Pokemon Sword and Shield - Galexit Edition

RoboBlue

@The:

What exactly was the cause of all the dexit complaining then? People were worried all the old pokemon wouldn't make it in, but we've had a lot of those pokemon since the nineties. It's time to move on from kanto and hoenn and give the new gens their time in the spotlight. ( charizard can stay forever though. He's the goodest boy.)

It depends on who you ask. A lot of competitive people did want to transfer the teams they'd put hundreds or thousands of hours into building.
Most people were also angry that it betrayed the "gotta catch em all" and "every Pokemon is someone's favorite" themes that ran throughout the series since the beginning.

For me, the real salt in the wound was that the justifications for it didn't make much sense, and there's still more evidence against them than for them.

At the time I was expecting a much larger cut than most other people but assumed there'd be 150+ new Pokemon to make up for it.
We got the worst of both worlds unfortunately.

The D.

@RoboBlue:

It depends on who you ask. A lot of competitive people did want to transfer the teams they'd put hundreds or thousands of hours into building.
Most people were also angry that it betrayed the "gotta catch em all" and "every Pokemon is someone's favorite" themes that ran throughout the series since the beginning.

For me, the real salt in the wound was that the justifications for it didn't make much sense, and there's still more evidence against them than for them.

At the time I was expecting a much larger cut than most other people but assumed there'd be 150+ new Pokemon to make up for it.
We got the worst of both worlds unfortunately.

Well…I didn't get the worst of both worlds. I'm perfectly happy with the game we're getting. It's just another bog standard pokemon game, and that's fine by me. I'm excited for most of the new mons I've seen ( except for the late term abortions that are silizzle and intelleon) and I can't wait to build a new team with them. Like I said before, I'm sure the roster of classic pokemon returning will change going forward, so it's not like those old teams are gone forever. But it's time for new pokemon to shine.

KrogGar

Do we already know, if the pokemon box will work or trading with older games (lets go as example?)
Since none of the starters grow on me atm, I wanted to start the game with farfetch, since I love his evo.

Wagomu

I've been in favor of cuts from the start since nobody needs to catch Luvdisc for the 20th time or anything, but the slipshod fashion with which they seem to have been handled bodes poorly for the rest of the game. It definitely turns me off enough to make me consider just waiting on the inevitable third version.

GetsugaZoro

I don't get the " I only use new Pokemon so I don't care about the cuts" sentiment, I think that is what most of us do anyway. Wanting all the Pokemon and "our" favorite ones is for post game or for the next playthroughs, I do catch Luvdisc 20 times if needed, I like to complete the dex every region, the game was also about that. It would be funny if they crapoped on the battle system make it like Pokemon GO or something, then the collect them all people will be like "oh I don't care about competitive battle, though luck guys".

.access timeco.

@Wagomu:

I've been in favor of cuts from the start since nobody needs to catch Luvdisc for the 20th time or anything, but the slipshod fashion with which they seem to have been handled bodes poorly for the rest of the game. It definitely turns me off enough to make me consider just waiting on the inevitable third version.

So you were checking the news? Was curious about your opinion on Wooloo line

RoboBlue

@Wagomu:

I've been in favor of cuts from the start since nobody needs to catch Luvdisc for the 20th time or anything, but the slipshod fashion with which they seem to have been handled bodes poorly for the rest of the game. It definitely turns me off enough to make me consider just waiting on the inevitable third version.

I don't really understand why people assumed that Gamefreak was going to provide us a carefully curated list that did its best not to cut fan favorites.

This is the same company that removed the Battle Frontier, the PSS, The Underground, the Poketch's roaming Pokemon tracking system, the National Dex, Mega Evolution, Z-Moves, transfers between generations that don't rely on a soon-to-be-shut-down cloud service for no good reason (replace this with "transfers from games before gen 8" in three years), Pokemon Trials, difficulty choice, jerk rivals, skippable tutorials, O-Powers, Pokeball Plus functionality, Pokemon that walk behind the player, breeding etc…

They regularly remove features at random to make each game feel more unique, and don't seem to have a clue why it would be better to keep some features than others.

@The:

Well…I didn't get the worst of both worlds. I'm perfectly happy with the game we're getting. It's just another bog standard pokemon game, and that's fine by me.

Yeah, but the last three bog standard Pokemon games have come with major caveats.
X&Y had basically no story.
Sun and Moon had horrible pacing issues, removed the National Dex, PSS, O-Powers and Victory Road.
Sword and Shield is cutting most older Pokemon seemingly at random alongside all Megas and Z-Moves. It also costs 50% more.

@The:

I'm excited for most of the new mons I've seen ( except for the late term abortions that are silizzle and intelleon) and I can't wait to build a new team with them. Like I said before, I'm sure the roster of classic pokemon returning will change going forward, so it's not like those old teams are gone forever. But it's time for new pokemon to shine.

Right now I like about half of them but a few are growing on me (I love the bubble 07 meme).

Medical Orbit

I always thought Vast Poni Canyon was supposed to be the Victory Road equivalent.

zeltrax225

Don't market yourself as catch them all or every Pokemon is important or you chose Pokemon specifically of the region it was inspired from
and whatever slogan that strikes as a sincere one or sentimentality…

If
All you're gonna do is back pedal on that.
Junichi has been feeding lies and lies over and over again to the fanbase.
Why can't he just be honest from the start?
Because it was slimy move that's why.

Yeah obviously when it is expected for the players to "move on" and adventure with newer Pokemon, the company does the same.
No wonder Ash and Pikachu still represents every single region! No wonder there's Charizard and giant Eevee and Pikachu and Kantodex!
Of course they are moving on amiright?
That logic is so flimsy that thin ice won't be a good analogy.

I said this before but if it's gonna be a soft reset or a new take or whatever publicity crap they like to claim.
Don't half ass it.
Do what Unova did, reset every single thing.
Why focus on Charizard and Pikachu again? It's the $$$ talking.
Why snap more than half of them? Because their target group wont give as much shit to them but will gladly eat up their crappy excuses for poor choices.
I'm beating a dead horse but they simply don't care about us.
They stopped giving a damn about their core fans when GO started having strong influence and became a cash cow.
Most of the great breakthroughs they made up through Bw2 was because they sincerely cared about the fans and game design.
Now they are pushing the bar of the shallow bullshit that won't fly if it was released back then.
if only Go wasn't so popular that casuals eat up whatever they spew.

Whoever is calling the shots in these games have changed and their concern will never be the core gamers again.
This entire thing is a rebranding attempt.

@Conekiller:

..uuhh.. it didn't? Its been in trailers since the beginning.

I always focus on using gen exclusive mons tdo not having my favorites from precious gens doesn't bother me in the least bit. (I did hope for a Galarian Chinchou to hopefully fix the abomination design that is Lanturn)

I forgot my /s.

maxterdexter

“Removed”

There isn’t a super perfect version of sword and shield with all the features and mons, Use the proper language, they weren’t removed they were left behind, deprecated, not implemented, on stand by, deprioritized, etc.

Removed implies that it was in the build at some point.

RoboBlue

@maxterdexter:

“Removed”

There isn’t a super perfect version of sword and shield with all the features and mons, Use the proper language, they weren’t removed they were left behind, deprecated, not implemented, on stand by, deprioritized, etc.

Removed implies that it was in the build at some point.

"Removed" is the correct term because they lied by omission during the Pokemon Home press conference.

We were led to believe that everything would continue as it had since generation 4 until after all of the major press events.

.access timeco.

@zeltrax225:

Why can't he just be honest from the start?

To be fair, the only reason we know about it is because they told us themselves with months in advance. Had they remained silent, we would only found out something was weird once the games were datamined, and would only know for sure once HOME was released next year. They would get a huge backlash then, but I doubt it would be much bigger than what they got anyways, and by then the games would have already being on stores for months and made millions.
They were shady in general, but at least there's that.

zeltrax225

@.access:

To be fair, the only reason we know about it is because they told us themselves with months in advance. Had they remained silent, we would only found out something was weird once the games were datamined, and would only know for sure once HOME was released next year. They would be received with a huge backlash then, but I doubt it would be much bigger than what they got anyways, and by then the games would have already being on stores for months and made millions.
They were shady in general, but at least there's that.

That backlash will be tremendous though.
The orders on their side were to controlled the news release after the initial cut announcement has been announced.
Also if anyone remembers SwSh was branded as a challenge and experience designed for long term players.
But I'm pretty sure that's not going to be the case.
They also used limitations of hardware as an excuse but it's obvious there's a deeper reason why they decided to cut the dex that they can't announced because of backlash.
It's also a pretty big thing and I don't really think that then telling us before we paid that hefty sum is a plus point.

.access timeco.

I think the perfect moment to announce the dexit was before USUM release (and sure they already knew about it by that time). Had they said back then those were going to be the last games that would support every existing Pokémon, they would have diffused the backlash: people would be mad with a future game that still didn't existed as far as players were concerned and that would probably even help USUM numbers as people would feel having all the pokémon together for the last time would be a good reason to buy it.

Then by the time Sword/Shield were released, people would have had 2 years to warm up to the cut idea and even the 400 dex could even be met with a relief after the 153 from LGPE insead of a downgrade.

Gizmo

@Wagomu:

I've been in favor of cuts from the start since nobody needs to catch Luvdisc for the 20th time or anything, but the slipshod fashion with which they seem to have been handled bodes poorly for the rest of the game. It definitely turns me off enough to make me consider just waiting on the inevitable third version.

There has ‘t Been a third version since Gen 4. Wonder if the series though is gonna do a pseudo-sequel or remake like gens 5/7 or gen 4 remake like ORAS.

.access timeco.

@Gizmo:

There has ‘t Been a third version since Gen 4. Wonder if the series though is gonna do a pseudo-sequel or remake like gens 5/7 or gen 4 remake like ORAS.

That's just semantics, "third version" is an expression used loosely to refer to the upgraded versions within a gen that take place in the same region as the first ones, it encompasses the said "pseudo-sequels" as well.
When we mention it in Galar case, we refer to Giga Sword/Giga Shield, Sw2Sh2, Gun, whatever they call it, be it a sequel or just a parallel version.

Gizmo

Ah my bad. I guess though it still holds up that they could just do a gen 4 remake instead of a sequel, which I would prefer. But looking back I doubt they’d hold two different dex types or have remakes anymore if you can’t catch them all right? They won’t create the sprites to catch all the old stuff in the old games if they’re not doing the same for the new.

Medical Orbit

I'm unclear on something regarding the version-specific gyms.

! According to the list that was posted here earlier, which is consistent with the info I've seen elsewhere, Ground is in Sword and Ice is in Shield. But last night, some people were saying Rock instead of Ground, and that Sword has Ice and Shield has Rock. Is anyone able to clear this up.?

.access timeco.

@Medical:

I'm unclear on something regarding the version-specific gyms.

! According to the list that was posted here earlier, which is consistent with the info I've seen elsewhere, Ground is in Sword and Ice is in Shield. But last night, some people were saying Rock instead of Ground, and that Sword has Ice and Shield has Rock. Is anyone able to clear this up.?

! There were two "game leakers" so far (and one "guidebook leaker").
! One was the "Discord leaker". He leaked some pokédex pictures and some info on Discord this Sunday. After Leak accounts shared his pictures on twitter, he refused to share any extra info because he felt his identity was compromised (his pictures were not meant to leave their Discord channel). He was playing Sword and said there was a Ground Gym, but since he vanished there's no way to check anything with him.
! The "4chan leaker" has been leaking things constantly since friday and is responsible for pretty much everything we got. He is also very solicit so it's very easy to check things with him. He is playing Shield version, however, so there's no way to check Sword gyms with him.
! The reason people started believing the Ground Gym info was a mistake is because the Ice Gym leader card on Shield shows the leader along with another character who is described on the card as a Rock-type trainer who is closely related to the Ice Gym leader, so people started assuming he is the leader of that Gym on Sword.

The D.

I didn't mean to shit on anyone who likes sobble's evolutions, they're just seriously not for me. But I've never been a fan of the more humanoid pokemon going all the way back to gen1. I'm actually really hopeful for the story in swsh, since the pokemon league seems to be more…"involved" than ever before. And by that I mean it doesn't just seem like an eight dungeon gauntlet anymore, if the leaks are correct it seems like there's more of a process to it.

KageKageKing

@.access:

So you were checking the news? Was curious about your opinion on Wooloo line

! I'm pretty sure it is based on a israeli breed of sheep instead of a goat.

DarkWitch

Some of these Pokemon fans if you even want to call them that really are horrible, I don't mean that ones that are upset about the whole dex cut. I don't get the hate that James Turner is receiving, some people are blaming him for the dex cut which we all know he's not the one responsible for it and I get he's the art director for Sword and Shield but not all of the new Pokemon in Sword and Shield were designed by him yet some people think all of them were designed by him. There are some people just bashing on Turner saying stuff like he ruined Pokemon, he should fired, he should resign, like these aren't even actual Pokemon fans just a bunch of angry little children.

WolfWood37

@DarkWitch:

Some of these Pokemon fans if you even want to call them that really are horrible, I don't mean that ones that are upset about the whole dex cut. I don't get the hate that James Turner is receiving, some people are blaming him for the dex cut which we all know he's not the one responsible for it and I get he's the art director for Sword and Shield but not all of the new Pokemon in Sword and Shield were designed by him yet some people think all of them were designed by him. There are some people just bashing on Turner saying stuff like he ruined Pokemon, he should fired, he should resign, like these aren't even actual Pokemon fans just a bunch of angry little children.

Which is the current state of the world…look at anything and you'll find the cesspool.

Marcotty

Well, I have no issues and am actually finally looking forward to and feeling ready for a new pokemon. No problems with the final evos for the starters either. I was dreading way, way worse final evolutions for the starters than what we're getting, so I couldn't be happier with them. Last time I actually liked all the starters this much was Hoenn. It's always been "I hate 2 of these, so no choice I guess" since then, so happy to finally break that trend.

! Grookey turning into a goofy gorilla with a belly drum would've been the worst thing ever to me, and I was worried Sobble would turn into some ugly, hunched over, creepy/ugly chameleon or something. Scorbunny is about what was expected, but at least they didn't go fully and make it fire/fighting.

Now my only conundrum is I actually can't decide what starter to go with anymore… I tried going through the new and old pokemon to narrow down things I'll want to see if anything eliminates one of the 3 starter types, but no such luck. The only things that I think are locked into my team are Rapidash and Alcremie (poor movesets could still change that though). Otherwise there's too many "maybes" still, and those all depend on when in the game they can be found. As far as maybes go...

! Corviknight, the fire/bug, the ice/bug, the ghost/dragon, and the dark type fox are all strong potentials that I'm interested in. The psychic…hat theme thing line works, but only if Rapidash's moveset isn't appealing to me. Galorian Yamask and Corsola are pretty low on the maybe list, but still there for potential.
! For old returnies, idk. All that stands out to me that I haven't used before/recently would maybe be Arcanine, Lapras, Tyranitar....maybe Roserade, Dusknoir, Rhyperior, or Mamoswine...hmm, maybe Drapion? Idk, gonna have to wait and see where everything shows up now.

RoboBlue

Allegedly some TMs will be single use again, while others won't.

KaizokuJinbei

XP Candies.

Items that change the advantaged and disadvantaged stat. No more Nature grinding.

Multiple stat boost items (Calcium, Iron, etc) can be used at one time. And seems like more can be used than before.

RoboBlue

Something interesting I noticed: by this point in the cycle, eight days before release, the Sun and Moon thread had broken 190 pages.

That's how massive the decrease in hype is this time around.

Foolio

There is still massive hype, it just doesn't seem to have a place on AP where a handful of people have made it their mission to drown out any possible excitement in this thread. So there's no point in posting anymore.

Conekiller

Theres also far fewer officially revealed pokemon so there was less for people to talk about.

Foolio

I was about to edit that into my post but you beat me to it. They didn't even reveal starter evolutions.

andre

@Conekiller:

Theres also far fewer officially revealed pokemon so there was less for people to talk about.

Yep. This is to be expected purely based on how Game Freak has handled the release this time around. We've only had a fraction of the reveals of Sun and Moon, plus the controversy has not been favorable to the same type of conversation.

GetsugaZoro

@Foolio:

There is still massive hype, it just doesn't seem to have a place on AP where a handful of people have made it their mission to drown out any possible excitement in this thread. So there's no point in posting anymore.

Not really, I see this everywhere I go not just here, it isn't an AP thing.

Also like others said they didn't reveal much this time, last time it was like something every two weeks so we were constantly discussing things.

Foolio

I can at least say for certain it's an AP thing that I and a few others haven't said much, if anything, lately here. I think just about every new mon that has leaked looks amazing and I can't wait to play it. I could do 10 playthroughs back to back with stuff that looks cool or that I've never run in the past, without repeating a single member of my team.

Solid

Same Foolio, I absolutely love this gen, and Ive been crazy hyped for this game the last 1-2 weeks.
I dont care much about the cuts since I will most like only use this gens and gen 7s pokemon, the only one im missing is Lycanroc, would like to try it.

andre

@The:

I didn't mean to shit on anyone who likes sobble's evolutions, they're just seriously not for me. But I've never been a fan of the more humanoid pokemon going all the way back to gen1. I'm actually really hopeful for the story in swsh, since the pokemon league seems to be more…"involved" than ever before. And by that I mean it doesn't just seem like an eight dungeon gauntlet anymore, if the leaks are correct it seems like there's more of a process to it.

I've come to warm on Scorbunny's evo and already like Grookey's, but Sobble's just isn't doing it for me. I don't think it's terribly designed, I'm just not in favor of its design philosophy. If it was a mythical unique creature, it'd make more sense to me, but I just have a hard time imagining it not being an individual, as opposed to a member of a species. Scorbunny's looked better with a clear picture, and Grookey3 is just a badass.

maxterdexter

I don't want to see more leaks (the bug types have me pleased), and armchair game development is not fun when it's full of resentment, or doesn't consider the actual workload of features.

I'm playing it on release date tho.

allbluebro

There's a new Pokemon version coming out and it looks better then the previous gen.
If you ain't hype you ain't a pokefan.

andre

@allbluebro:

There's a new Pokemon version coming out and it looks better then the previous gen.
If you ain't hype you ain't a pokefan.

Gatekeeping: The comment.

allbluebro

@andre:

Gatekeeping: The comment.

Honestly, is it the Pokemon game we've all been waiting for? Absolutely not.

Is it a brand new adventure with new Pokemon and a less "wonky" take on an old proven formula in comparison to last gen? YES

Hyped: YES I'm an optimist

Do I like when others complain about stuff : YES i'm a realist

Because hopefully some of it reaches the right ears, and they should cater to the fans it's a game and a franchise that wouldn't exist without it's fan base.
Is it difficult to cater to millions of individuals' tastes ACROSS THE GLOBE without leaving some feeling unsatisfied : I can only imagine.

Do I think gamer's are spoiled and whiny as hell these days and have no one to blame but themselves for not keeping standards higher across the board by doing things like buying every single call of duty and season pass every year and eating shit while grinning….. OoooooH YEAH

Robby

@allbluebro:

There's a new Pokemon version coming out and it looks better then the previous gen.
If you ain't hype you ain't a pokefan.

Gameplay > looks.

Cutting half the monsters, removing tons of features, raising the price point 50%, not innovating to take actual advantage of the stronger system ala Breath of the Wild?

There's plenty of reasons to not be hyped about this particular release. Them turning into giant balloon versions isn't exactly thrilling.

You don't have to accept literally anything thrown your way and say its the best thing ever just because your like the franchise historically.

The D.

@andre:

I've come to warm on Scorbunny's evo and already like Grookey's, but Sobble's just isn't doing it for me. I don't think it's terribly designed, I'm just not in favor of its design philosophy. If it was a mythical unique creature, it'd make more sense to me, but I just have a hard time imagining it not being an individual, as opposed to a member of a species. Scorbunny's looked better with a clear picture, and Grookey3 is just a badass.

Yeah, scorbunny and grookey's evolutions are…better. I'm still not a huge fan of any of them because they look too humanoid, but that's just a personal hang up. But looking at what happened to sobble I can only mourn how they massacred my precious nervous boy

Crossword

! I'm probably not going to use it, at least for my main team, but I'm getting a good laugh at Barraskewda - high Attack, Speed, Close Combat, Swift Swim, likely access to Rain Dance? That thing's going to pack a wallop. Frosmoth looks cool too, even if it does double and triple down on being a glass cannon, and thankfully it gets Quiver Dance and a balanced-looking moveset. I hate moths IRL though, so if I saw one in my house I'd break out the flamethrower.
! At this point I'm thinking of going with Cinderace, Corviknight, Gyarados, Toxtricity, Copperajah, and then maybe a designated Special Attacker like Gengar or Gardevoir or something.

–- Update From New Post Merge ---

! Oh geez these fossil Pokemon are hysterical, especially with their dex entries reading like the scientists are desperately trying to save face, "But this thing can't even breathe!"/"Exactly, that's why it went extinct!"
! When the guy going John Hammond out of the back of his RV in Alola is a better paleontologist than the Galarian scientists…

KzTxL7

@allbluebro:

There's a new Pokemon version coming out and it looks better then the previous gen.
If you ain't hype you ain't a pokefan.

Man. I must not be a Pokefan after these ~20 years because I'm not hyped that after I complete the main game I won't be able to have nearly the same amount of options in teambuilding as I did in previous games?

Robby

Never again will we have a world champion Pachirisu. An event that was huge because someone took a "useless" overlooked never used mon and made it work for them.

(Granted that was more about Pachirisu having volt absorb and a unique niche in doubles rather than singles but hey.)

maxterdexter

Pachisiu was legal on that tournament because it was in its regional dex of x/y. The world tournament is always on the regional dex, if it is on the 1.0 version of the gen, and for most version 2.0 with the whole thing.

Even if they had developed the whole dex, pachirisu wouldn’t been tournament legal in this case.

–- Update From New Post Merge ---

The lower power meta game was what allowed the ice combo of alolan ninetales and sandslash to exist before ultra sun/moon, and these kind of rotations are the standard of not only pokemon, but also card games, in the competitive side, at least until the third game, it is business as usual.

Noqanky

I’m actually hyped to know what types of abilities and stat distributions we’ll see with new mons, not to mention all the things that open up now that certain overused Pokémon cannot be on every team due to being cut.

It’ll be interesting to see what previously underutilized combo becomes the norm for the new meta.

Even more exciting seeing how many in-game improvements simplify the prospect of making a competitive team.

maxterdexter

A ton of things that had to be breed for have been relaxed. Only remaining barrier seems to be the hidden ability

.access timeco.

A held item that

! bypasses entry hazards! Those boots are going on everything I love ~~and survived the cut… damn, Volcarona, why???~~!

@maxterdexter:

Pachisiu was legal on that tournament because it was in its regional dex of x/y. The world tournament is always on the regional dex, if it is on the 1.0 version of the gen, and for most version 2.0 with the whole thing.

Even if they had developed the whole dex, pachirisu wouldn’t been tournament legal in this case.

This. You are just overblowing things now, Robby. The dexit has no effect on something like that, and if anything those games seem to make the likelihood of shitmon pulling a "Pachirisu" much bigger since they seem to be putting extra effort on balancing the competitive scene.

allbluebro

@KzTxL7:

Man. I must not be a Pokefan after these ~20 years because I'm not hyped that after I complete the main game I won't be able to have nearly the same amount of options in teambuilding as I did in previous games?

You said it. You are going to dwell on one aspect and let it ruin a game designed for children in the first place and act like you are owed something. No one is forcing you to buy it.

KzTxL7

@allbluebro:

You said it. You are going to dwell on one aspect and let it ruin a game designed for children in the first place and act like you are owed something. No one is forcing you to buy it.

Are we really going with the "no one is forcing you to buy it" excuse at this point?

How dare I be upset that the a major draw of the game be severely limited and be upset that a game that costs more and requires paid internet service has less player choice with no plans to increase that choice.