Pokemon Sword & Shield GENERAL DISCUSSION Thread [Spoilers]

[Ver-mont]

I'd like the Gyms back.

I don't think they need to change everything about the formula, especially when we're talking about core elements of the series, and, honestly, I've always loved the Gyms and looked forward to new ones.

(Also, the Trials didn't work for me at all.)

 

[agent9149]

I was excited for the trails but the execution was terrible. Gamefreak was really being lazy on this one.

 

[Dragalge]

If they're bringing back gyms, don't give some gym badge names awful ones like in Kalos. They could think of a new name for an Ice-related badge where said type is used a lot in gyms in most other regions but can't think of any name other than Bug or Psychic? Even the Fairy gym's badge name is Fairy!

Oh and make them decent characters. I'm not asking for Unova/Alola level of quality but nothing like Kalos. And make them actually good like in USUM/Challenge Mode BW2/Platinum. Basically if it's challenging, I kind of don't care what the structure is.

Still, my expectations are low since they said Trials were highly well received so that might give them incentive to move on with going away from gyms.

 

[agent9149]

I wouldn’t mind if a trail was like a dungeon from zelda or a challenge tomb like in tomb raider, where you have to solve puzzles, battle enemies and then reach the final boss.

 

[UltimateNinja]

Gyms back. Trials were absolutely horrible and boring. And Pokemon with a random buff are more out of the blue and unrealistic than elite trainers with high leveled Pokemon. But make them have more Pokemon and not only three like the past two generations that had gyms.

If they're bringing back gyms, don't give some gym badge names awful ones like in Kalos

All regions had badges with bad names so I don't see a problem with that.

 

[Dragalge]

Gyms back. Trials were absolutely horrible and boring. And Pokemon with a random buff are more out of the blue and unrealistic than elite trainers with high leveled Pokemon. But make them have more Pokemon and not only three like the past two generations that had gyms.

They literally explained that the "random buff" is due to them being bathed in energy from Ultra Wormholes and from the light wielded by Necrozma.

All regions had badges with bad names so I don't see a problem with that.

Because unlike things such as Beacon and Voltage, just using the Pokemon type's name comes off as boring, ninja who claims to be ultimate despite not finishing his daily training the past week!

 

[agent9149]

I don’t think totem pokemon needed explanation. I got it and rolled with it.

 

[UltimateNinja]

They literally explained that the "random buff" is due to them being bathed in energy from Ultra Wormholes and from the light wielded by Necrozma.

Which makes the buff seems even more like an asspull.

Because unlike things such as Beacon and Voltage, just using the Pokemon type's name comes off as boring, ninja who claims to be ultimate despite not finishing his daily training the past week!

Because I find names like Stone Badge, Insect Badge, Bolt Badge etc. also quite uninspired?

Also training is off this week. Too much stress with work.

 

[Ignition]

I much prefer Trials. I prefer doing something besides battling 5 ish Trainers in a row then fight a Gym Leader who only lasts for 5 turns thanks to Potions. Trials also locked you into the Trial site so you couldn’t go back and heal. The Totems used direct synergy with their allies unlike most Gyms. Plus the award is actually useable. If I could add one thing to Trials from Gyms, it’d be TMs at the end. There were too many TMs locked behind PokèMarts.

 

[Ver-mont]

I much prefer Trials. I prefer doing something besides battling 5 ish Trainers in a row then fight a Gym Leader who only lasts for 5 turns thanks to Potions.

Such as battling 2-3 wild Pokémon and then a stronger wild Pokémon, instead?

It's not like Gyms don't have puzzles you need to solve too.

Because unlike things such as Beacon and Voltage, just using the Pokemon type's name comes off as boring, ninja who claims to be ultimate despite not finishing his daily training the past week!

I blame the localization team for some of those. Names like Bug Badge and Psychic Badge are fine for the Japanese version (where the types are Mushi and Esper, respectively), but they do sound a bit boring in the NA version. I understand wanting to keep the names as much as possible, but, in this case, it would have been better to rename them.

 

[Ignition]

Such as battling 2-3 wild Pokémon and then a stronger wild Pokémon?

It's not like Gyms don't have puzzles you need to solve too.


I blame the localization team for some of those. Names like Bug Badge and Psychic Badge are fine for the Japanese version (where the types are Mushi and Esper, respectively), but they do sound a bit boring in the NA version. I understand wanting to keep the names as much as possible, but, in this case, it would have been better to rename them.

When the wild Pokèmon and puzzles’ comnection to the Trial sites are intriguing, then, yes, such as that. Gym puzzles just throw in a puzzle that fits the Type and, unless you’re an Electric or Grass Type specialist using your inventions or gardening skills respectively, it means nothing for me

 

[DSDark]

I think having a trial in the gym would be a good combination. Complete the trial then battle the gym leader and get the badge.

 

[Ducolamia]

I think people are being too hard on trials. What's more interesting? Battling the same trainers with 3-ish teams all related to the same type with a limited range of pokemon or actually trying to make something engaging? I was more engaged in trials than ANY gym leader I faced more for the fact that you don't have to hold down a flamethrower and win.

Let me break this down for a bit. Gym leaders with very few exceptions have never been that hard. You can easily curb stomp them with a high enough level pokemon with the right type. It's been a problem since gen 1 and to be honest I think they should forgo them altogether to increase engagement. Pokemon has been using that formula for the past 20+ years now. The problem isn't necessarily that the idea is a bad one, but the execution is always the same. For every rock gym you are always going to see a geodude. For every water gym you'll always see a tentacool. It gets boring. And it doesn't help that all you do leading to them is just battling trainers.

The fact that people are saying that the trails are worse are astounding to me because they really aren't that different. Solving a small rock puzzle? Trials do the same thing. Battling some pokemon of the same type? Trials do the same thing minus the trainers and they actually give you a more viable reason for why they attack you rather than "we needed to fill slots for x amounts of trainers so here". The point I'm trying to make is that whenever I hear about how better or challenging gyms are I'll point to the Olivine City gym in which you just literally walk in with no challenge or anything and if you have a Typlosion by this point (which is entirely possible) the gym is a cakewalk.

As for trials, I liked some of the puzzles leading up to them such as the Charjabug puzzle in USUM and the petal trial with Mina. Sure, they aren't super grand or anything but I found it sweet that you got to reflect back on your journey through one last trial. And even if some weren't the best that doesn't automatically mean we should forgo them altogether. I want GF to take the opportunity to expand upon this idea.

The Totems are also cool ideas I want back as well. We get an explanation for why they're like that way and some of moves are very clever. I wasn't expecting Togedemaru to completely annoy me or even Totem Kommo-o to have poison jab of all things and summon Scizor for support. It's clear that they thought this through with what pokemon people would use. So I would hate for them to go back to an old system just because it's more familiar. I want them to take more risks and improve upon them.

 

[Xuxuba]

lol some of the trials were literally just "beat three wishiwashi/rattatas/ghastly" and people are complaining that Gyms had you fighting 5 trainers.

Give me trainers over weak wild pokemon any time of the day.

 

[Ducolamia]

lol some of the trials were literally just "beat three wishiwashi/rattatas/ghastly" and people are complaining that Gyms had you fighting 5 trainers.

Give me trainers over weak wild pokemon any time of the day.

5 trainers with the same type of weak pokemon? The same geodude, tentacools, goldeens, *insert regional bird/normal type here*? The lack of variety makes it a problem. I keep trying to stress the point they can improve upon the system. They haven't done that with gym trainers. Tell me the last gym trainer you thought was hard enough to rival a gym leader. I'll wait.

I'm not going to act like fighting wild pokemon is the best substitute, but at least they tried something new and I would like them to at least expand upon it. It gets boring fighting the same type-specialists with the same type of pokemon. Case in point, I'm tired of seeing every rock gym have a geodude. Like, we have almost 807 pokemon and they keep choosing to use from the same generation as well. And even if they show the gym leader with their signature pokemon from that region, it still doesn't take away the fact I had to defeat 5 geodudes to get there (Roxanne, Roark, Brock)

At least with things with Totem Lurantis, I had to think a bit about how I was going to face it (I chose Popplio and I didn't have a good fire type yet) the same can not be said for those mentioned about in which if you have a grass or water type or even an overleveled fire type you'll win with no questions asked.

The point I'm trying to make is that they've had time to make gyms more interesting than they are. The first true change I like was Norman's gym in which you faced pokemon all built around a different strategy, but my problem is that the rest of the game doesn't do anything like that (minus Tate and Liz) again. I say if they aren't going to do anything with it, start from scratch (like trials) and go one from there. Not going to say I've never enjoyed gyms, but they've weared out their welcome for me.

For the next gen (since people are making lists) I'd like, better graphics and better optimization with the gyms if they choose to bring them back.

 

[Dragalge]

I don’t know why anyone wouldn’t want to fight more than one Pokémon at a time and not have the opponent have increased stats. Such a thing to not want is weird!

 

[Ducolamia]

I don’t know why anyone wouldn’t want to fight more than one Pokémon at a time and not have increased stats. Such a thing to not want is weird!

I can see some reasons being that it is pretty unfair against you for more pokemon to appear when you can only send out one, but I'd argue that's how many other JRPGs do it. You don't get to send all 8 members of your party into battle. You usually go with 4 against 3 or more monsters. This doesn't include bosses obviously which sometimes can infinitely spawn allies.

Totems follow the same thing really as they summon only one and even if you paralyze/burn/poison it they will still summon a pokemon. So you have to deal with that, while dealing with an annoying ally ALL while dealing with a buffed pokemon. I can see the frustration.

However, I think to improve upon this they should've prevented you from using Z-moves altogether (this is a trial to get a Z-crystal) and buffed the entire stats like Ultra Necrozma. Would've made it harder to fight but more challenging for a boss fight.

 

[Ignition]

Pokèmon that has an actual strategy with allies to help support its strategy and cover its weakness or a supposedly top specialist who usually just uses a STAB move with the occasional obvious coverage move with strategy barely being there? Chances are if you took on a Totem and one shot it, you were probably over leveled

 

[Sceptile Leaf Blade]

I played through Crystal not too long ago and it was ridiculously easy compared to Totems. In Ultra Sun I actually had some challenge and even lost the odd battle like my Grand Trial against Olivia. In Crystal I was generally ridiculously underlevelled and still curbstomped almost everything, only Silver gave me some trouble at times. I was around level 21 at Jasmine and still won without much trouble. Gym leaders are not hard. They have fewer pokémon than the player usually has, they have fewer items, their AI is generally terrible and GameFreak seems to be unable to make it better, and their teams are generally unbalanced so if you bring in a team with an advantage over theirs you generally just destroy them. Whitney, the one everybody seems to dread, I think I just evolved my Chikorita by that point, and beat her without much trouble. Just stalled out that Miltank.

At least Totems have the capacity to punish you for poor play because they get some more advantages. The later game ones should have been a bit harder in my opinion, but Mimikyu and the Akala Island ones were great.

 

[Bolt the Cat]

The pikavee/go catching method is fun but rather than replacing the normal system I'd like to see it used exclsuvly in a safari zone type area.

That reminds me, I forgot something in mine:

Friend Safari returns but with HGSS' customization. You can also customize which Pokemon appear from a preset list.