#i have a lot of sentimental attachment because my first non-scripted shiny was a girafarig

[dragonairlairgiveaways]

“Some further details about Pokémon Sword & Shield were revealed in Famitsu. Within the interview with Masuda and Ohmori, it was confirmed that there is currently no decision to bring the existing Pokémon that can't be in Sword & Shield back into the game using patches, but those that don't will still have an active role in Pokémon HOME. It also stated that Mega Evolutions and Z-Moves will not appear in Sword & Shield.”

Okay so... I am lowkey tired of Pokemon Co. and Game Freak adding gimmicks just to remove them a generation or so later. But that’ll be a post for another time. 

Point I want to make here is: Seems they might’ve heard the backlash. I don’t know how they couldn’t when Twitter is blowing up about this decision. Let me live in hope that this means they are playing with the idea of patching Pokemon into the games in future. 

I know people are probably tired of hearing about this and people ‘complaining’ about the decision not to include every Pokemon but it is a big deal to many players, myself included. 

Even if the Galar Pokedex is huge - which I suspect it will be - there’s still a good chunk of Pokemon from past generations left out. Now you can bring up ‘oh well this happened in Gen III’ and yes, it did. But that was down to hardware limitations that Game Freak couldn’t help. It was impossible to connect and transfer between the GBC and GBA. That isn’t an issue here. The 3DS can handle all of that and the Switch is a more powerful device. It’s not even an issue of memory: the Switch can handle games like Breath of the Wild and the Witcher III, both of which absolutely require more memory and power than even a Pokemon game with every Pokemon included. 

I am not putting it down to ‘laziness’ either, it is incredibly hard work to make these games. I am putting it down to the recent gaming culture of pumping games out as fast as possible, to the detriment of the games due to content having to be cut/not included. That is what has happened here. I don’t buy the ‘balancing’ issue because it’s ludicrous- Gen VI and VII had tournaments that banned/restricted Pokemon native only to the games they took place in. VGCs did the same, there was literally nothing stopping that happening here. The Pokemon Co. and Nintendo wanted these games out, and Game Freak had to deliver and the trade-off decision was cutting available Pokemon down likely because it was the easiest. They had to know there would be backlash, but I don’t imagine they anticipated the extent of it. 

Because it is, to be blunt, a stupid-ass decision. It has put many people off from the games, it has put the fandom at each other’s and the Pokemon Co.’s throats. It’s an upsetting and disappointing direction to take the games in. No matter which Pokemon are included someone’s favourite will be left out, a Pokemon someone has had for years and a great deal of attachment to will be left out, a Pokemon someone spent hours upon hours breeding or shiny hunting for will be left out. 

And the thing is: the decision of which Pokemon to include will be heavily biased towards fan favourites. They’ve already said as much in interviews. So you know this means once again a huge wankfest for Kanto Pokemon and other over-saturated ‘mons, some of which I love myself but hate seeing everywhere when others are left out: Starters (especially fucking Charizad which we already know is in these games), Lucario, Mimikyu, a massive chunk of the Kanto Pokedex, Eeveelutions, Pseudo Legendaries ect. All these Pokemon will more than likely make the cut (some we already know have).

But lesser-liked Pokemon? Pokemon outright hated or just ignored by the community? They likely got left on the back-burner. This probably includes a good chunk of Gen V Pokemon outside of the few with fan adoration (Zoroark, Hydreigon, Haxorus, Volcarona) because of how much everyone shits on Gen V, Pokemon that don’t see a lot of competitive usage or who have scored low in popularity polls (RIP if you love the Elemental Monkeys) and it sucks. No matter how much you might personally dislike a Pokemon or how many people in the community at large do, it is someone’s favourite. Someone out there absolutely adores Stunfisk, someone out there thinks the Sunkern line is super adorable. Someone out there thinks Barbaracle is the coolest Pokemon there is. And they won’t get to play with them in these games. 

That is what bothers me. Pokemon is about the journey, it’s about the bonds you make with your Pokemon. It’s the story and adventure you go on yourself with your Pokemon. Even with a story, people progress and play how they want to. They make the teams they want to make, with the Pokemon and moves they want to use. People challenge themselves with mono type runs or nuzlockes or egglockes ect to make the games more fun for themselves and Game Freak is limiting that. It’s limiting the Pokemon we can use and the fun certain people can have. 

And that is deeply unfair and a real poor business plan in the long run, really.