Pokemon Sword & Shield GENERAL DISCUSSION Thread [Spoilers]

[Mr.Munchlax]

So, aside from typing, lore, & design, what exactly is the difference between Cofagrigus & Runerigus?

I mean I like Runerigus’s design more, but in terms of battling it seems like it’s exactly the same as Cofagrigus

 

[Ophie]

@Mr.Munchlax Runerigus is a physical attacker, and Cofagrigus is a special attacker. Also, Mummy spreads, but Wandering Spirit gets shifted around.

 

[Ultra Beast Lover]

I'm looking through the curry dex, the player character has weird taste XD Whipped cream in the curry? I hope that they give us more food options next time, if they give us camp again that is. And maybe something that lets us groom them like with Refresh.

 

[Zachmac]

I don't know about you guys but man, were there always these many ghost-types in the metas? This one team I encountered recently has four ghost-types. Dragapult, Mimikyu, Chandelure and Eviolite Galarian Corsola.

The only pokemon types that resist ghost are dark and normal, the latter of which is ineffective against ghost in return. Meanwhile the only type weakness ghosts have is dark and other ghosts.

Ever since dragons got nerfed in Gen 6, it's arguably been the best type in the game, there just hasn't been a lot of good pokemon to abuse it.

 

[Baggie_Saiyan]

On my Shield playthrough decided to not heal between routes I already play games with the shift style at set so added to that this has made the games consiconsiderably harder! Also not healing in gyms.

I didn't want to do a hard nuzlocke because I want to use new Mons but this as added a layer of difficulty for sure.

 

[Bguy7]

I'm back!

Decided I was tired of the fact that people were talking about nothing but the removal Pokémon (even if I was annoyed by it too), so I decided to take a break from these forums until after I played Shield. I've now done just about everything there is to in the game, so I'm back to give my opinions.

The Good:

• First and foremost, the experience of this game was amazing. Playing a full-scale Pokémon game on a home console is something I had dreamed about since I was young, and this game proved the experience to be everything I hoped it could be. I was in awe that a Pokémon game could look so good.
• The new Pokémon are great. I've got a lot of favorites this generation, and I had a tougher time than usual picking the six for my final team. Eternatus is downright amazing.
• I was pleasantly surprised by the return of regional variants. Even better was their evolutions, essentially bringing back cross-generational evolutions. I wish they wouldn't limit themselves to just evolutions of alternate forms, but it's better than nothing.
• I had a lot of issues with this game's story (discussed below), but the way it ended was absolutely amazing. The true boss fight against something more than just a Pokémon is something I've been wanting for years, and I can't believe it actually happened. Sure you save the world in practically every Pokémon game, but this game really drove that part in, making the player feel like more of a hero than ever before.
• I've got to hand it to Hop. While he is essentially Hau 2.0 on the surface, and I strongly disliked Hau, Hop does a lot of stuff right. Even though he had the same happy-go-lucky personality as Hau, I still felt like he was worthy rival and a good character. If they insist on giving us friendly rivals, Hop is the way to do it.

The Bad:

• Outside of the end of the story, this game's story was awful. Easily the worst story in all of Pokémon. Team Yell contributed absolutely nothing, and could have been removed from the story without changing anything. And the Rose twist at the end was extremely rushed and felt poorly written. This left the game with little-to-none meaningful story. Coming off of Gen VII's strong story, this was a major disappointment.
• For the third generation in a row, we're getting a pathetically low number of new Pokémon. I wasn't pleased with it in Kalos, I was upset by it in Alola, now I'm getting downright angry.
• On related note, the low amount of Legendary Pokémon is also extremely disappointing. I thought for sure that Kalos only having three was a fluke, but here we are, once again only having three. Except this time, we can only catch two in one game, both of which are story-based mandatory captures. At least in Kalos we had to hunt for Zygarde and they let us catch on of the Legendary Birds as well. Hunting and catching Legendary Pokémon is one of my favorite post-game activities, and you can't do that at all here.
• The way that Dynamaxing/Gigantamaxing is handled was extremely poor, if you ask me. The number of times you're allowed to Dynamax during the main game is extremely restricted. For just Dynamax, this wouldn't be too big of a deal, but for Gigantamaxing, this means that you're only allowed to use the unique forms that you worked hard to get a small handful of times. To make matters worse, it's nearly impossible to get the Gigantamax Pokémon you want. I would sit at my Switch and turn the internet on and off for hours at a time hunting for people doing Gigantamax Dreadnaw, Corviknight, Centiskorch, and Orbeetle Raids with little luck. And whenever I did get lucky enough to find one, there was a realistic chance that I wouldn't even catch it, as you only have one try to throw the Pokéball. I managed to get three of the four in the end, but it took more effort than any person should have to put into something like that.
• The mandatory EXP. Share was a horrible idea. I hated the idea of the thing enough when it was optional. Admittedly, I was not over-leveled for the Champion battle, so it would seem they actually tried to balance the game for it this time, but that's not the only issue. Having all Pokémon gain experience when they don't battle means that the Pokémon on your team with a higher level than the rest will stay at a higher level than the rest. And if you're trying to keep your levels balanced, that means you'll rarely be using certain Pokémon, which is a massive pain.

Nitpicks

• I'm very sad to see that there's no true Elite Four. They were the one challenge of previous games that Gen VI kept, and now even they have been discarded.
• As if with Alola, the lack of dungeons made the region feel much too simple. At least Alola had Vast Poni Canyon, Galar has nothing.
• While better than Alola's routes, Galar's routes and caves still felt like hallways for the most part (with some exceptions).
• The mandatory soccer jersey during gym battles was obnoxious. I don't want to look like an athlete, I want to look like a Pokémon trainer. It also had the unfortunate effect of making the gym leaders stand out less, as they all wore jerseys too. Jerseys don't even make sense in this context, as jerseys are designed for team sports, which Pokémon battling one-on-one is most definitely not. At the very least, I wish we could customize our jersey beyond just the number.

All-in-all, I thoroughly enjoyed my time playing this game. It had its rough spots, and it could have been a whole lot better, but it was still a great experience.

 

[shoz999]

You know, one thing I do have to say is that it's kind of weird seeing almost every guy in multiplayer have the Bill haircut. You got all these Bills running around that you can create a whole army of them. Honestly anytime I see that haircut, I just call them Bill. If there's more of them in multi-battle, I call them Bill 1 and Bill 2. I don't know, what do you think Bill?

 

[Bus]

The Ghosts introduced this gen are all pretty strong. I could easily see running a mono ghost team. I've been toying around with the Hyper Training and the Pokejobs thing for EVs and managed to get a few of my pokemon to their maxed beneficial stat; something I never did before (I always just played casual or battled friends for fun in the past). So now I'm the proud owner of a Dragapault with 421 speed (first time I've ever had a pokemon with any stat beyond mid 300's lol), Runerigrus with a Defense of 427, and a Cursola with a special Defense of 394. I'm working on Hatterene, Coalossal, and Appletun now. Those latter three were the ones I was already steamrolling through the Battle Tower with. I can't wait to have fun with them once they've been supercharged lol.

I've also recently discovered the incredible power of Dracovish (named Nina after Nina Tucker) and plan on boosting its attack and speed to take full advantage of the Strong Jaws + Fishious Rend combo.

 

[Captain Jigglypuff]

So what does every think about all female Eevees having the heart shaped tail markings now? Personally I like it because it makes getting a female Sylveon with Cute Charm which is pretty useful.

 

[British Soul]

I find it amusing (and I can't believe it took me 2 weeks to realise this), but the first thing that springs to mind about Indeedee is the dub title for DP161: "Yes in Dee Dee it's Dawn." from 2010. Imagine an Indeedee pointing to Dawn and its trainer saying "Yes Indeedee it's Dawn."

 

[WhiteBlair]

Galar's main story is easily in Top 3 along with Unova and Alola, and maybe Sinnoh.

Let's be honest, Red and Blue didn't have a proper story at all in its original and remakes except Pokémon mafias who were just another Poison-type trainer in different routes.
Gold and Silver's attempt to revive Team Rocket and reach Giovanni ultimately felt short. HGSS at least made Giovanni available in event and his relation with Silver.
Ruby and Sapphire was all about power freaks who wanted to control nature and outclass one another without thinking no living being can exist without water or land.
Diamond and Pearl displayed good effort with Cyrus' puppets doing all the work for him to create his perfect world. If it wasn't for Platinum, it'd fell short after Mt. Coronet.
Black and White is considered to be objectively the best story.
XY explained the story of Mega Evolution fine, but Team Flare were just ruckuses. The story implying everyone has to die if they aren't perfect and people believing it for 5M Poké Dollars was plain stupid. No legendaries were involved except being revived from tree/coconut forms and a sequel was at least necessary to give its story a justice.
Sun Moon, also, did a wonderful job with an abusive mother going crazy due to an alien's neurotoxin to find his lost husband and work with Team Skull to negotiate her plans.

Galar's main story was Gym Challenge, it was executed perfectly. The Darkest Day needed research as neither Zacian nor Zamazenta was even known in Galar as it was implied both IG and dex entries. The real villain was Eternatus and its episode was well done. Rose's intentions is as same as the others except Ghetsis and Lusamine; is selfish but makes zero sense to take action. Still, battling Eternamax form along with Zacian and Zamazenta, the entire Gym Challenge, character developments for Sonia, Hop, Bede and Marnie easily put SWSH above any other mainline series and just behind Unova and Alola. Maybe if we have a third version, it can focus its lacking parts just like DP and Platinum.

 

[lemoncatpower]

Red and blue didn’t need stories as much as these new games imo, since they were the first but even then the simple story went along very well with team rocket and stopping them multiple times and then having to beat Giovanni as the last gym leader. Simple yet beautiful.

gold and silver also had an interesting story with the rival and team rocket, and giovannis son being in there (although not confirmed for a while I think lol) and the world was explorable with gym leaders feeling more involved in their cities and whatnot.

ruby and sapphire were great stories with magma or aqua being annoying pests that caused a lot of problems. The story and legendaries were built up a lot with theoughout the story and the admins were a great touch in the teams. The story with your dad being a trainer also was a great touch.

sinnoh I honestly don’t remember as much

black and white were fun because of the double games and extended story. The time gap perfect imo too. Even XY I thought was pretty decent but gradually you can see that xy to sword and shield they rely less and less on story imo.

 

[1rkhachatryan]

Am I the only one who actually needed to use the xp candy because the exp share wasn't enough?? I mean the final boss was level 70 and the experience from the main game just wasn't enough for me.

Also Zacian was no joke, it took out most of my team before I caught it lol. And that was with all of my pokemon being level 70 too.

 

[Bguy7]

I find it amusing (and I can't believe it took me 2 weeks to realise this), but the first thing that springs to mind about Indeedee is the dub title for DP161: "Yes in Dee Dee it's Dawn." from 2010. Imagine an Indeedee pointing to Dawn and its trainer saying "Yes Indeedee it's Dawn."

I thought the same thing the moment I saw its name. I still have no idea what the heck that name is supposed to mean. Such a strange name.

 

[BCVM22]

I still have no idea what the heck that name is supposed to mean. Such a strange name.

The Japanese name is “Iessan”, which I imagine is basically “yes-san.” The Pokémon are described as being valets and butlers, so I imagine Indeedee (“indeed”) attempts to keep that same pun of a simple answer in the affirmative.

 

[shoz999]

Orbeetle + Iron Defense + Body Press. Nay? Yay? Better than stored power?

 

[Bguy7]

The Japanese name is “Iessan”, which I imagine is basically “yes-san.” The Pokémon are described as being valets and butlers, so I imagine Indeedee (“indeed”) attempts to keep that same pun of a simple answer in the affirmative.

Still left questioning it, but that seems to be the logic.

 

[nel3]

just got sword today, remembering weather conditions in the wild is a tad bit hard to get used to atm but im liking the game so far. the wilderness is rather cool, remind me of the open world Zelda areas. its a nice departure from the previous closed world concept.

i think i found the annoying zubat replacement in gen8: electrike. its great that 90% of all wild encounters can be avoided as they show as visual avatars. the fact they trot/chase after you is cute and funny though electrike is pretty fast on that speed scale.

 

[Ophie]

You know, one thing I do have to say is that it's kind of weird seeing almost every guy in multiplayer have the Bill haircut. You got all these Bills running around that you can create a whole army of them. Honestly anytime I see that haircut, I just call them Bill. If there's more of them in multi-battle, I call them Bill 1 and Bill 2. I don't know, what do you think Bill?

To be fair, there aren't a lot of hair options for the boy that are really that great, at least if you ask me. Of course, it may be in part due to how you're meant to have a hat over that head, though I do recall a couple of hairdos incompatible with hats.

Do you mean something like this one?

This is one of the ones incompatible with hats, so anyone with this hairstyle would look similar to this.

The Ghosts introduced this gen are all pretty strong. I could easily see running a mono ghost team. I've been toying around with the Hyper Training and the Pokejobs thing for EVs and managed to get a few of my pokemon to their maxed beneficial stat; something I never did before (I always just played casual or battled friends for fun in the past). So now I'm the proud owner of a Dragapault with 421 speed (first time I've ever had a pokemon with any stat beyond mid 300's lol), Runerigrus with a Defense of 427, and a Cursola with a special Defense of 394. I'm working on Hatterene, Coalossal, and Appletun now. Those latter three were the ones I was already steamrolling through the Battle Tower with. I can't wait to have fun with them once they've been supercharged lol.

Cursola is one of my favorite new Pokémon, though perhaps that's because I've always been quite fond of Corsola since it debuted way back when. Too bad both of Cursola's Abilities use its very low Defense, which is why I'm still seeing what to do to use either one, particularly Perish Body, to its fullest potential.

No Polteageist though?

So what does every think about all female Eevees having the heart shaped tail markings now? Personally I like it because it makes getting a female Sylveon with Cute Charm which is pretty useful.

I...never even noticed the gender differences. Is it new to this game? If so, I can see why I've never noticed it, as I don't think I've come across a female Eevee yet.

Orbeetle + Iron Defense + Body Press. Nay? Yay? Better than stored power?

It'd definitely be an interesting way to approach Orbeetle. I had been thinking a bunch about Orbeetle myself, and what I had in mind was Agility + Weakness Policy, since it's bulky enough to take a super-effective hit, and it's got enough weaknesses that people are likely to strike with super-effective-but-not-KOing-hits. Sounds like you had a similar idea yourself. Not sure if I'd like Stored Power better. Probably'd work more in double battles where there's less switching involved, since Weakness Policy is one-time-use and once you switch, you'll never have a setup like that again.

 

[Captain Jigglypuff]

The gender difference for Eevee is sort of new. It was introduced in the Let’s Go games as a Starter Eevee only feature but now applies to all female Eevees.