• A new LGBTQ+ forum is now being trialed and there have been changes made to the Support and Advice forum. To read more about these updates, click here.
  • Hey Trainers! Be sure to check out Corsola Beach, our newest section on the forums, in partnership with our friends at Corsola Cove! At the Beach, you can discuss the competitive side of the games, post your favorite Pokemon memes, and connect with other Pokemon creators!
  • Due to the recent changes with Twitter's API, it is no longer possible for Bulbagarden forum users to login via their Twitter account. If you signed up to Bulbagarden via Twitter and do not have another way to login, please contact us here with your Twitter username so that we can get you sorted.

SwSh Sword & Shield: Expansion Pass

Does anyone else find it odd how, thanks to Dynamax Adventures, you can now catch Legendaries before even reaching the first Gym? That's like finding a Mewtwo in Viridian Forest! The Isle of Armor works really well as a supplement to the main story, but I think the Crown Tundra, with its high-level battles and heavy focus on Legendaries, should have been strictly a postgame area.


Yeah, I was expecting that beating Peony was going to be a requirement to get into the Crown Tundra. Not only can you get legendaries, but also the super strong fully evolved rental pokemon. (unless they scale? I haven't checked)
 
I finally played the Crown Tundra (yeah I'm late I know) so here are some thoughts
I really don't think the area is as "massive" as everyone says it is. I did get lost the first time around because of low visibility due to snowstorm in-game, but I could get around just fine.
I also don't like how there's fossil pokémon walking and swimming around. I prefer finding the actual fossils and reviving them.
The exploration is still pretty meh. It's more open-world-ish than the wild area and a bit better than isle of armor, but there's still not any actual dungeons. the "caves" are still a bunch of corridors (although not straight corridors, so bonus points for that?) and there's only like 6 new areas. Better than the base game and IoA but still meh
the very small number of returning pokemon is disappointing. Most of them were legendaries, fossils and pseudos and well of course, ice pokémon.
Dynamax Adventures is very tedious. Like, it's better than the normal max raid battles since the pokémon don't have those obnoxious shields and don't attack 3 or 4 times in a single turn but... meh. The pokemon selection is ok, the AI is meh but somehow playing with other people is somehow worse. A lot of casuals out there spam status moves or NVE moves like they're Martin's Solrock. At least there's increased shiny odds so it's not all bad.
There's barely any story but that's hardly a surprise at this point.
tldr: I found it very underwhelming, like most of Gen 8 so far.
 
Does anyone else find it odd how, thanks to Dynamax Adventures, you can now catch Legendaries before even reaching the first Gym? That's like finding a Mewtwo in Viridian Forest! The Isle of Armor works really well as a supplement to the main story, but I think the Crown Tundra, with its high-level battles and heavy focus on Legendaries, should have been strictly a postgame area.
It’s probably an oversight, and probably the most optimal method for a speed run as of right now.
 
It’s probably an oversight, and probably the most optimal method for a speed run as of right now.

Nah, games + DLC are typically separate categories.

I looked into it though, it's kind of funny, but the current world record for the DLC is 4 minutes longer than without DLC (by the same person) so it doesn't look like its that much faster. The speed runner didn't even use a legendary; just one of the rental pokemon.
 
This isn't the first time that this has been possible, either - in B2W2, you could receive any of the Dream Radar Legendaries before earning the first Badge (not to mention the Lv15 Genesect they distributed at launch), and in HGSS, if you had an event Arceus, you could claim one of the Sinjoh Ruins dragons before beating the Violet City Gym.

Now that you mention it, I actually did use an event Keldeo on my first White 2 playthrough. It doesn't feel quite so strange when it's an event Pokemon somehow, because they're a special, temporary thing, rather than something that's been added permanently to the game.

Yeah, I was expecting that beating Peony was going to be a requirement to get into the Crown Tundra. Not only can you get legendaries, but also the super strong fully evolved rental pokemon. (unless they scale? I haven't checked)

I do quite like how the rental Pokemon allow you to take part in Dynamax Adventures at the start of the game, and I expect that's one of the reasons why they were implemented. You can't actually keep the rental Pokemon, only the ones you catch, but those ones are equally strong. I don't think their levels scale.

Maybe they could have had regular Pokemon be the final bosses, until you beat Leon which unlocks the legendaries.

It’s probably an oversight, and probably the most optimal method for a speed run as of right now.

Do you think using these legendaries would be a feasible way to speed run the game, even though they won't always obey you? I've been thinking of doing some speed runs to get version exclusives, Rowlet and the DLC legendaries I didn't pick, so I might look into this. I sped through Melemele Island with a team of six level 50 Drampa once (it's a long story) and it worked quite well, with the Drampa obeying me enough times to get through battles.
 
Last edited:
Does anyone else find it odd how, thanks to Dynamax Adventures, you can now catch Legendaries before even reaching the first Gym? That's like finding a Mewtwo in Viridian Forest! The Isle of Armor works really well as a supplement to the main story, but I think the Crown Tundra, with its high-level battles and heavy focus on Legendaries, should have been strictly a postgame area.

I mentioned before that I wrongly thought you needed to beat Peony to do the Dynamax Adventure and honestly it seems so odd to me that they didn’t use that obvious roadblock.

This isn't the first time that this has been possible, either - in B2W2, you could receive any of the Dream Radar Legendaries before earning the first Badge

At least those ones level scaled though so you had a low level legendary rather than a game breaking super powered one.
 
Do you think using these legendaries would be a feasible way to speed run the game, even though they won't always obey you? I've been thinking of doing some speed runs to get version exclusives, Rowlet and the DLC legendaries I didn't pick, so I might look into this. I sped through Melemele Island with a team of six level 50 Drampa once (it's a long story) and it worked quite well, with the Drampa obeying me enough times to get through battles.

Well, if you're catching them yourself then they'll obey you no matter what; obedience only becomes a problem if you trade them over from another OT, and if that's the case, I think you can effectively steamroll with almost anything that's grossly overleveled like that. The disobedience just becomes a bit of a nuisance.
 
Well, if you're catching them yourself then they'll obey you no matter what; obedience only becomes a problem if you trade them over from another OT, and if that's the case, I think you can effectively steamroll with almost anything that's grossly overleveled like that. The disobedience just becomes a bit of a nuisance.

You know what, I'd completely forgotten about obedience only applying to outsider Pokemon. That makes the decision to give players access to legendaries so early in the game even more baffling. I know what I'll be doing later! (I wouldn't use these legendaries in a "serious" playthrough, but speed runs for getting extra starters/legendaries are fair game.)
 
You know what, I'd completely forgotten about obedience only applying to outsider Pokemon. That makes the decision to give players access to legendaries so early in the game even more baffling. I know what I'll be doing later! (I wouldn't use these legendaries in a "serious" playthrough, but speed runs for getting extra starters/legendaries are fair game.)


;p
 
I finally played the Crown Tundra (yeah I'm late I know) so here are some thoughts
I really don't think the area is as "massive" as everyone says it is. I did get lost the first time around because of low visibility due to snowstorm in-game, but I could get around just fine.
I also don't like how there's fossil pokémon walking and swimming around. I prefer finding the actual fossils and reviving them.
The exploration is still pretty meh. It's more open-world-ish than the wild area and a bit better than isle of armor, but there's still not any actual dungeons. the "caves" are still a bunch of corridors (although not straight corridors, so bonus points for that?) and there's only like 6 new areas. Better than the base game and IoA but still meh
the very small number of returning pokemon is disappointing. Most of them were legendaries, fossils and pseudos and well of course, ice pokémon.
Dynamax Adventures is very tedious. Like, it's better than the normal max raid battles since the pokémon don't have those obnoxious shields and don't attack 3 or 4 times in a single turn but... meh. The pokemon selection is ok, the AI is meh but somehow playing with other people is somehow worse. A lot of casuals out there spam status moves or NVE moves like they're Martin's Solrock. At least there's increased shiny odds so it's not all bad.
There's barely any story but that's hardly a surprise at this point.
tldr: I found it very underwhelming, like most of Gen 8 so far.
I feel the same way, except for the roaming fossil-part. The rest I agree with. The small bits of lacklustre exploration makes me anxious about future titles.
 
A user on Smogon made a really interesting observation about Eternatus and Calyrex that fits in quite nicely with my own theory about Calyrex having to deal with Eternatus's meteor impact. (The general idea that Calyrex had some sort of involvement with Eternatus's arrival seems to be a common conclusion in several fan circles, mostly just differing in the small details from person to person.) I'm pretty convinced that there's something to all of this and that GF simply aren't giving us all the answers. Which I kinda like, to be honest. Pokémon usually spells out all of its big mythological happenings, leaving only smaller incidents - ghost girls, the Ultra Ruin, stuff like that - up to the imagination. Having evidence that gestures at some sort of Eternatus/Calyrex relationship without elaborating on it or confirming it is kind of a nice change of pace.
 
A user on Smogon made a really interesting observation about Eternatus and Calyrex that fits in quite nicely with my own theory about Calyrex having to deal with Eternatus's meteor impact. (The general idea that Calyrex had some sort of involvement with Eternatus's arrival seems to be a common conclusion in several fan circles, mostly just differing in the small details from person to person.) I'm pretty convinced that there's something to all of this and that GF simply aren't giving us all the answers. Which I kinda like, to be honest. Pokémon usually spells out all of its big mythological happenings, leaving only smaller incidents - ghost girls, the Ultra Ruin, stuff like that - up to the imagination. Having evidence that gestures at some sort of Eternatus/Calyrex relationship without elaborating on it or confirming it is kind of a nice change of pace.

Whhaaaa?! Those are incredible spots! SwSh are laying on the story/intrigue hooks something thick.
 
Came across some interesting evidence about the Fossil mons that appear in the Crown Tundra - they might only be there because of Solgaleo/Lunala arriving through an Ultra Wormhole.

It's already implied by Nia that Solgaleo/Lunala are indirectly responsible for the Legendaries that we encounter in the Max Lair, as she mentions how the scientist told her that Solgaleo/Lunala was the first Legendary to be spotted in there. So it showed up, for whatever reason, and along with it came a bunch of Legendaries from other worlds.

Solgaleo/Lunala's presence naturally attracted Necrozma, which emerged through another Ultra Wormhole according to the fourth Legendary Clue and Peony's dialogue after showing Necrozma to him. This must be what caused the other Ultra Beasts to appear in the Max Lair, since you can't encounter them until you've picked up the fourth Clue page.

All fairly simple and straightforward, but get this: If you talk to the woman who gifts you a Cosmog, she says that she found it alone out in the snow some time ago (we can surmise that it got dragged along with Solgaleo/Lunala, or maybe Solgaleo/Lunala traveled there in the first place in order to conduct their breeding ritual?), and that around that same time, "other strange Pokémon started to appear in the tundra." The tundra, not the Max Lair specifically.

But who says that she's referring to the Fossil Pokémon and not, like, the Swords of Justice? Well, when you first arrive at the Crown Tundra, there's a man in the train station who says its been a long time since he came back to the Tundra, and that it seems to have changed a lot since he was last there, becoming colder and with a lot of "rockish Pokémon wandering around."

So maybe all these Fossil Pokémon came from a parallel world that's still in the prehistoric era, or maybe a world where they never went extinct to begin with. Or a world where the restoration projects have been far more vast and coordinated than those in the prime universe. (Incidentally, since they readded Genesect to the game, why not let it get in on the fun? Obviously they weren't going to suddenly introduce a "Primisect" form or whatever, but hey, they already threw in one Mythical...)
Some of the fossil dex entries do state that trainers reviving fossil mons and releasing them is the reason they have been reintroduced to the wild though.
 
I need some help. In fact, I'm wondering if I might have found a bug. I've gone to the big tree in the Crown Tundra and gone through the bird trio cutscene and all (which was AWESOME!), and I started looking for Articuno. But I went in and out of areas in the Crown Tundra for at least an hour and it wouldn't appear. I can only hear it. If there's something I'm missing here, I'm all ears. I'm tired of trying to get it to appear right now.
 
I need some help. In fact, I'm wondering if I might have found a bug. I've gone to the big tree in the Crown Tundra and gone through the bird trio cutscene and all (which was AWESOME!), and I started looking for Articuno. But I went in and out of areas in the Crown Tundra for at least an hour and it wouldn't appear. I can only hear it. If there's something I'm missing here, I'm all ears. I'm tired of trying to get it to appear right now.
The same thing happened to me. I just flew back to Freezington and went into Frostpoint Field again and it reappeared there.
 
I need some help. In fact, I'm wondering if I might have found a bug. I've gone to the big tree in the Crown Tundra and gone through the bird trio cutscene and all (which was AWESOME!), and I started looking for Articuno. But I went in and out of areas in the Crown Tundra for at least an hour and it wouldn't appear. I can only hear it. If there's something I'm missing here, I'm all ears. I'm tired of trying to get it to appear right now.
I doubt it’s a bug, it’s just legitimately difficult to find, similar to the old roaming legendaries.
 
The same thing happened to me. I just flew back to Freezington and went into Frostpoint Field again and it reappeared there.
I doubt it’s a bug, it’s just legitimately difficult to find, similar to the old roaming legendaries.

Oh. Well, I still find it annoying... And I thought the same of the old roamers too. -_-
 
I need some help. In fact, I'm wondering if I might have found a bug. I've gone to the big tree in the Crown Tundra and gone through the bird trio cutscene and all (which was AWESOME!), and I started looking for Articuno. But I went in and out of areas in the Crown Tundra for at least an hour and it wouldn't appear. I can only hear it. If there's something I'm missing here, I'm all ears. I'm tired of trying to get it to appear right now.
All right here's the strat I used. Keep on flying to the spot where the Watt Trader is between the snowy and grassy areas. If you hear its cry twice, it's probably right in front of your face and going up the slope. Follow it and head up some slopes and eventually to left to that plateau where you can sometimes find an Aurorus running around. You'll be able to see it in the air over the cliff, and it'll eventually circle around to you. Make sure you save before you encounter it, in case not doing the puzzle right or ESPECIALLY if it's hailing.
 
Some of the fossil dex entries do state that trainers reviving fossil mons and releasing them is the reason they have been reintroduced to the wild though.

Omanyte’s entry does say that, although that may be referring to a more general situation around the globe. Galar in particular seems to lack any proper fossil restoration system. Cara Liss’s operation is... dubious, to say the least, and it’s not clear if her machine would work on regular, complete fossils.

I think the evidence I posted strongly suggests that the fossils in the Tundra come from a wormhole.
 

;p

Haha! Does it count as a Mandela if it's a very recent thing? I've known for many years that only outsider Pokemon disobey, but forgot momentarily, maybe because these Dynamax Adventures legendaries are an unusual case that I didn't think to apply the same logic to.

(Although now you mention it, I do have a vague memory of a Linoone disobeying me in Ruby, which must be a Mandela because I only had one friend to trade with back then, and I'm pretty certain he never traded me a Linoone...)

I did a few tests with the Dynamax Adventures Suicune to see whether it would be a feasible option for speedruns. When its OT matches yours, you can, indeed, steamroll everything without any problems (I only went as far as the first Gym, but could have gone further). When I transferred the same Suicune to another save file, however, the obedience/disobedience ratio was so bad that the battles took longer than they would have done with normal-level Pokemon.

A user on Smogon made a really interesting observation about Eternatus and Calyrex that fits in quite nicely with my own theory about Calyrex having to deal with Eternatus's meteor impact. (The general idea that Calyrex had some sort of involvement with Eternatus's arrival seems to be a common conclusion in several fan circles, mostly just differing in the small details from person to person.) I'm pretty convinced that there's something to all of this and that GF simply aren't giving us all the answers. Which I kinda like, to be honest. Pokémon usually spells out all of its big mythological happenings, leaving only smaller incidents - ghost girls, the Ultra Ruin, stuff like that - up to the imagination. Having evidence that gestures at some sort of Eternatus/Calyrex relationship without elaborating on it or confirming it is kind of a nice change of pace.

I feel some headcanon coming on! I always thought it would have been nice if Dynamax had come from natural earth energy, to bring the Power Spots more in line with real-world beliefs about ley lines. Well, what if the "blue Dynamax" comes from natural energy, and is the original version of Dynamax which Calyrex, being a Grass type and all, still knows how to use? And Eternatus' "red Dynamax" is a less natural, slightly corrupted variant, which is why Pokemon using it sometimes have a tendency to go berserk. Perhaps this distruption to the natural balance of Galar's Dynamax energy has some connection to Chairman Rose's energy crisis.

Perhaps Calyrex and Eternatus are a duo of polar opposites - a bit like Xerneas and Yveltal, but to a much more drastic extent. Calyrex is small and delicate, while Eternatus is a monstrous behemoth, the largest Pokemon in existence. Calyrex in its regular form has the lowest base stat total of all fully-evolved legendary Pokemon, while Eternamax Eternatus has the highest base stat total of all Pokemon. Calyrex is merciful and provides healing and blessings, while Eternatus has an aggressive demeanour (at least, when overloaded with energy). Calyrex is native to Galar, but Eternatus is an invasive species from another world. Calyrex, the Grass type, is in tune with nature, while Eternatus, the Poison type, may have "polluted" Galar with corrupted Dynamax energy. And last but not least...

Eternatus has a hostile relationship with a pair of wolves, while Calyrex, by contrast, has a harmonious relationship with a pair of horses.

I, too, enjoy when things like this are left unexplained. The more mysteries there are in a Pokemon game, the more real the world feels, because you get the sense that the region has a life beyond just what you see on the screen.
 
Last edited:
Please note: The thread is from 3 years ago.
Please take the age of this thread into consideration in writing your reply. Depending on what exactly you wanted to say, you may want to consider if it would be better to post a new thread instead.
Back
Top Bottom