Pokémon Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield General Discussion

[LuchaSloth]

I stopped playing Sword and Shield in any capacity when New Horizons came out.

I've been meaning to play it a bit more just for the heck of it...but, I also don't know what I would even hope to accomplish if I did. My Sword save has a full dex, and I had bred a whole bunch of shinies prior to stopping. My entire team are shinies...and most are level 100 or close. I pretty much hit a definitive wall in waiting for the DLC to release...and I'm still standing at that wall. Never been a competitive battle type person. So, collecting is really the only thing I do in these games. Still a couple months for the new content. *Shrug*

 

[hebilea]

I stopped playing Sword and Shield in any capacity when New Horizons came out.

I've been meaning to play it a bit more just for the heck of it...but, I also don't know what I would even hope to accomplish if I did. My Sword save has a full dex, and I had bred a whole bunch of shinies prior to stopping. My entire team are shinies...and most are level 100 or close. I pretty much hit a definitive wall in waiting for the DLC to release...and I'm still standing at that wall. Never been a competitive battle type person. So, collecting is really the only thing I do in these games. Still a couple months for the new content. *Shrug*

Pretty much me as well, I have close to 200 hours on it, with like 3-5 boxes of shinies. Waiting for that update as well. I personally adore this game with all the new Pokemon and characters despite all the faults it has.

 

[Karmahri]

Darn why are apriballs so hard to get with the cram-o matic? I wish there was a guaranteed recipe for making apriballs and not up to chance >_<

 

[kylie32123]

Well, I'm kind of late to the whole SW/SH discussion party, but I'm gonna put my two cents in anyhow about the game.

It seemed really exciting for me at first, I had originally pre-ordered the game a few months before release, and the hype was big. I've always been a huge Pokemon fan, I've grown up with it, and I couldn't wait to start my adventure in the Galar region.
The start of the game was alright, it's the usual tutorial stuff and establishing character traits and flaws of the in game characters. In the start, Hop came across as VERY annoying and arrogant, and somewhat reminiscent of Hau. (I know I'm not the only one to have thought that, a lot of people do.) Leon, as champion, seemed just...lost. Like, literally lost. 'Pants with directions.', has been pushed as his character flaw throughout the entire story.
Anyway, after the tutorial, the story itself could've been better because it was all over the place. You've got Team Yell, who you THINK is the antagonist, but....well... really isn't? When I found out Team Yell wasn't actually a bad organization, I felt saddened and confused, because there's always a bad organization you've gotta defeat. From Team Rocket onwards, there was always something. Chairman Rose was the antagonist? Bede? I was so confused about that story plot, lol. Not to mention the story was short, about 20 hours long (For me it was 20 hours, anyway), and I finished it in a week. In past games, it took me a long time to complete a game because it was more challenging and complex, SW/SH seemed too easy, honestly.
I absolutely LOVED the gym challenge. The 8 stadiums really hyped you up before you went for the final challenge. Although seemingly easy, each gym/stadium was unique, as were the gym leaders themselves. For me, the only actual problem I ever had was Nessa, because I lacked a grass or electric type pokemon, and since I chose Scorbunny, I was kinda screwed for a moment. She wrecked me with her G-max Drednaw a few times until I ultimately decided to train up a grass type and I ended her.
There are sections of the game that look AMAZING, like Ballonlea, and the mines. Then there are others that...well you know... look really rushed and underdone, like the wild area. (Not gonna bring up how every tree looks the same, that discussion has already been had.) I think if they took more time with the game instead of trying to push it out at Holiday season, it would've turned out way better.
Dynamax in general is a very unoriginal idea. 'HeY LoOk pokEmOn gEt BiG aNd StRoNg FoR 3 tUrNs!' I mean, unoriginal compared to Z moves and mega evolution. THOSE were creative ideas and I'm not entirely sure why Nintendo didn't add them in the new game. The way all the gym leaders, Hop, Leon, and every other special character you battle throw the giant pokeball is unique, though. I say, in the Crown Tundra DLC, they add a customization option where you, as the player, can throw the giant pokeball in a special way. That would be cool, in my opinion.
To sum this all up, for me, the best things in the game were the character development and character designs. All the special characters look unique and act differently. At first I hated Hop, but at the end, I actually ended up liking him because you see a different side of him around the middle of the story. At first, I thought it was funny how he'd talk smack throughout every battle, only to have him beat every time. Near the end though, I genuinely felt like trash when I crushed his dreams to become the next champion. I have never felt that way for a rival in the past pokemon games. It's most likely because, in the story, he finally admits he believes he's not good enough, and I think everyone can relate to that because we've all felt that at some point, which is most likely why I felt so bad at the end. Nintendo could've done a way better job with a lot of things, the dex cut and same trees in the wild area to name a couple, but they've got a chance to redeem themselves with the upcoming 2nd part of the DLC. They could add a lot of new things, and fix old problems. I'm looking forward to it! Is this the worst generation yet? Yeah, it is and it's disappointing. There were a few fun parts, but most of it was a basic meh. I rate it 2 out of 5 stars, because they honestly should've done more with the game before release, without having to pay for the DLC.

 

[Chaotix]

Anyone here still breed IV's for Pokemon Shield/Sword?

 

[Reginald Fairfield]

Anyone here still breed IV's for Pokemon Shield/Sword?

Just bred a Ribombee. Might be a little frail to use it's pollen puff to bee a cleric in raid battles.

 

[Dim]

Thought I'd might share.

Serebii Update: The Pokémon Company has released the code for the special Gastrodon distribution: PJCS2019CHAMP. Redeemable until tomorow, August 23rd at 14:59 UTC. Full details @ https://serebii.net/index2.shtml

Apparently this sea slug is specially IV and EV trained and comes with a cherish ball. Not bad tbh

 

[DinosaurDumpster]

I'm not too sure how to feel yet about this game. For what I've played on my Shield account, it's pretty decent and is ok. There are some things that bug me, such as Galar forms of Pokemon, Hop, etc. What I don't like about these newer games is that they kind of started copying off of each other in some way. For example, once XY was released, they started making more things sort of similar to Mega Evolution, such as Z-Crystals to do one powerful attack, and the new Gigantamax forms for your Pokemon. While I like these features, Z-Moves and Gigantamax remind me so much of Mega Evolution. Another thing is the Pokemon kind of got stale in my opinion. I agree some of them are cute, and some are powerful, I just don't like the newer ones, especially the starters.
I do like how the gyms are in this game. So far it's been fun to play little mini games before you battle the gym leader.

 

[sleepydreepy]

Anyone here still breed IV's for Pokemon Shield/Sword?

I did up to maybe a month or two ago, do you need help breeding something?

Post automatically merged: Aug 25, 2020

Well, I'm kind of late to the whole SW/SH discussion party, but I'm gonna put my two cents in anyhow about the game.

It seemed really exciting for me at first, I had originally pre-ordered the game a few months before release, and the hype was big. I've always been a huge Pokemon fan, I've grown up with it, and I couldn't wait to start my adventure in the Galar region.
The start of the game was alright, it's the usual tutorial stuff and establishing character traits and flaws of the in game characters. In the start, Hop came across as VERY annoying and arrogant, and somewhat reminiscent of Hau. (I know I'm not the only one to have thought that, a lot of people do.) Leon, as champion, seemed just...lost. Like, literally lost. 'Pants with directions.', has been pushed as his character flaw throughout the entire story.
Anyway, after the tutorial, the story itself could've been better because it was all over the place. You've got Team Yell, who you THINK is the antagonist, but....well... really isn't? When I found out Team Yell wasn't actually a bad organization, I felt saddened and confused, because there's always a bad organization you've gotta defeat. From Team Rocket onwards, there was always something. Chairman Rose was the antagonist? Bede? I was so confused about that story plot, lol. Not to mention the story was short, about 20 hours long (For me it was 20 hours, anyway), and I finished it in a week. In past games, it took me a long time to complete a game because it was more challenging and complex, SW/SH seemed too easy, honestly.
I absolutely LOVED the gym challenge. The 8 stadiums really hyped you up before you went for the final challenge. Although seemingly easy, each gym/stadium was unique, as were the gym leaders themselves. For me, the only actual problem I ever had was Nessa, because I lacked a grass or electric type pokemon, and since I chose Scorbunny, I was kinda screwed for a moment. She wrecked me with her G-max Drednaw a few times until I ultimately decided to train up a grass type and I ended her.
There are sections of the game that look AMAZING, like Ballonlea, and the mines. Then there are others that...well you know... look really rushed and underdone, like the wild area. (Not gonna bring up how every tree looks the same, that discussion has already been had.) I think if they took more time with the game instead of trying to push it out at Holiday season, it would've turned out way better.
Dynamax in general is a very unoriginal idea. 'HeY LoOk pokEmOn gEt BiG aNd StRoNg FoR 3 tUrNs!' I mean, unoriginal compared to Z moves and mega evolution. THOSE were creative ideas and I'm not entirely sure why Nintendo didn't add them in the new game. The way all the gym leaders, Hop, Leon, and every other special character you battle throw the giant pokeball is unique, though. I say, in the Crown Tundra DLC, they add a customization option where you, as the player, can throw the giant pokeball in a special way. That would be cool, in my opinion.
To sum this all up, for me, the best things in the game were the character development and character designs. All the special characters look unique and act differently. At first I hated Hop, but at the end, I actually ended up liking him because you see a different side of him around the middle of the story. At first, I thought it was funny how he'd talk smack throughout every battle, only to have him beat every time. Near the end though, I genuinely felt like trash when I crushed his dreams to become the next champion. I have never felt that way for a rival in the past pokemon games. It's most likely because, in the story, he finally admits he believes he's not good enough, and I think everyone can relate to that because we've all felt that at some point, which is most likely why I felt so bad at the end. Nintendo could've done a way better job with a lot of things, the dex cut and same trees in the wild area to name a couple, but they've got a chance to redeem themselves with the upcoming 2nd part of the DLC. They could add a lot of new things, and fix old problems. I'm looking forward to it! Is this the worst generation yet? Yeah, it is and it's disappointing. There were a few fun parts, but most of it was a basic meh. I rate it 2 out of 5 stars, because they honestly should've done more with the game before release, without having to pay for the DLC.

I agree with most everything you said. I also LOVED the gyms/stadiums- the music & atmosphere were awesome and so exciting. I also actually like Dynamax as a concept because it looks cool, but maybe I'm just easy to please lol. But I agree that the storyline as a whole seemed underdeveloped and needed more work. It felt like they randomly made Rose the villain because they didn't know what else to do/no one else made sense as the villain. I really miss the complexity of the old storylines like in Diamond/Peal, X/Y, and Sun/Moon.

Overall I think the graphics and aesthetics of the game were amazing, but the actual plot was a total fail. Once you play through once there really isn't a point of doing it again, unlike older games.

 

[Lancelot]

One thing I will never understand is why this game creates new plot points and then has Leon complete them off screen, instead of letting us do it : (

 

[Foreverfox]

I just got my copy of pokemon sword today! I'm really excited - I haven't played a pokemon game since the days of yellow, blue, red, gold, silver, and crystal on my Gameboy color lol. Looking for people to play with! I have a feeling ill have a lotttt of catching up to do on the who's who of pokemon. Back when I started it was the OG 150.

 

[Pondo]

I understand them bringing back the majority of the legendaries/mythical Pokémon with the max raid lairs in the CT DLC, but what I don't understand is why they thought they should put the UBs in there with them...

I've never been so disappointed in something in all my life: it said a powerful steel type Pokémon was waiting at the end of the lair, and, because I didn't know that only most of the legendaries were added in, and not all of them, I was expecting my baby, Genesect.
'Twas not Genesect. It was Celesteela.

I don't want this.

 

[Midoriya]

I understand them bringing back the majority of the legendaries/mythical Pokémon with the max raid lairs in the CT DLC, but what I don't understand is why they thought they should put the UBs in there with them...

I've never been so disappointed in something in all my life: it said a powerful steel type Pokémon was waiting at the end of the lair, and, because I didn't know that only most of the legendaries were added in, and not all of them, I was expecting my baby, Genesect.
'Twas not Genesect. It was Celesteela.

I don't want this.

Finally, someone else who doesn’t like the ultra beasts (or at least thinks they shouldn’t be in Sword/Shield). Ever since the ultra beasts were released I’ve hated them with a passion. I really don’t see why they should be in Sword/Shield when there’s other legendaries that deserve the spotlight far more.

 

[Reginald Fairfield]

oh my god...
where do i even begin...

first, HA, it's not a UK based region.

now, moving on.

the starters look kinda meh to me.
first the grass starter, again with the elemental monkey...
second the fire starter, eh... not bad ( except for the name ) but i hope it improves design wise.
last, the water starter, what even is that ? a tadpole or something ?
anyway, the region from what we just saw looks pretty good.
i had a decent ''map'' look, and from what we saw in the trailer it looks good.
not many pokemon were revealed which i was not all that happy about, hoped to see a few more than just these.
...
wait...
seriously ?
as Masuda involved in this game ?
...
OH GOD ******* **** IT
CAN THIS GUY **** OFF ALREADY FROM THE FRANCHISE ?

now we're getting YET ANOTHER region with NO post game like gen 6 and 7.
really... the only good think he put into pokemon was the Masuda method.

now as i said, the region looks good.
has a decent name i guess ( well, it's better than ''Alola'' ) so that's a plus.
the game names really could be something better than just sword and shield, i mean we're hitting X and Y kinda territory with the ''creativity'' with these names.
now if this was actual footage of in-game cutscenes and game play, this looks really good.
still kinda let's go graphicky though... ( even though they said it won't look like that, so that's them lying to us AGAIN, and showing us how much they care about the player... NOT )

would i buy this game with this information ?
absolutely not.
they could still persuade me if they manage the actually make a good game.
even the red/blue game trailer got me more excited than this, and that ad is nearly 20 years old.

as much as i want to be excited for this game, i just am not impressed enough with what i saw so far.
and since Masuda was involved it will probably be another of those ''press A to win'' kinda game like gen 6 and 7 were.

i hope for nintendo's sake that these games will also be catered to us more ''hardcore'' players like they say in the direct.
if not,... that will be another loogy right in our faces by nintendo like they did with how easy gen 6 and 7 were, and how lack luster, lacking a post game and all.
if they don't they are going to piss a lot of people off, just because they don't want to ''scare away newer players''

again as i said it looks decent, and it is for the switch, so i hope they'll use all of their resources to make this the best game possible ( as of now of course )
i am curious to see what other new pokemon will be joining the fray, and what old pokemon will be accessible in this new region.

also with names like shield and sword, you just know the box legendary will be a glass cannon like pokemon ( like deoxys-A )
and a impenetrable wall ( like deoxys-D )
the last of this trio might actually be an Arceus kinda deal with all stats super high.
i just hope that the rest isn't overpowered like to Tapu's or ultra necrozma or something, we don't need any more of such transformations that make pokemon nye unstoppable.

anyway, that is pretty much all i had to say, sorry about the rant.

This didn't age well.

 

[Alolan_Apples]

I have to say, my opinion towards this game is more positive now than it was back when it came out. I’m also happy for the game to surpass 20 million copies.

Anyhow, here are my problems with the game that still exists. They may have added more species that were cut while made Martin’s Solrock more useful, but here’s my current problems:

1. Not all Pokémon are still available, even after DLC added more species. Poor Hoppip!
2. The map looks the most poorly designed region. It’s like everything has been put on one line rather than spread out.
3. Some 5-Star Pokémon in Max Raid Battles make three moves per turn, making them virtually impossible to beat. Do you want to know how many times I hit the home button every time I get kicked out of the den? I’ve been so frustrated by this to the point where I capture the max Pokémon when I win, let it faint in the wild, then release it while fainted.
4. The skirt options are among the worst clothing options in this game. Pokémon Let’s Go’s character customization is better than this.

Unpopular opinion here, but I’m not bothered by the graphics of the game.

 

[Khaelis]

I understand them bringing back the majority of the legendaries/mythical Pokémon with the max raid lairs in the CT DLC, but what I don't understand is why they thought they should put the UBs in there with them...

I've never been so disappointed in something in all my life: it said a powerful steel type Pokémon was waiting at the end of the lair, and, because I didn't know that only most of the legendaries were added in, and not all of them, I was expecting my baby, Genesect.
'Twas not Genesect. It was Celesteela.

I don't want this.

Despite them being "Pokemon" from another dimension, the game considers them sub-legendaries still, which are all part of Dynamax Adventures.

The reason why things like Genesect are not included in Dynamax Adventures is because they are mythical Pokemon, which aren't included in Dynamax Adventures as mythical Pokemon are generally left for Events.

 

[Reginald Fairfield]

I have to say, my opinion towards this game is more positive now than it was back when it came out. I’m also happy for the game to surpass 20 million copies.

Anyhow, here are my problems with the game that still exists. They may have added more species that were cut while made Martin’s Solrock more useful, but here’s my current problems:

1. Not all Pokémon are still available, even after DLC added more species. Poor Hoppip!
2. The map looks the most poorly designed region. It’s like everything has been put on one line rather than spread out.
3. Some 5-Star Pokémon in Max Raid Battles make three moves per turn, making them virtually impossible to beat. Do you want to know how many times I hit the home button every time I get kicked out of the den? I’ve been so frustrated by this to the point where I capture the max Pokémon when I win, let it faint in the wild, then release it while fainted.
4. The skirt options are among the worst clothing options in this game. Pokémon Let’s Go’s character customization is better than this.

Unpopular opinion here, but I’m not bothered by the graphics of the game.

I want to grow more of the event berries from the skwovet raids, and Banette.

 

[TheSillyPuppy]

Pokémon Sword is my first Pokémon game. I'm searching for a Ditto with 6/6 perfect IVs to trade for a perfect foreign Ditto. Does anyone have tips on how to check a Pokémon's IVs while trading online, since the judge function doesn't seem to work while trading online?

 

[WildestPlatinum]

2. The map looks the most poorly designed region. It’s like everything has been put on one line rather than spread out.

Unova was...literally a circle. You go in one end and out the other for the entire game, both times, B2W2 are just sneaky about it because they introduced tiny Mexico to visit once and never return to. At least Hammerlocke and the Wild Area pretended to present a choice. Although I still think the worst region design goes to Kalos, purely for the tragedy that is Route 1, and Santalune forest just being directly stolen from Kanto

 

[DarkDesertFox]

I got the Crown Tundra DLC recently and have been doing the Max Lair raids a lot. I just happened to capture 2 shinies and one of them was Ho-Oh. I know this is a stupid thing to complain about, but I'm actually disappointed I ran into a shiny Ho-Oh. I prefer the original color format more and just kept him because the odds of that happening were like 1/300 since I don't have a shiny charm.