SwSh The Game Is Out, Time To Discuss

[Aulos]

So I just finished the post-game...

Spoiler

Despite always being overleveled and cruising through everything, once Hop had Zacian I was in big trouble. lol. Zacian swept every member in my team. If I hadn't been able to use a Revive, I would have lost that battle for sure.

This was the only time in the entire game where I almost lost.

 

[Esserise]

According to Serebii, they’ve just outright merged the Friendship and Affection mechanics, like in Let’s Go. So Sylveon is now more-or-less a happiness evolution like Umbreon and Espeon. If Eevee knows a Fairy-type move while having high Friendfection, it will override the evolution into Espeon or Umbreon.

I’m curious though if they’ve changed Cosmoem at all, since we know it is in the game. Kaphotics’s data tables don’t seem to suggest so, as they still list “Version” as the evolution condition, but then, Espeon/Umbreon were listed as “Friendship” while Sylveon was listed as “Affection.” So I dunno.

 

[Esserise]

-battle starts-

"Runerigus looks like it wants to be petted..."

Oof. Sorry mate.

 

[BackSet]

I've spent more momey on clothes then I've ever spent of potions and pokeballs in any pokemon game. I'm not sure I'm playing this game right.

 

[RK9]

I've spent more momey on clothes then I've ever spent of potions and pokeballs in any pokemon game. I'm not sure I'm playing this game right.

But.

That's exactly how the game is supposed to be played.

What do you mean that's not how it's supposed to be played!?

 

[Esserise]

Story spoilers

Spoiler: thoughts

As far as character development goes, I wonder if they decided to scale things back a bit due to the complaints people had about Lillie bending the narrative fabric of Sun & Moon to the point that everything orbited around her. They already did cut back on her prominence in USUM. Although for my part, I'm not too disappointed with these characters. While Rose was certainly undercooked (and I'll get to him more in a minute), I feel like Hop and Bede and Sonia did develop well enough, and the Gym Leaders (who aren't really the kinds of characters who get arc-like development anyway) felt very vibrant and personalized here nonetheless. I also appreciated the change from the Elite Four to the Championship Cup - I think it makes a lot more sense to have us battle it out in the end against characters we're familiar with rather than just throwing four more nobodies at us. Although granted, Sun & Moon understood that too (Kahili was just there to catch players off-guard, but the other members were all people we knew well), it felt more pronounced here.

I suppose Marnie feels underdeveloped in comparison to Hop and Bede, although I get why she's there. Spikemuth is neglected by the rest of Galar and she wants to help put it back on the map. She doesn't want to become the Champion for her own sake so much as she wants her hometown to get the recognition it deserves. Of course, this whole issue is also coextensive with Piers as a character. Hmm. I feel like if there's a problem with Marnie, it's a matter of emphasis. I get the sense that the events at Spikemuth, rather than your face-off with her in the semifinals, are supposed to be the resolution of the whole Team Yell angle. And they pretty much are - locking up the town to block other challengers is the moment where they go just a bit too far in their zealous support of Marnie, and her conversation with Piers after you beat him feels like it's meant to be them straightening things out in regards to what each of them wants. After that point, Team Yell become passive and then eventually your allies. But Marnie and Piers's shared motives yet contrasting desires don't come through clear enough. Maybe if Piers played more of a role throughout the story, this would have worked better.

About Rose, again, it's weird to me how not corrupt he ultimately is. If anything, it's Sordward and Shielbert who feel like the "real" villains, as they certainly cause more noticeable havoc, and are generally just a lot more unpleasant to you. They're pompous snobs who you really want to make shut up, and they try to debase the true legendary heroes for the sake of their own selfish image. And even though their spy is kind of an out-of-the-blue element, the betrayal to Sonia feels more directly hurtful than Rose just going ahead with the Even Darker Darkest Day despite Leon's negotiation. I've seen it suggested that Bede's disqualification was actually some ingenuous ploy whereby Rose had Oleana trick Bede into borrowing his Copperajah to break down the mural, so that Rose could tacitly collect the Wishing Stars within it while having Bede take the fall for the destruction of a cultural monument, because Rose never really expected Bede to become Champion and was always intending to just have Leon handle Eternatus, but honestly everything else about Rose is played so straightforwardly and genuine that this doesn't feel very in-character to me, even though I feel like it would add a lot to both of their stories. (Bede having his pedestal shatter like that, and having to find his self-worth again through training with Opal and performance in the Championship Cup, would be, I think, a nice parallel to Hop's own search for self-worth.)

Similarly, there was so much speculation early on about Leon being a fraud. I'm not exactly disappointed that he isn't, because I already like him as-is and think that Hop's storyline is solid, but it is interesting to consider how that might have factored into some alternative, more corruption-based version of the story where Hop has to deal with the revelation that his aspirational idol was never as great as he was touted as being. And maybe within that paradigm, Leon could have had to find his own sense of self-worth after facing the fact that he let down his fans and his own brother by lying to them all. While I'm at it, Leon being nothing more than a false figurehead might have made for a usable parallel to the history of Galar, which was covered up as all the glory was given to the human kings rather than the wolves who did the real work. Even Dynamax kinda fits into this as a symbol, because the Pokémon aren't really growing to huge sizes. Space is just warping around them to make them seem that way. If Rose was always fixing Leon's matches to create a marketable hero for the masses (essentially making him seem "bigger" than he was), then Rose becomes a sort-of parallel to Eternatus, the Pokémon he seeks to utilize. And then Eternatus's fall at the hands of you, Hop, Zacian, and Zamazenta gains a degree of irony - Hop only became strong because he aspired to Leon's image, and the wolves were only awakened because Sonia was led to the truth about Galar's history due mostly to the destruction of the mural and exposure of the ancient statue, which in this proposal was a consequence of Rose's own doing. And then you have Marnie and Team Yell, who work as foils to all of this because they already have pride in themselves and know that they have something to offer, even if Spikemuth isn't "blessed" with a Power Spot and the rest of Galar has left them behind.

To be clear, I do like the story that we got. I just about get where everyone in it is coming from. But it could have been more thorough; conflicts could have been more fleshed out, and I think there certainly were interesting alternatives that they could have explored. Then again, I'd also say that "the story being underwritten" is more the norm when it comes to Pokémon narratives - I still think that instances like BW and SM are kind of anomalies in that regard.

 

[Dizzard]

I'm really feeling the absence of the GTS.

Link Trade is such a pain, with the GTS it was so easy to put up a version exclusive or an eevee and somebody would trade you what you wanted pretty quickly. Now even if you offer a version exclusive it's absolutely no guarantee anyone will be even interested let alone trade you something you're interested in.

Somehow I thought waving a Ponyta in peoples faces would be a good indication I was hoping for a Farfetch'd (or some other sword exclusive) but so far that doesn't seem to be working very well.

 

[sixdragons_in_atrenchcoat]

just name one of your throwaways "Sirfetch'd-Plz". That usually gets the job done.

 

[Esserise]

Now for some scattered things that I really did like about the story:

Spoiler

Magnolia having a more recessed role with Sonia as the more active professor-in-training. I liked this because so often, this series focuses its character arcs on children/preteens, and specifically through the lens of Trainership and competition. Unlike Bianca or, indeed, Hop, who both end up deciding to become professors as the resolution to their character arcs and then that's basically it (with even B2W2 Bianca not really having to go through any challenges or make any accomplishments in that role), with Sonia we get a relatable, positive character who's more college-aged, and whom we see actually putting in the work to become a recognized professor. In these games we see that for them, being able to publish your first book is a real milestone.

Hop changing up his team throughout the game, to try out different strategies. Why did it take this long for that to happen? It makes in-world sense, especially for his character, and it makes the battles more interesting and less predictable. (Granted, N switched up his teams too, but not with the same implication or end result.) And then having Hop's true Starter, Dubwool, rejoin his team toward the end is so nice to see. I also quite like that he gets to capture the other box mascot. I love that the other mascot is involved in the story at all - it feels like a loose end that they usually just turn a blind eye toward is neatly tied up. (Also, I don't typically get into "this version's events make more sense than the other one" debates because there really is no true answer, but as a Sword player, I feel like Zamazenta thematically pairs nicely with Hop, what with them both being the younger siblings, and him being secondary to you makes me think the shield is a better fit for him, although you could argue that sword = leader is certainly a cliché. Still, there are other areas where I do think that Shield got the better end of the stick, so it balances out.)

Speaking of the mascots, I like that they changed it up by holding their capture until the post-game, and instead making the main story Legendary be some weirdo alien dragon with a very atypically "not good guy" aesthetic and type combo. And that Max Raid Battle against Eternatus is so fucking PUMPED. The music especially, but I like that on top of working the new battle mechanic into the story with the Gym Leaders and such, the new battle format also gets to fill a climactic spot. Contrast that with SM's Battle Royals or XY's Sky Battles (lol) which both struggle to be in any way relevant to anything or anyone. Plus, Eternatus's stupidly fucking high stats and the fact that it needs to be taken down by two people and two Legendaries avoids an embarrassing scenario like Lucario's Aura Sphere one-shotting the big boss Black Kyurem with the ominous battle music getting only about 15 seconds in.

It's really a small thing and I'm not truly sure how much of this I can actually credit to the game itself as opposed to my habit of exploring the whole town before progressing the plot, but it was a nice moment when we were all chasing the League staff guy in Wyndon for the key and Piers started up his street performance in the train station (side-note, I love that two people on the balcony started filming it on their phones), with the camera focusing on those two Zigzagoon reacting to the music and starting to run wild. The thing is, I had already talked to those Zigzagoon's Trainer ahead of time and knew that music made them rowdy, so that became a fun pay-off.

I am surprised that they brought back "the jerk rival" after people kept asking for it for so long. I don't feel too strongly either way about the archetype itself, but I do like Bede quite a bit.

Edit: Oh, and Leon adopting the third Starter. I'm so glad they've started paying more attention to this kind of thing, just like with Trace adopting the orphaned Cubone in LGPE.

 

[MrMeowPuss]

Has anyone had the game crash on them?

I had it crash for me which is rare for a Nintendo game in general. Luckily it was before anything important happened like catching something rare.

I’m still on my way to get the 3rd Gym badge and been catching every Pokemon I can on each route before moving on. I’m starting to find that I actually liked the exclusives on Sword more too....

 

[BackSet]

It's never crashed on me.

Ugh, I'm frustrated. I'm trying to catch a trapinch and I keep killing them!

 

[MrMeowPuss]

It's never crashed on me.

Ugh, I'm frustrated. I'm trying to catch a trapinch and I keep killing them!

I’m hoping it won’t happen again too.

If you have a Pokémon with False Swipe try using that, the only time that won’t work is if there’s weather conditions like hail.

 

[BackSet]

But I don't have a pokemon with false swipe. I don't think I have a tm of it either.

 

[toastghost]

it's Sordward and Shielbert who feel like the "real" villains

Sordward? Sheilbert? What kind of horrible parents name their children this?

 

[Phosphene]

Has anyone had the game crash on them?

I had it crash for me which is rare for a Nintendo game in general. Luckily it was before anything important happened like catching something rare.

A few times when I would put the Switch into sleep mode. When I would get back on, the music would play but the game would remain frozen. I've stopped putting the Switch into sleep mode while the game runs and have not had any issue since.

 

[MrMeowPuss]

But I don't have a pokemon with false swipe. I don't think I have a tm of it either.

Might be worth looking into how to get that TM/TR! I haven’t come across it yet but will let you know if I find it.

A few times when I would put the Switch into sleep mode. When I would get back on, the music would play but the game would remain frozen. I've stopped putting the Switch into sleep mode while the game runs and have not had any issue since.

Interesting, my crash was just in the middle of a battle in the wild area. I’m hoping I don’t get any more but I think the game mainly struggles in the wild area when connected to the internet.

 

[BackSet]

I ran across a backpacker who I think was speaking Spanish.

Spain confirmed?

I'm kidding.

Also, when do I get to buy Uktra Balls? The three Sonia gave me were wasted trying to catch a Yamask that I never managed to catch.

 

[Esserise]

But I don't have a pokemon with false swipe. I don't think I have a tm of it either.

Might be worth looking into how to get that TM/TR! I haven’t come across it yet but will let you know if I find it.

You can buy the False Swipe TM at one of the Pokémon Centers in Motostoke.

Sordward? Sheilbert? What kind of horrible parents name their children this?

The aristocrats.

 

[TechSkylander1518]

Our world: 1% makes life harder by hoarding wealth that they'll never spend while people in need suffer due to a lack of money
Pokemon world: 1% makes life harder by giving their children the worst possible hairstyles and names as symbols of their social status

 

[prog rocker]

Pokemon world: 1% makes life harder by giving their children the worst possible hairstyles and names as symbols of their social status

I think Panem, One Piece's world and Jojo's Italy have some competition now.