All New 'Sword & Shield' Pokemon, Stats, Galar Pokedex, Cut Attacks, Version Exclusives, and More!

Minimizing the dex is one thing.. But to the extent of cutting out the attack. That another level of annyoying. Since some of the attack are learned by special pokemon
 
Is it just me but seems only 80 new Pokemon ( counting their evolution forms). It really starts to get scary to think that they running out of ideas of more cool designs and stories that each Pokemon has.
 
Ok, but libero is literally just protein
Gigantamax Garbodor and Snorlax are genius
I'm now convinced that melmetal is the pokemon on that hill, I thought that before but this just confirms it: In a distant land, there are legends about a cyclopean giant. In fact, the giant was a Melmetal that was flooded with Gigantamax energy. | It can send electric beams streaking out from the hole in its belly. The beams’ tremendous energy can vaporize an opponent in one shot.
RIP Bide, we will all miss the free exp you gave us
has anybody else noticed how much gen 5 representation there is?
 
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So salty about losing Baddy Bad. My Eevee used to wreck face with that move!
 
I'm gonna give my thoughts here, summing up how I feel about this game from an outside perspective. What I think of new Pokemon, new mechanics, visuals, etc.

PREFACE-My opinions are going to be harsh. Don't let my ramblings stop you from buying the game if you want it. It's your money, and if you think you're going to have fun with it, go ahead! I'm glad you'll be able to enjoy something that I can't. I'm not shaming anyone here whether they want it or not.

That being said, I have a lot to say. This is, again, from the perspective of someone who has done a lot of research into whether or not I want to get the game or not. The leaks when the dex came out had me excited, but I wanted to see more of what the game was about before I bought it.

The new Pokemon themselves? Great. I love this gen, honestly. If there's one redeeming factor about it it's that. Is it gen 5 levels of amazing? Nah. But Toxitricity, Hatterene, Duraludon, etc. are all super solid. (And I knew I had a good feeling about Grookey!)

The biggest thing for me personally, is... And I've been waiting a LONG while to finally come out and get excited for this. GALARIAN. DARMANITAN. They ACTUALLY did it!! They gave my favorite Pokemon some love!! Like, when i first saw it in the leaks, I was absolutely shocked. Remember, Darmanitan was kinda forgotten about, at least in the TCG until last year. He didn't get a card from BCR all the way to Dragon Majesty. I didn't think they'd ever give it much recognition until after BW.

I also love that they gave Gen 5 a lot of love in this. With Galar Yamask/Runerigus (great Pokemon by the way), Galar Stunfisk, Giga Garbodor, and having a lot of them in the dex, it was nice seeing my favorite gen get a lot of the love it deserved.

I also like the character designs, for the most part (Leon and Hop suck). There's some really great designs here, like Oleana, Marnie, etc.

That's it for the positives for me, though.

Visuals
From what I've seen, the game looks like it has the quality of an upscaled 3DS game. Maybe a little bit more, but it's just... Not great. There's weird graphical issues, poor texture quality that some wii games got better (just look at Twilight Princess or Mario Galaxy). I'm not huge on the visual style personally-it seems too grey and drab and monotonous, compared to even Sun and Moon, which pushed the 3DS really hard. Even though that game had a lot of issues, I think they did some really cool stuff with the Alola Region's visuals and it showed a clear step up from XY and ORAS.

Let's Go I think was also a step in the right direction visually. I think that game, for what it was, had some pretty alright visuals here and there. Not a AAA amazing game, but it showed that they could have gone in the right direction with SwSh. But... The texture quality is just rough. On the same system that can run Breath of the Wild, Dragon Quest 11, Luigi's Mansion, Mario Odyssey... The list goes on. I know there's going to be the whole "Visuals aren't everything!!" argument and while I wholeheartedly agree, there's certain parts of this game I've seen that just don't paint a pretty picture for this game on top of all the other issues that it's coming out to have.

And then... The scaling. Why is this a problem in the new Pokemon for consoles? Why is Wailord smaller than a trainer? Let's Go scaled things properly. Battle Revolution from '07 scaled things properly. Colosseum and XD scaled things properly. I'm sorry, but there's no excuse here. It's 2019, on an HD console, that they've DONE proper scaling on before. I mean, hell, even Pokemon GO, a MOBILE GAME, scales things more properly than this.

Animations
They're...3DS quality. Sometimes, even worse! (Zamazenta turning around. Look that one up.) They're the same animations that we've had since the beginning of XY. And sometimes, they even cause characters to just blip out of existence for a bit! The way beams and stuff fly out of Pokemon are just so slapped on. It's not like "This beam comes out of Charizard's mouth." It just kinda bloops into the world and shoots. This wouldn't be a huge issue, but there's a reason I mention it and I'll get to it later.

Dexit and the move cuts.
This is a huge issue. And it's going to continue to be a huge issue unless they fix it. It has tremendous repercussions on the series as a whole, with:

-Making the world of Pokemon feel isolated from one another, which the national dex helped combat.
-Isolating certain players if they have a certain playstyle. People like @crystal_pidgeot wanting to use Pidgey? Too bad, they just isolated him from playing the game. People like myself who bring in their old teams to face the champion from every region as I transfer them up? Too bad, that isolates me too. Oh, your favorite Pokemon is Absol? Well, sorry for you! Absol is gone! Your favorite Absol you've had since Gen 3? No. You're not allowed to use it and bring it to a new region. Now, please buy our subscription service and maybe one day you'll be able to use it again. But until then, enjoy just... Doing nothing with it! For years!

-Cutting out staple moves that have been around since gen 1 for no apparent reason, because... Actually, I don't know why. Cutting out Bubble doesn't really have any competitive merit, so I've got no clue why they did it. It's a completely pointless decision on their part, and actually, has a NEGATIVE effect on the game! They got rid of Hidden Power! You know, that move that's incredibly versatile that helps a lot of Pokemon out? Too bad. it's gone. Poor Unown, first cut from the game and now doesn't even have his only move. Gotta feel bad for the guy.

And you can't even say it was for competitive purposes. They kept Incineroar and Toxapex in the game. If you wanted to balance the competitive scene for VGC, you know what could be done? It's a little something called a Ban List. Formats. Simple as that. The Tapus are dominant? Okay, you can't use the Tapus then. Galar Pokedex only for the year. Easy.

Post-Game, or lack thereof
Yep, barely a postgame. 2 hour something or other event and a Battle Tower that has LESS content than previous ones like in XY. Yikes. You can... Catch a legendary. And do single and double battles. And then walk around the wild area. And rematch the Gym Leaders. Yay? That's less of a postgame than XY, at least that had more than just a single legendary to catch...

Lack of Difficulty, Lack of Length, and Tutorials Galore
Remember how this was supposed to be a Pokemon game for hardcore fans? Me too. But people are finishing it in 15-18 hours. There's tutorials and characters are MORE invasive than in Sun and Moon. One-shotting Dynamax Ace pokemon is commonplace, apparently. The already constant healing from gen 7 is back with a vengeance. There's ten small routes, a few cities and a wild area. No dungeons. Galar LOOKED huge, but instead we got something smaller than BW1 Unova, which despite how small it is is PACKED with content. There's like, secret caves everywhere. Little secret alternate routes, hidden areas, trainers at every corner... But sadly, there seems to be a lack of that in Sword and Shield.

The Wild Area
Great in concept, poor in execution. It would have been amazing to have a Breath of The Wild style area in Pokemon where you can see everything for an immense distance, find secrets, little secret caves and whatnot, and catch all the Pokemon you want. But sadly, it has its issues:

-Pokemon are level-locked. If you see a shiny that's too high of a level? Too bad. You can't get it. What they COULD have done, is either do what Pokemon GO does and scale the power of Pokemon to your level, or make the catch rate lower the higher leveled the Pokemon is relative to you. It would create a better sense of immersion, because this lock makes it so it's not an open area with no limits but your own drive to explore, but a big open field with barriers that prevent you from actually, yknow, going out of your way and exploring.
-Rough draw-distance in certain areas.
-A lack of much to do, not incentivising the player to actually explore. Again, have some secret caves, or some more than just catching, the occasional trainer, and Raids.
-The weather is more bipolar than the state of Michigan. If you hit certain areas it can change from sandstorm to rainy to cloudy in SECONDS.

The Wild Area could have been something amazing. In a way, Pokemon Go is kind of like the Wild Area, except you're the one exploring. You know what gives the player incentive to keep exploring? The Pokestops. The gyms. Seeing that there's a certain Pokemon over at a certain spot, or that there's a new Pokestop you've never been to before. There's things to go to and things to do. Let's imagine that the Wild Area had cool checkpoints like that, that would reward the player for finding them. That would add a great level of incentive to go back and explore. Again, great in concept and would have been AMAZING on the 3DS, but on a console much stronger than its older sibling, it just doesn't cut it.

General lack of polish and life compared to previous games in the series.
Pretty self explanatory. The game lacks graphical polish as I've said. It doesn't have much depth in terms of the environment, which somehow Black and White from 8 years ago could do. It doesn't have a living, breathing world, again, like BW. It has good ideas, but no execution.

Other random issues
-The game softlocks and even freezes at times, moreso than previous games.
-The EXP share not being able to be turned off, is not the best of decisions. Candies and whatnot are fine, but the EXP share should be allowed to be turned off.
-The options to control the sound settings are locked to an item. There's no reason behind it, it's just locked to some random item you might miss.
-Now, people are reporting that the Autosave feature is corrupting people's SD cards now. This was caught live by a Japanese streamer and has been reported by a lot of others playing the game as we speak.
-Towns and cities seem very empty. Yet Castelia City from BW did the whole bustling vibe perfectly, on a system and game from 8 years ago. Makes sense.

This is where I start to dive into WHY this is such a big deal.

Making an unpolished game is one thing. But going out of their way to continue to stumble around telling people the truth is another. Game Freak's announcement cycle has been, to say the least, shoddy.

-They never formally told the Japanese fanbase about Dexit.
-They claimed it was for high-quality animation purposes, yet the animations are exactly the same, and unpolished when there are new ones.
-They claimed that they remade models from scratch. This has been basically disproven.
-They haven't mentioned ANY details about Pokemon home, instead opting to just be vague about it.
-They continue to blow off any questions about the problems of the game with non-answers, instead of being upfront with the fans about it.

Game Freak is not up to par right now. They're making a lackluster experience devoid of so much love and care previous entries of the series have had. Why? They won't tell. I think it has to do with a few things, personally:

-Game Freak is horrendously understaffed. When you have around 100 employees cut in half to work on Town and Pokemon, you're not going to get anywhere fast.

-The Pokemon Company is rushing the product. There's no chance for delays because of that sweet, sweet merchandise.

-There's a lack of talent. I'm sorry if this is too harsh, but Ohmori, with his last two games (this and SM) turning out not to be the best director. He did fine with ORAS, but Sun and Moon is the worst game in the series (until now). They brought in newer developers with USUM and those guys made the game Sun and Moon SHOULD have been. USUM wasn't the best, but at least that game had content, and a challenge. The programmers need to have a bit of work too. Don't get me wrong-. Masuda can do some great things-He HAS done great things. Black and White was his best work, and if that's not proof he can do great things, I don't know what is. But there needs to be changes as well. But for some reason, they're just... Stumbling. It's sad.

There needs to be an overhaul at Pokemon. Game Freak needs to hire more, new, talented people. They need new points of view-both the old and the new. They're completely capable of making great things! Why do you think Pokemon has been so successful for all these years? It's a wonderful franchise that is full of fantastic experiences, fun games, and really amazing designs.

But they're just... Screwing it up. Their poor decisions that hurt players' enjoyment of the game, their blatant lying about the reasons why, the list goes on.

It especially looks bad when you have:
-Animal Crossing, which delayed the game to give their employees a better work-life balance, while also making the best game they possibly can.
-Luigi's Mansion 3, which, anyone who has played it can attest to this-is FULL of love and details that not many other games can say they've done.
-Metroid Prime 4, which, was delayed and switched to Retro, because the game wasn't up to the standards that the beloved series had set out already. They wanted the game to be as good as possible, and they're working towards it.
-Super Mario Odyssey and Breath of the Wild-which reinvented their respective franchises, and are considered some of the best in their series. (Again, much like Black and White, which did so much to make Pokemon feel NEW again). Odyssey, might I mention, also was mainly handled by newer people at Nintendo, something I suggested earlier that GF/Pokemon did.

Pokemon is the highest grossing franchise in the world. Pokemon is part of Nintendo's big three franchises. Pokemon has given so many people so much joy in their lives. It's sad to see such a mighty franchise go to this. And like I said, there's tons of factors to it. I'm sure there's fun parts in the game. But is it good enough? No. It's not. Pokemon fans deserve better.

I know what everyone's said by now-"Don't knock it till you try it! You don't own the game, so why are you criticizing it?! You have no right to complain about a game you've never played!"

I've done my research. I looked at the positives. I was excited for parts of the game. Like I said, my favorite Pokemon got a Galar form. It made me incredibly happy. It actually made my day. And then I looked at footage from the game. I've seen gameplay. I looked at the datamines. I looked at the statements GF made. And you know what? I can't give my money to that.

Of course, I know there's one other question people are gonna ask: "Don't you have anything better to do but criticize this game?! It's just a game!!"

First of all, not much better to do at 2AM at the time of writing this, lol.

I'm doing things like this out of love for the series. I want the best for one of my favorite franchises in the world. I wanted so bad for this game to be as good as possible, if I got it, I would have been able to play a Pokemon game with my close friend as her first entry to the series. I'm bummed out that the game turned out to be that way. Pokemon is important to me, so of course I'm going to criticize what I find wrong and praise what I find right about it.


In the end, I just hope that they SOMEHOW take a message from this and start making games like they used to again. The backlash from Gen 5 is what made them play things super safe with XY-onward (I theorize), so maybe the backlash from this can send a message. I can only hope one day we can get a game that holds up to the standards they and their fellow developers have set in the Switch era.

Until then? I've got me a Black Nuzlocke to get to. Or maybe another run of Platinum! Or Emerald, etc... I can always go back to the old reliable ones. At least those good times will always be around.

edit whoops I forgot to talk about dynamax. Real quick here you go, dynamax sucks and the gigantamax forms while designed really well could have been megas and it’d have been great. They shouldn’t abandon mechanics so quickly like they do. The end ok night night
 
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Is this the first time where a new generation deletes/bans old attacks??! :eek:o_O
That's crazy! But why??
 
No Mythicals this time. Is that just something that won't happen anymore? I know the legendary trio trop sort of ended when XY only had three in-game legendaries (Sun and Moon had the Tapu quartet instead), so it's not new we doesn't have that for Sword and Sheild, but this has got to be the first time we get absolutely no Mythical Pokémon.
 
First 3 review sites might as well just have a strikthrough, useless bunch that would rather say nice things so they continue to get free things sent out.

The list on reddit regarding massive glaring issues should've easily smacked those figures from 9 to 5 or 6 at a push.
 
I'm sorry to say this, and it might be controversial: Due to the situation of these games, I'm not going back to the TCG game.

The reason is because The Pokemon Company is enforcing a harsh development schedule upon Game Freak, due to how all the external media and merchandise are tied to the mainline games. In order for the games to really improve in quality, there needs to be a shake-up throughout the various areas of Pokemon as well, so that they no longer influence this rushed, yearly game schedule.

Because as much as I like the card game, the Mainline games are what I honor the most - And it now feels like the derivatives are holding back actual improvement within the true heart of the franchise. v_v
 
I was going to rant and rehash this whole situation for these games, but... I've already done it throughout the months, and others have made the issues abundantly clear on many different websites. Including @AshCo in this very own thread! So instead I'll just talk about my recent thoughts.

For the first time in the main series, I have made the decision to not buy either of these games. (Or at least not for the foreseeable future. More on that later.) It was a frustrating decision to make, being such a big fan of the franchise and playing these games for 20 years.

Earlier this week, I requested a few hours off of work for today in order to have long day for playing Sword or Shield, despite all of my complaints and intuition about these games. But the final straw was broken when I read a quote from Junichi Masuda in a recent interview: "We now have no plans to make the Pokémon that are missing in the Galar Pokédex in-game available. That is an approach that we want to continue in the future with Pokémon games." My immediate gut response to that was, "From the bottom of my heart, screw you." (Though, perhaps screw wasn't the word that was used.) It really just seems like those in charge of the Pokemon games are content with resting on the series' laurels and burying their heads in the sand. Complaints? What complaints? Why bother improving the series when people will buy it anyway?

I just couldn't bring myself to support this model of making games. That and for lying about recreating the Pokemon models from scratch. I have eyes and a brain, as well as a right to my money. I'm allowed to make that decision when I don't like something. However, if you enjoy these games, don't let anyone take that away from you. I'm pretty sure that my nephew will want one of these games. But I'm not going to tell him no; that's his own decision.

At this point, it would take maybe one of two thing to make me want to buy Sword or Shield. Either a massive discount, which seems unlikely, even if it was secondhand, or adding the rest of the Pokemon into the game through patches, which also seems unlikely, given how stubborn and adamant Junichi Masuda seems to be on the matter. And again, it's frustrating that I feel this way. Despite all the glaring flaws, there ARE things to like about this game! Though they always take a while to get used to, there's all of the new Pokemon. And I just watched a video showing off all of the trainer clothes, which look great--especially all of those gym outfits! Though I haven't seen how far it goes, I've also noticed that even hair color choices have been improved.

In a way to oversimplify things, I'm just disappointed in a lot aspects of these games and TPC's attitude. But I wish I wasn't. And I can't help but wonder what these games would've been like if they had more time to work on them. Or really, more staff too; they certainly could have afforded it. No one would have had any issues with that.

Side note: It didn't really fit anywhere else, so I'll add this here. It also seems that TPC is really out of touch with who their main demographic is. It's okay to make games with children in mind, but the majority of fans are adults now; people who grew up with the first games. There's no need to continually add more hand holding, as if a child's mind would explode without a character congratulating them and healing them every step of the way. And to think that fans wouldn't notice the reuse of Pokemon models and be able to prove it? The models in SwSh are identical to the 3DS models or nearly identical, some adding onto the previous model. So either they reused models or somehow they manged make entirely new models that have little to no changes for hundreds of models, which that kind of coincidence is pretty much impossible. We're not dumb. And the thing is, I don't think anyone would have blamed them for reusing the models--pretty sure we expected it! But for some reason, they thought that would be a good excuse.
 
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So I've made up my mind and decided to buy a used copy of Pokémon Shield since one of my friends talked me into it however I'll need to save up money to buy a Switch first since the Lite version doesn't allow me to play the game on my TV. Going by my first impressions of my friends playing the new games as far as the hands-on experience goes it actually wasn't as bad as a lot of critics made it out to be. I've actually been itching to get back into the Competitive VGC scene recently and figured that a Sandstorm team involving Tyranitar wouldn't be a bad idea though I'm not sure how effective it will be given the recent shakeups in the OU tier.

Last time I played the Pokémon video games competitively was back in Gen 6 with X & Y before ORAS ruined the meta with Mega Evolutions and Ultra Beasts in Sun & Moon. Sword & Shield feels like a breath of fresh air compared to how stale the meta was since everyone was running the exact same Pokémon on each of their teams to the point where they became too easy to predict. Now with almost half of the original roster gone with brand new Pokémon added to the mix I'm actually curious to see how players end up building their teams. Still a bit sad that I won't be able to transfer my Drizzle / Trick Room team for Sword & Shield.
 
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