tbh.Why in the actual hell did they add multiple Psychic/Fairy types? Like, dude, I run monofairy I need SOME secondary typing variety come onMega evolutions being gone is stupid, I’m sure some people are glad they’re gone but it was a MUCH better mechanic than dynamaxing... and it gave my Gardevoir a really potent move (pixelate hyper voice is the business)Dynamaxing in general is an absolutely SHIT mechanic, it’s fun to mess around with in single player and all but if you’re playing even remotely competitively it’s really boring. Probably the literal only time I will ever agree with those tryhards at Smogon banning something.

The discourse surrounding this game turning into “Sword/Shield is objectively shit, there is 100% nothing positive about this game at all and you’re fucking stupid if you like it” vs “Gamefreak can literally do nothing wrong they should be PRAISED for cutting content if you don’t like SwSh you HATE Pokemon, and you probably are okay with the death threats Gamefreak received” got so fucking tiring I had to mute Pokemon on twitter and flat out refuse to talk about it until you just sent this DM. Seriously, the fanbase is more toxic than a room full of Koffings Pokemon fans need to fucking CHILL

Galar in general felt kind of small compared to all the other regions

Melony wasn’t in the version I played ;n;

There was a critical lack of Marnie in the story and I wasn’t happy about it

So yeah I wasn’t a huge fan of it honestly. I did have some fun playing through it but if you compare it to pretty much any other mainline game (Not Red and Blue though, EVERYTHING is better than those unless you’re talking about the plot... in which case I’d honestly say Sw/Sh is the worst, sadly) you’ll notice the flaws. Which there are a lot of. Extremely disappointing for the first mainline console game to pale in comparison to most of the other games. Gamefreak should really let some other company handle the development for once... but they should keep doing the character designs they’re still VERY good at that. 

6/10, just wait for the sequel versions if you haven’t bought it already.

[arson-goku]

The new starters are good and all but I'm honestly feeling kinda meh towards the new Pokemon games. I got a lot of thoughts on the subject so I’m putting them under the cut.

And because this apparently needs to be said EVERY time I make a post like this, this post is NOT intended to trash people who are excited for this game. I am simply stating my own, PERSONAL opinions based off this one trailer.

First, the graphics. They're not BAD, but they're only slightly an improvement over the last few games. The switch is capable of so much more than that and they're not taking full advantage of it. And this only kinda related, but the walk cycle still looks awkward as hell. Please fix it Gamefreak.

Second, the region. I think basing it on the UK is a good idea, but I’m concerned by the map. I know that, for better or worse, Pokemon games have always had a painfully linear story. However, that doesn't necessarily mean the regions have to have a linear design. Look at Hoenn's map:

Look at all those routes! There's more than one way to get just about everywhere on the map. Even if you must progress linearly at first, there's plenty of optional areas to explore and the region opens up the more you play. Compare that to Unova:

Unova has some cool stuff it it, I especially like the Skyarrow bridge. But this map is pathetic. It’s a straight line that leads into a circle. There’s no optional routes, no reason to backtrack. You just move from point A to B to C and so on until you reach the end. How boring. Now let’s look at Galar:

We don’t know the routes yet, so I could very well be wrong (and I hope I am!) but it looks like a straight fucking line.

Pokemon games don’t need to be so linear! It makes the region feel small, it’s less fun to explore and to replay. Linear games can be really great, and they work best in a game with a strong story and well defined characters. But for games that try to capture a sense of adventure, less linear games work better.

Third, random encounters are back after they were removed in Let's Go. I know I’m in the minority opinion on this, but I actually preferred roaming pokemon over random encounters. Seeing pokemon in the overworld made the game feel more alive, and I was relieved I no longer had to fear getting into a battle every step I took in the tall grass or caves. Searching for the pokemon you want was much less tedious and a lot more fun.

I know lots of people prefer random encounters, and that’s fine! If it were up to me, it’d be an option you could turn on or off, like set or switch. But I doubt we’ll ever see roaming pokemon return in a main series game, and I’m disappointed to see it gone.

Finally, the trailer just didn't show me anything new or exciting enough to convince me I should buy the game instead of just replaying an older one. The battles are the same as always, we’re back to gyms, the 23-year-old formula is in full effect here and it’s just so stale.

BOTW and Odyssey were such amazing games because they were both so different from the 3D Zelda and Mario games of the past. Pokemon Sword and Shield looks like more of the same.

I think I’ll just replay ORAS, thanks.

[radramblog]

VGC Series 10 Restricted Pokemon

So the new series of Pokemon Sword and Shield competitive is about to launch (as in, it starts on Sunday). The rules are pretty interesting, and as a result a lot of the metagame is being thrown on its head.

-Dynamax is off. They just up and got rid of the games’ gimmick. I’m sure Smogon DOU players will be right at home.

-Each team is permitted one Restricted Pokemon, as in Series 8.

There are 24 Pokemon listed as “Restricted”, just about all of them the intentionally overpowered “cover legendaries” the series has stuck with since Gold and Silver. Each of them is extremely powerful, and would be a worthwhile addition to any team.

But, which one should you run? Find out in this entirely serious guide.

(I was going to attach funny meme images to this like but I ran out of time sorry just imagine doge memes next to Zacian and stuff you get the idea i might edit this later)

Mewtwo

There are two types of people running Mewtwo. People with nostalgia, whether it be just because it’s one of their favourite mons or because the infamy of it being the “ultimate Pokemon” stuck in their heads too long, or because they know how good it actually is but they want to try it anyway.

I mean, it’s not bad? Obviously that Sp.A don’t quit, and Terrain-boosted Expanding Force is kinda nutty. Plenty of coverage, too. But without the Megas, Mewtwo just isn’t good enough anymore, I think. And unfortunately, there’s another thing on this list that kinda just does the same thing, but better.

 Lugia

While Mewtwo is unquestionably a fast offensive threat, Lugia represents the opposite end of the spectrum. It’s faster than I had assumed, actually, but most of why you run it is for that sweet sweet chonk.

I understand wanting to use Lugia. The second movie is my favourite too. But 90/90 offenses don’t cut it these days, you don’t want your Uber/Restricted to be a supportive mon, and setup strategies are both risky and done better by other things. Sorry? Aeroblast is a lot cooler when you can turn it into Max Flying, I’m afraid.

 Ho-Oh

I actually don’t have anything bad to say about Ho-oh. It’s actually kind of great, and possibly underrated- it is able to check some of the biggest threats in the meta, and is dummy thick enough to take hits and clear out the remainder.

It is in the 90 Speed group, which a surprising number of these Restricteds are, so you might suffer from speed creeping issues. Or just run bulk, because Regenerator and Recover make it nigh-unkillable if you invest hard enough.

Look I’m biased I just built a Ho-oh team what do you want from me?

 Kyogre

One of the two Weather restricted things. Just about everyone running Rain is going to want one of these, and it’s one of the most popular mons in the format as a result. It’s not quite meta-defining, but it’s the first of what I reckon are going to be the Big Four of the format.

Water Spout and Origin Pulse hit like an absolute tank off this thing. It doesn’t need much else. This is why you run Wide Guard, people.

Kyogre is very good, which is what makes it very boring. We will be returning to this concept.

 Groudon

The Other Weather Setter, and inexplicably a way less popular one. It might be that Eruption isn’t STAB and doesn’t come off it’s superior Physical Attack- Fire Punch doesn’t quite hit as hard.

That, and there actually is another solid Sun setter in Torkoal. But why not both, though?

I ran Groudon in Series 8 and I was pretty impressed by its performance. I mean, it’s Kyogre but awkward and Physical. You could do a lot worse.

 Rayquaza

I love Rayquaza a lot, as a result of both Emerald and the anime, so it’s with a heavy heart that I must say that Rayquaza is, like, not good in this format.

The key issue Rayq faces is that it’s statline is really awkwardly distributed. It has 150 in both offenses, but that leaves it’s other stats somewhat lacking compared to the other restricteds on the list. That and it’s ability, Air Lock, implies it’d be good at beating Groudon/Kyogre, but it kind of just loses to them 1v1. They’re bulky enough to live a hit, and don’t have to go out of their way to clonk it for SE damage. And what the fuck, it only has 95 speed? It feels like it should have much more.

 Dialga

I haven’t seen much buzz about Dialga, which is actually kind of surprising. Like, Steel/Dragon is a great typing, it’s a Dragon that isn’t weak to Fairy or Ice or Dragon, and it’s statline is pretty solid- 150 Sp.A and 100/120/100 defenses. What’s not to love?

Oh it probably just dies to Zacian doesn’t it. Or Landorus, of whom both forms are super popular right now. Sigh. One day.

 Palkia

Looking at the Pikalytics data, apparently a bunch of people are running Trick Room Palkia? Which makes zero sense to me, seeing as it’s actually a bit faster than a bunch of these mons.

It’s relatively less bulky, but BEEG DRACOVISH here is probably pretty decent. I’ve heard, however, that calling something decent basically just means it’s bad. And I wouldn’t be surprised if that turns out to be the case. Two of the Big Four just lay this fucker flat out, so.

 Giratina

Despite being bulkier than Palkia, it’s weaker to an additional member of the Big Four, which probably just makes it unusable. Whoops.

And as cool as noodle Giratina is, it dies to even more things, isn’t any faster, and means you don’t get to run a funky item to make it runnable. Prooobably just stick to Dragapult?

 Reshiram

Reshiram presents an interesting question, because it’s typing and moveset are kinda great for the format. It’s another Fairy-neutral Dragon, which is nice and good, and Blue Flare hits like an absolute truck.

I’m convinced Reshiram has a place in the meta. I just don’t quite know what it is yet.

 Zekrom

Zekrom strikes me as like, Reshiram but it’s worse against Zacian and better against Kyogre. It’s interesting, because Fire is a type you kinda want right now, but Electric is pretty good as well? Like, Regieleki cannot fucking touch this thing.

Zekrom also has a kind of insane moveset to work with, and if you want to try a Dragon Dance set, it’s a great spot for it. So, basically, maybe?

 Kyurem

I guess you could technically run Base Kyurem as your Restricted. I don’t know why you would, it’s kind of awful. Typing sucks, moves suck, stats don’t make up for it.

 Kyurem-Black

Kyurem-Black was given it’s greatest gift since its release- actually getting Physical Ice STAB off it’s ludicrous 170 Attack. Unfortunately, this alone does not a playable mon make, and it’s still weak to frankly too many types. Ice is just so completely awful defensively! Please fix this, Game Freak.

35% of people trying this format out early are running Power Herb Freeze Shock, and I salute you crazy, crazy bastards. But also that sounds awful tbh.

 Kyurem-White

Reshiram, but you trade a great defensive type for a bad one, and gain monstrous stats in return. If you can find a way to stop Zacian from hitting it, it probably one-shots it back. Also, it gets Freeze-Dry for Kyogre, though even with 170 Sp.A I don’t know if you one-shot that thing.

 Xerneas

 We’re finally getting to member two of the Big Four. Xerneas is an old standby of restricted VGC formats, and kind of a one trick pony. Er, deer. But that one trick is very solid, so fair enough.

If I’m honest, I think that One Trick is going to make Xerneas take a hit in usability, because the moment it gets good, people instantly know how to counter it and add that into their teams. The thing barely ever runs non-Fairy attacking moves, for fuck’s sake! Put a Steel in front of it and it just cries.

 Yveltal

 Yveltal is awkward, because it’s fighting for a spot with the Very Good Moltres-Galar, which doesn’t take up the restricted slot. But Yveltal does have a space to work within, I think.

It’s got an absolutely phenomenal support moveset, which again isn’t really want you want on your Restricted, but it’s natural offenses are good enough that you can probably just get away with it. STAB Oblivion Wing and STAB/Dark Aura Snarl are incredible for bulkier builds, and it even has incredible damage with a priority Sucker Punch. Basically, it’s got some things going on.

 Zygarde

Zygarde is the most awkward ‘mon on this list, methinks. It’s entire bit is trying to get to low HP in order to trigger Power Construct and get into it’s super mode, but the statgain…isn’t incredible? It’s HP doubles and it trades 10 Speed for Special Attack. Which you might not even be using? And this is all predicated on it getting to particular HP values, which is a lot harder now that you can’t Dynamax it.

This thing is scary as hell in the Max Lair, but not so much here. Signature moves are fucking wild though.

 Cosmog/Cosmoem

I know they’re preevolutions of two restricted species, but why are these restricted? Was Z-Teleport really that good?

You have to be a serious memelord to play one of these, and a very good player to actually win with them. In other words, if I see one of these on ladder or in a tournament, I’m going to start sweating.

 Solgaleo

Solgaleo has the same problem as Yveltal, but moreso. Because just about anything it can do, Metagross can do just about as well and without taking up a restricted spot. Sure, Meteor Mash is a bit worse than Sunsteel Strike, and technically Full Metal Body and Clear Body aren’t identical (FMB is immune to ability-nullifying effects, apparently), but come onnnn. Are you really running Sun Dog when you can run funy robot man and also your choice of restricted beastie? Come on now.

 Lunala

 As much as I love Lunala’s design, it’s not particularly good. It has the same typing as Caly-Ghost, and significantly worse stats, ability, and movepool. And conveniently, due to that shared typing, Caly-Ghost just lays this fucker to waste. A shame, for such a cool design.

 Necrozma

Similar to Kyurem, you could run this, if you wanted a worse Mewtwo. I guess it is better than the Ice Dragon, but like, don’t bother.

 Necrozma-Dusk-Mane

The other reason not to run Solgaleo is because this exists. Just, the same, but way better. It’s a lot slower, but that just makes it playable in Trick Room, so.

NDM over here is competing with Zacian for the throne of Nuts Steel/X Physical Dog. Unfortunately, because Zacian is, frankly, completely fuckbusted insane, and doesn’t require setup like NDM does, it’s not going to win that fight.

 Necrozma-Dawn-Wings

Again, Lunala but slower and bulkier and hits harder. If you can get a Troom up, it’s probably kinda nuts, since then it actually can just cap Calyrex in its dressage-looking ass. Plus, you’re probably already running Indeedee, so Psychic Terrain goes off.

I wanna see someone kill things with Meteor Beam/Power Herb on this. It’s probably pretty decent. But it’s still a lot of work, and I’m not convinced the payoff is worth it.

 Zacian

 I’m not even going to bother writing about uncrowned Zacian, even if it probably will see more play than some of the other things on this list.

Let’s run it down. Patently absurd stats- 92/115/115 are average defenses for a Restricted (maybe a bit above average?) but it has 170 Attack, and unlike the Kyurems it actually has the speed to back it up at 148. To be clear, that’s the second fastest Restricted, and only 3 other Pokemon in the game (Regieleki, Ninjask, Pheromosa- Deoxys, Electrode, and some Megas are faster but aren’t in Gen 8) outspeed it. It’s got fucking bonkers typing, arguably the best two in the game, along with an ability that effectively pumps that Attack to 255. Oh, also very good STAB and coverage moves.

Zacian is almost certainly the most important Pokemon in the entire format. It’s that good. You don’t have to be smart to use it, especially as you don’t actually get the choice of item. It’s an idiot beatstick, and that’s kind of all there is to it. Every team needs to have an answer to it, and since it gets Imprison, you can even just run it as an answer to itself. What a fucking joke of a mon.

 Zamazenta

And then there’s The Other One. Zamazenta is significantly more balanced than Zacian, being surprisingly bulky even without that +1 Defense, and having solid Attack and Speed to boot. Also, Wide Guard.

I’m going to be honest, I think Zamazenta basically only takes on a supportive role. The moveset is fine, Wide Guard and Coaching and Snarl, no Body Press though for some fucking reason. It’s probably a Pretty Okay mon. But I don’t know why you’d run it over another support mon like Hitmontop, which gets similar moves and a better ability.

 Eternatus

Like Zacian and Zamazenta, Eternatus technically got worse with the Dynamax ban, seeing as their signature moves effectively ignore the HP-doubling effect. The thing is, Zacian is still insane anyway, and Zamazenta doesn’t really care, so Eternatus is really the main thing getting hit by this “nerf”.

It’s still solid, though. Good HP, Special Attack, and Speed, functional other stats, and it’s a Dragon that can kill the shit out of Xerneas. I think Eternatus is just on the cusp of being good- maybe if they gave it an actual ability instead of Pressure.

Or just release Eternamax, because fuck it, why not.

 Calyrex

It’s Kyurem and Necrozma again but somehow worse, next.

 Calyrex-Shadow

The final member of the Big Four. It actually kinda looks a lot like Zacian- slightly faster, a fair chunk weaker, but the ability lets it snowball hard and it gets incredible spread moves in Astral Barrage and Expanding Force. Because the only thing worse than them beating the shit out of your Pokemon is them doing it to both at once.

The key difference between Caly-Shadow and Zacian is it’s less immediate threat. For one, it doesn’t have that immediate +1 that Zacian does, and it has two x4 weaknesses to exploit. And since it usually is running spread moves, it can have a harder time dropping a specific counter, let alone its weakness to Wide Guard.

But it’s still fucking nuts. So.

 Calyrex-Ice

 We took the Shadow one, put all it’s speed into bulk, and made it Physical. Oh, and it hits a bit harder typically, since Ice is better offensively than Ghost. Sure?

In all seriousness, Caly-Ice is a brutal threat…under Trick Room and only there. If you can set it up, it’s a nigh-unkillable threat that steadily bulldozes through the opposition, and doesn’t have to rely on Spreads like Shadow does. Ironically, the worse defensive typing is better here, because it’s less likely to get OHKO’d without a x4 weakness. And if you get TR up, they aren’t getting a second attack.

 And that’s the lot of them. So, which one should you choose? One of the Big Four? A spicy meme pick? An underrated champion?

None of them. Play none of them, coward, you won’t.

Okay but seriously just about all of them are playable on the right team so dw about it

[pokefan531]

Sword and Shield Overview Part 2

So this review took much longer than expected, as I typed some things, but forgotten about this review, and stuffs, so I finally got more things to add from my part 1 back in last November as well as looking back at the game a couple of times to give off my thoughts on the game itself. I will address the flaws and the great of the game. To give off of what the game is, it's a decent Pokemon game.

The Mechanics Once I take a try on the mechanics, a couple of them are pretty interesting. Well, the gyms got brought back, but as stadiums. It's a really nice way to have everyone look at gym battles. We never really see random people watching a gym battle in any Pokemon games, and it widens the world. However, The only problem is any type of battle, the field is really small. It seems like each Pokemon are too close together, even if they're not. I would like the player and the opponent would distant themselves more to widen the battle more, almost like Pokemon Battle Revolution. That way, we don't have to see trainers disappears when some moves are being used and reappear. Also, it would've show more of the attack moves. Now the next mechanic that I liked is the wild area. The wild area is really an interesting concept and it does give you a feel of a open world. The random weathers, items, and hidden items that shines adds the new generation of wild Pokemon world. Well, I wished a couple of places in main Galar have movable camera, but it's good enough to see the big part of the wild area. I would've picked longer draw distance on objects, as they're too close, but I'll explain later about it. Dynamax, well it's a mixed bag. It seemed like an interesting idea as I can see it be useful, but you would have to know when to use it at the end of the pokemon battle when one of us have a last Pokemon. It can be a bit unfair when batling online as it's a bit OP if timing hasn't been used correctly, like using it in first turn instead of later. I do find Dynamax more fitting for raid battles as it's battling against a dynamax pokemon in the wild or just a straight up dynamax battle. I know a lot of people don't like dynamax as it can be over powered, so I can see why some battles don't make use of it on online battles to make it a more fair battle. I do appreciate Dynamax concept, but I think it needed its time to plan out even better in the game to get more appreciation. Still, I don't mind using them in some battles like the post game or straight dynamax battles or even battling gym leaders or Champion Leon, although the difficulty can be a bit all over the place especially playing it online and the reason why I wished it was better thoughout. I don't hate dynamaxing though. The Bike is useful, and you can surf with it instead of having Pokemon use Surf. For me, I think Sun and Moon removing HMs and to have all the moves being used without any Pokemon learning them, is an interesting idea. Flying to cities by using a map sounds like a fine idea. Sword and Shield seems to take half of the changes from Sun and Moon. Autosaving is a handy feature, but I prefer to save it manually incase if I haven't left the building or area without saving, or if I ever have disabled it and forgot about it. I still prefer old fashioned saving.

Difficulty Well, as much some of the ideas makes the game enjoyable, there are some parts of the game where it's too easy, and it's mostly not related to the aforementioned ideas in the game. It seems like I don't really feel much of the difficulty on some battles, especially the later main story. I didn't grind as much. Most of the Whydon City story were too easy, and I thought it would be more challenging. The difficulty was too easy in almost all parts of Whydon, from entering the Whydon Stadium, to battle Oleana and meet Rose. I feel like they should've been more challenging. The Whydon City should've been a bit more challenging to all Gym Leaders than when you battle them the first time. I just defeated them with barely any Pokemon change. Even the Rose story part, they all seem too easy, even Oleana. I thought Oleana would be challenging, but that battle didn't feel as challenging as I thought it would be. Prior to battling Leon in the finals, the most challenging Gym Leader was Raihan. I lost to him a couple of times, so he is pretty challenging than anything in Whydon City except for Leon. As for Leon, He seems challenging enough for the finals, but I wished all gym leaders were a bit better, even re-battling Raihan. I mean even with all EXP shares permanently active, it's still feels like they could've made more balanced battle, like what I saw with first battle of Raihan and final Leon battle. A couple of Gym Leaders difficulty are appropriate as I lost a few times on a few of them. The first Gym Leader I didn't lose the first time was Bea, and it seems like a fair battle like most of the gym leaders in their first battle. As for random trainers, I would've have them in slightly higher level outside the gym, but more so Team Yell. Team Yell grunts are a bit easy, even on the task to get to Piers on Gym Battle. Now as I was thinking about the Dynamax battle, it did make some battles a bit more challenging, and I lost to some gym leaders by their last Pokemon, and mostly Final Battle with Leon. However, dynamax can have its difficulty a bit all over the place, not as often on gym battles or stadiums, but more so online battles, mostly depending how the rules of the battles are set up. As for Raid Battles, yes, they're pretty difficult and everyone told me that Zygrande Raid is the hardest one in the game, so maybe more challenge in the game. Overall, the difficulty is at the least better than LGPE, even with some mishaps that makes some parts of the game a bit too easy. I'll get over another thing later where I explain my thoughts on gamefreak's words as to why later Pokemon games became more easy, and how they could've improve it.

Graphics and Animation: Okay, this would have lots of explaining to do about this game with graphics and animation. Well, as it was released in late 2019, being a rushed game, it was not impressive. As I mentioned about Gamefreak's words on their focus on high quality animation as to not having all pokemon available to the game's release, we had to focus on the graphics and animation to see if not having all Pokemon was worth it, and it turns out it remained underwhelming. Sure, you guys can point out the trees with bad textures all you want, and was relevant at the time, but I don't think one bad example could prove the game's underwhelming expectations, but a couple more problems to prove it. I could also say gameplay will often be the most priority over the graphics, which is commonly true. To put this in my view of this high quality animation thing in to view the game's graphics and animation itself, and I know the game has more than graphics, but I just want to review this part on its own. As I said, it's underwhelming, at least lots of parts of the game. As it was rushed for Christmas money, some parts of the game were not as impressive. Sure a simple fix with the tree texture would be ideal, and simple animations on the moves like double kick could've had more work. Not to mention the Mouse Cursor were printed on the beginning of the cutscene and end credits, which those weren't recorded from OBS program, but rather the development version of the games, that also contains a mouse cursor. With those aside, I could mention how the game's performance and resolution goes. Seeing the game being sub-720p 30fps (portable) and sub-1080p 30fps (docked) on outdoors and special moves on dynamax battles, it isn't optimized well, compared with other games that would look superior. When I take a look at the beta on CFW switch, it couldn't stay at 30fps on Hulbury City, and under 20fps down from the daycare center, when staying at constant 720p (portable) and 1080p (docked). As a rushed game, they also don't have time for further optimization. As Gamefreak do 3D Pokemon games from X and Y, they aren't best at optimizing rendering for performance. Gen 6 lags with 3D-stereo on (no reason to use 3D-stereo) and without 3D, some Pokemon lags the game, especially with double and horde battles. Other 3DS games can get away with higher polygon counts due to further optimization. With Sword and Shield, this trend continues in a smaller extent. While reducing resolution to stay at 30fps, there's no lag. I was kinda unimpressed when coming out from home and seeing the outdoors in lower resolution, but later on, I didn't really mind. I did use a texture pack from BSOD gaming, and there was a couple of improvements. As for the animations, like I said, I wished TPC didn't force the game to be out too early (to sync with the merch) so they would iron out animation errors or redo simple animation. The mom in the beginning of the game doesn't turn to the other direction when talking to her. Lots of pop-ins and NPCs and items having short draw distance instead of reducing polygons, and with Onix popping in at front of you in Monostoke City. I saw all the list from DistantKingdom's videos, and well, that was disappointing at the time. Some animation flaws, might be laughable, but still looking like it was not ready. BUT, does those problems make the entire game look bad? My answer, if the gameplay is actually better than the graphics, then no. You may still have fun playing the game if you can get past the graphic and animation problems. However, I can understand being disappointed with it if you mainly focus on the whole dexit situation of its statement, but at the least, none of the game was ever gamebreaking or any lower quality graphics or animation should take the game's quality by a huge amount. Couple of other parts of the main game can look better, such as the Stadiums and Route 3 and 5 looking pretty fine for me, and also Raid battles too. As for the main game, the graphics is overall... okay. It doesn't look really bad overall, even one small tree texture doesn't really justify all its graphics. However, like I said, more development time would've make many places of the game look better, but also stated that graphics are usually overshadowed by gameplay, to which it's at the least tolerable if you play it.

Now let's get into DLC's animation and graphics. Short answer, it improved better, more so Crown Tundra. While the outdoors are still at sub-native resolution, it still managed to look even better. Gamefreak at the least had more time to develop with two DLC maps. Isle of Armor improves itself with not only the visuals, but also animation expressions from the characters and fast slowpokes. Only problem was the Pokemon couldn't keep up with you while running, but the graphics seems to be more stable and refined, even better than some parts of mainland Galar. My favorite design of the map was the island with the big tree with six sub-islands around it. As for Crown Tundra, wow...as Gamefreak proved that they can make Sword and Shield graphically impressive, this is it. I know not in a level of Pokken, but still big enough to say. Like Armor, Tundra has many variants of areas with different weathers, and they managed to make the second map look more pleasing. Two places of the Tundra map I can say that looks really great in my memory is Dyna Tree Hill and Slippery Slope. Freezington looks great too, and with many trees around and not lagging, it's really amazing. The Legendary Birds from Kanto in Tundra Form looks amazing. All the animations you see are pretty acceptable. I could point out the problem with the fade-ins and black screens and not do animation, like Hop getting hit by the apple Pokemon missing, but still, there's plenty of animation done and done better in the DLCs.

Designs: For a 3D Pokemon game, I like all the character models. Even Sordward and Shielbert's model design. They finally have right portions, not being in LGPE, and they have movable pupils so they don't have to use texture-illusion to make limited eye and eyebrow expressions. All of character design looks generally great. As for the Pokemon, I could only mention Galar Pokemon, and older Pokemon with Galar form, being in a fine design. Like the graphics paragraph about the game being rushed, much of the older Pokemon were imported from 3DS games, which, like LGPE, which isn't really new. Besides those, the new models of Pokemon looks great. What about the maps? Some cities looks well designed, and others, not so great. Many routes and caves lookes more straightforward, especially routes. Open routes that are around Monostoke City and Hammerlock City are the best routes of the game due to being open and have more variety to show what an open world route should look like. Despite some parts looking inferior, graphics wise, the map design shows a lot of good work with it. Now many routes, a lot of them just became more of a hallway, and not really expanded enough. Route 3, Route 5, and Galar Mine No.1 are the ones I could think off that a lot of them are like. I like Route 4 and 6's designs the most since they tend to expand wide enough for items and trainers around instead of looking like lines of trainers waiting for you for a battle. LOL! Monostoke City and Circhester are the cities that are well designed at least for me. The least designed one was Spikemuth. Sorry Piers, your city is too simple and straight. Yeah, I wished the city wasn't a straight line and add more variety to make the whole Team Yell challenges more creative. Whydon City, I do wish it was a bit more like Castelia City or Lumiose City level of large city, since it's a capital city, being based on London. For what we got, it's fine. To go over the characters, I would have to review their design in the character section. Overall, model designs and new Pokemon are done pretty well and some of the maps looks great, but lots of routes and some caves are just hollow. They need to be more expanded and have a lot of work, including the mentioned cities.

Before I get into the characters, I want to make it clear about being a 3D Pokemon game. I hear some people think this game, or any past games, remain 2D, and I disagree. Sure 2D can show more expressions, but 3D can proven to be as good as 2D, as to how this game was compared with Battle Revolution and Pokken. These games proved that the main games can work with 3D. Especially as an MMD animator, I know a lot about 3D animation and can be almost as expressive as 2D. Sure Pokemon or characters turning slowly from animation subject isn't completely realistic for its aesthetics, but Pokken and Battle Revolution proved that, and so did the DLCs. Even Legend of Zelda, with their games given more dev time, showed their transition to 3D, even with Link's Awakening, has managed to look really great with 3D models and all. Also, even back in N64 days, with Pokemon Stadium 1 and 2, and Snap, was also cool to see Pokemon in 3D, even seeing more polygons and low resolution textures. So I am completely fine with main Pokemon games going 3D. Just like how I'm fine with Miraculous Ladybug being a 3D animation, even with old 2D trailer, but that's another story.

Characters Well, here's the part I really want to get to, explaining each characters and what I think about themselves and their characteristics. Victor and Gloria are just players, and funny memes with Gloria as Scottish Trainer. Victor seems like a cool trainer, and Gloria is just cute. Hop, I know some of you will say he's a complete copy of Hau from Sun and Moon, same personality and animation, and I get it. However, he seems to have different goals at least, so I didn't feel like Hop was a rehash of Hop, almost, even with same personality. With that said, he seems like a good friend in the games. Hop seems really supportive with his brother Leon. He wasn't happy when Bede once defeated him. Champion Leon, he's a pretty great character. Him being friendly to the player since the beginning of Sword and Shield, and he's pretty funny. There's a gag of him being bad at directions, and lots of fans likes to play around with him getting lost for comedic purposes. Not only that, but he's well supportive with Hop too, and also had been friends with Sonia since childhood. I don't really see romantic connection with the two, but just friends, which is rare to see platonic friendship in media. We get to see his own room in Hop's house, and with many things we see in both Twilight Wings and the anime so far, he's an interesting Champion. One thing I really wished they could've done with Leon is he should've have a Dragapult as his main Pokemon instead of Charizard. It would make more sense to get to know more of Galarian Pokemon in Galar, instead of using Charizard for just fan favorites. It didn't really add anything special, but other than that, he's a fun person. I know some people hate him for being dumb? Or if he was a weak champion? He seems to show more character than some might say, so I'm glad he's got good enough attention to have getting lost jokes and great enough fanarts. Sonia, I like her design, and I think she's attractive. Sonia is pretty helpful during the game, by giving you items and helping the events during the main game. She seems really and is best friends with Nessa. All the gym leaders are likable. We have Milo. Wow, it takes really long to get to the first gym battle. Milo seems like a nice person and has many Wooloos with him. His gym puzzle was fine. It's funny when certain people comment him lacking a nose, but he has one. Next is Nessa! A really lovable Nessa. She seems like a really strong trainer, and also has interesting friendhip with Sonia. Nessa looks like a comedic swimmer if I think about her roles in my videos. But yeah, she seems like a great friend with other gym leaders. Kabu the fire type. I like how he came from Hoenn, and also seems pretty serious gym leader. As I remember, he was pretty nice to the trainer, even after battling when he congratulate the player and Hop for battling three gym leaders. He also seems like a comedian when thinking about fanon stories. lol And my most favorite gym leader of Sword and Shield is Bea! Bea is my favorite character of the generation too! She's adorable, and really strong and tomboyish, the type of female characters I love the most. Bea looks always brave and wow, she's got skills. I liked her backstory of how she's trained, and has her smiles too. I liked all the media she's in, even Journeys, and she's adorable. I liked the cute kid Bea. Bea is my favorite that I could go on and make a single post about her as to why she is my favorite. Bea is pretty nice, even with harsh training she has got for years. Oh and her cuteness on eating sweats are adorable ^w^ Alister is also pretty interesting character. I only got Sword so I couldn't battle him. Alister's design with the ghost mask looks like he could scare others on a party, being a ghost gym leader. Many people headcanon him as Bea's younger brother, and please let this be a thing, Journeys or in general, Game Freak and Pokemon Company. My headcanon while being related to Bea as siblings, Bea is supportive for Allister's emotions if he ever feels scared or cries, to show both siblings in care. After Bea or Allister, we get Opal. An interesting old lady who's a gym leader, being a fan of pink. Well, her stories going around Bede is funny. She goes to him and takes him to her care and have Bede be around Pink, which is funny. Also she asked two questions during the battle to not give you status affected to your Pokemon. One of them asked the player how old she is, and being 86 is correct, she also states to be polite. Well, honesty doesn't seem to be usually polite, isn't it? XD Next would be Gordie. Gordie looks like a fun guy who likes riding with rock Pokemon. He seems to be friendly with other trainers too. It's interesting that he's the son of Melony, who's a gym leader too, if playing Shield in place of Gordie. She's also the likable mother, and I could say moreso than any player's mothers due to the fact that we get to see at least parents of a gym leader or at least has a family, IN A GAME (not counting anime Brock or Misty) and I know Norman is your dad in Hoenn. However, Melony and Gordie has nice share of family in the stadium, and she seems like a nice person. She is really prepared for ice climates and hey, she's an interesting big and beautiful mother. The next one and most interesting one is Piers! Piers is one of the most interesting written gym leader in the game. Piers appears more and even post game too. He is the only one who never relies on Dynamax battles nor own any stadiums and just gym, even though the town he's in is too simple, but doesn't affect him at least. I know some don't like dynamax and it can hae some flaws of it depending on the player, but his dislikes of it seems interesting seeing him being different from other gym leaders and him being afraid of them. He has a sister named Marnie, which I'll get to in a bit. Oh, and he does appear singing in the game twice. The flaw of the game is he does not have a voice when singing, which they should've have to tell he's singing. However, that spawned a gag and meme for Piers always forgetting to turn on his mic whenever he performs, and fanarts and headcanons have him be told he forgot to turn on his mic. So funny! Also his expressions are priceless. On post game, he helps out to stop Sword and Shield duos from forcing dynamax to every stadiums, and he's always relieved that his place never got dynamaxed, as to how his area was never meant for dynamaxing of course. XD Before I cover Raihan, I'll cover Marnie. She first appears in Monostoke hotel with Team Yell distrubing the place, and Marnie stops them. As far as I try remembering Marnie, she's fine as a character. At first, she seems serious by her looks, and smiles more later on. As her development goes, it's decent. Not the best that I can consider greatly developed as a whole, but still a memorable character, partly her design looks the best, and being Pier's brother. Marnie's smile animation looks pretty cute! She is pretty supportive with Piers, as she takes over his gym, as Piers wanted to be a dark trainer. Those are the most memorable thing I see from Marnie. Now let's go to Raihan, the last Gym leader. Well, he's a cool dude. He's the strongest gym leader of the game, no doubt bring the 8th gym leader. The most memorable thing is his dynamaxing animation, where he turns and takes a quick selfie with Rotom Phone, and spawned lots of memes as him being the obsessed selfie man. Even his artwork shows his personality of him being good looking for his phone to post on Insta-mon app. Wow, his artwork and expressions are brilliant. He likes to defeat Leon one day and never succeed, but it doesn't stop him smiling for a selfie. LOL We have Rose next. Rose looks like an evil businessman or just irresponsible business man, either way it's funny. As a villain in the story, well, he's not really memorable. As the game was rushed, and never will address the issue on the story's pacing, him as the villain at near the end of the main game seems less memorable. I tried remembering the stuff he does, and I know I can just go and see them on youtube, but his story isn't really the best nor was helping him to be taken seriously. Him talking to Leon in that moment of the game, it didn't feel like it was meant to be a powerful scene for the audience. Also, his role was short in the entire game, from the restaurant meeting, to the stadium battle before the final battle with Leon, there isn't much to say about him as how he was served in the game other than looking like the evil businessman. However, I do remember two things about him. First, his outgoing outfit, his shorts looks decorated that it almost looked like he was wearing boxers in public. I know they could've have the shirt decorated rather than the shorts to have it a better design, but that's still seen as a joke. The second thing is...his stare from Twilight Wings. I find it strangely funny. His stare on Nessa was just random. LOL As of Oleana, well, she's insane. We all see Oleana as the freaky woman and sure is a group with Rose. With her insanity, it sure is what we just know about her. XD Now, the crazy twins, Sordward and Shielbert, first off, they have insane hairs, mostly Sordward! Wow! We couldn't imagine a haircut like that! A hair shaped like a sword! Second, their names are just funny. Sordward is really close to Squidward, and Shielbert is a similar funny name as Sordward, except I couldn't think of a character that's close to his name, but funny enough. Well, those two may seem too silly for you, but they serve their purpose to be meme-able. That's the best way to describe them, and also they're villains in the post game. As for their story, they were fine. Just a bit short and not as well paced. Them causing forced dynamax to all stadiums (except Piers's) and battling them was all right, but could wish a bit more challenge as far as I can remember. Now as for Isle of Armor, We meet Klara and Avery. Both welcome you to the island. Klara seems like a yandere and creepy while Avery wants to use psychic powers on people. I played Sword, so I see Klara's part only. Well, she seems like she just wants to compete with you and beat you to have Mustard proud of her. I assume Avery's situation is similar. Well, Klara looks pretty charming, I actually prefer Avery. He looks funny, and has a cool floating Pokeballs with him on his long hat. Mustard and Honey seem like a respectable members of the Dojo. Honey really does look like Princess Daisy. XD. Mustard looks like a cool guy and also a funny one too. MMD videos makes these characters really funny. Wow. As for Kyle, we barely know him. Penoy and Peonia first appear in Crown Tundra. Due to Peony's silliness, he looks like a comedic father from many dads from cartoons. Him getting used by the Pokemon for talking, and how he's hot blooded, is how I could tell he's the typical dad in children's media. As for Peonia, all I could remember is she wants to take an adventure on her own instead of being with her dad, while he wants to protect her. It was pretty little to get to know Peonia, but we do get more of Peony's screentime. Bede is another rival in Sword an Shield. He seems like a jerk, but as the story goes on, it's understandable. Bede had to be trained by Rose and all that, and well, his wrongdoings had got him kicked out from Rose himself when Bede tried smacking the ancient wall that shook Stew-on-Stow in worries. Oh, and him being stuck with Opal is really funny. He appears in the Whydon Stadium before the final battle, telling the player how much he suffered his life with Rose, and being with Opal surrounded with Pink, and he also shown to like it. Bede may be a dork in the game, but his story was satisfy able. He's more interesting to me than Hop. Speaking of Hop, Bede couldn't stand Hop's naive personality, and laughed how Hop couldn't defeat Bede. Hop's silly in a good way, but Bede is pretty right about him. XD SwSh has really interesting concept of creating characters, and I even saw memes of them, like Bede's song in animation as well as Marnie's theme. 2D vine animation was made, and all known characters were fit right as their characteristics were so interesting that their roles in each vine fits perfectly.The weakest character for me would be Rose as mentioned, but there is no character in SwSh that I truly dislike, unlike Anime Iris in Best Wishes or Lila Rossi and Chloe from Miraculous Ladybug.  I even like making two Nessa and Sonia's Sketch Show on my channel.

Story The story in SwSh was...ok. It was pretty weak. In the main game, as the game was rushed, the pacing of the story is flawed, so it didn't have a lot of time to make room for some characters. In the whole Leon and Rose plot, as they were talking, there was no music playing and flat animation, as they were just pics. It was supposed to be emotional, but since no music was added, there isn't anything to feel much. Well Rose's story isn't really memorable as his parts are just short. As I made my point about Rose, the pacing and story didn't really make Rose memorable enough and that's why I had a harder time writing about Rose other than he's a weak villain of the series. I know Twilight wings showed more about Rose, but for the games, I wished it was expanded enough to be memorable than just him giving a stare XDD. As for Leon, his story is all right. Leon's story seems more interesting than Rose's story. He was shown to have more story than any other champions in Pokemon. The whole Galar Gym leaders are fine, and even Bede's story too. Sonia was shown to have good enough screentime. However, I do wish to see more friendship between her and Leon. As for the post-game, it seems a bit weaker. Introduction to Sordward and Shielbert is fine, but it can sometimes be fast paced. At one time, when Sonia's assistant betrayed Sonia in the lab, and it wasn't too long when we get to the end where she apologized to her and Sonia decided to her her join back. That's not how it works. I wouldn't let a traitor be the lab assistant again if they betrayed and shown to side with two villains. Not only that, but everyone seems to be okay with the twins after the post game story was about to end. Well it's a bit unreal for villains to be taken nicely once after their event just finished, so it didn't make a lot of sense to me. The very end with me battling Hop and the legendary Pokemon there is interesting as well as the beginning. The main games's story have some pacing issues, so let's see how the DLCs are like.

In Isle of Armor, while short for each DLC, they're still interesting. They seem to be handled better for me. In Armor, I like the introduction for Klara and Avery as well as the events in Dojo. The side quests and the final battle by the Dojo are pretty cool. I like how it explained about Klara or Avery trying to please Mustard and Honey as they wanted to be their support, and learns to respect the player at the end. They may leave out poison spikes and psychic terrains on the field, but they're pretty redeemable to both the player and anyone in the Dojo. Now to Crown Tundra, I like the story with Calyrex, who's always controlling Peony whenver it needs communication, explaining the story and its needs. Peony seems like a funny guy. Peonia, well only problem was she isn't as much in the story as Peony, so I wish I wanted to know more about her other than trying to get away from her dad. Still, I really find the story interesting as it's a story by a legendary Pokemon, and it was long enough to get to know Calyrex and its lore. Well if I can combine both DLCs stories and compare it with main story in Galar, it's a bit short but understandable as they're DLCs, but the writing and pacing of them seems better overall.

I wished the story in the main game was really improved and have better pacing, and also help out to flesh out character more often, like Hop and Rose. It's pacing issues is liked to the story being rushed, so not only the graphics and animation is the problem, but also the story too as it needs a fine pacing. It seems like a similar situation with Big Hero 6, where the characters and their concept are really interesting, but the story and pacing are the problem and could be why they got more focus as to the game/movie's problems and overshadowing the characters and their concepts as they had more potential. The story in the game isn't bad. I just say it's okay like stated in the beginning of this. I enjoyed it, but like I said, I wish it got enough development time to fix a couple of the flaws. As for DLCs, they seem better.

Also to keep note that I do prioritize gameplay>story>graphics in that way. Graphics as started in the animation isn't my huge priority over the gameplay. Only rare case if graphics and design are a problem over gameplay is if it's really ugly looking like Pokemon Playit games. If story is worse than gameplay such as TLOU 2 due to being intentionally very divisive, is also the same thing. Gameplay is more important for a game to be fun, as long as story is decent enough and graphics are not horrible looking such as Playit, those are worse looking Pokemon games LOL.

So I'm not done with the review yet, as I have part 3 to think about other stuffs regarding Sword and Shield's reputation, so I'll be making part 3 where I discuss other things and just to get the review of the game itself sooner, so I hope you understand me trying to be honest with the games and such, so see you in part 3.