Pokemon Sword and Shield - Galexit Edition

[Conekiller]

Agreed about the EXP Share. My Starter has barely got any playtime cuz I'm trying to level new guys, but he just keeps growing in the background of the team. I put Rabboot in the daycare with a Nickit. Hopefully I can get a Scorebunny farm running.

So how does one post a trade pokemon with a request for a specific one? Or at least trade person to person?

EDIT: Wow. So you either trade with a random person or wondertrade or link up to a specific person. How much more ass backwards can you get? GTS was a great system, it just needed to not allow hacked pokemon.

[zeltrax225]

I mean if there's no GTS it means more effort to get certain Pokemon
And u can always bypass that through
Yes u know it ! Either get another version or wait and pay for Pokemon Home!!!!
I think I just solved the Dexit guys

[RoboBlue]

I bought Sword because bizarrely it went on sale for $20 off.

[maxterdexter]

While I’m glad that there are no hm s replacing them with team yell doing stupid things on each road or burocracy… is not an improvement over rideable mons.

[andre]

@maxterdexter:

While I’m glad that there are no hm s replacing them with team yell doing stupid things on each road or burocracy… is not an improvement over rideable mons.

To be fair, this has been a thing in most of the games. It's only so noticeable because of the lack of riding pokemon or hms.

[maxterdexter]

In alola as well specially forgiveable because it was naturally separated islands. They just went with finicky boatmen, but with a storm or actual overload of tentacool would have worked more organically.

[The Spaceman]

@andre:

To be fair, this has been a thing in most of the games. It's only so noticeable because of the lack of riding pokemon or hms.

And because outside of the wild area there's absolutely nothing to explore

[GetsugaZoro]

Yeah, the game was super short and most areas feel like I'm playing Streets of Rage or some beat em up like that, specially the 7th gym.

I mean I was pissed of about the Pokemon not being ingame, but I'm an addict that has been playing this since Gen 1 so I caved in, but the rest of the game is just depressing, the Wild Area and the QA improvements to competitive battling are really the only good thing about this game.

Now I'm doing my favorite thing which is completing the Dex, this region is going to be a lot easier…

[WolfWood37]

Hey so which pokemon know false swipe in the game? Or is there a TM of it somewhere?

[Crossword]

My experiece with perma-EXP Share actually hasn't been that bad so far. The level gain does taper off a bit once Pokemon start requiring more EXP and it does incentivize you to mix up your party a bit as you progress. I just got the first badge and my party was about on-par with Milo's level-wise and I hadn't been skipping any trainers either. Maybe this goes out the window later on once more evolutions start showing up but so far this doesn't feel like Gen VI where the EXP Share completely broke the game in half. Removing it as an option still sucks though, but it's hardly the most inscrutable decision Game Freak's made this Gen.

Anyway yeah, beat Milo. I'll definitely add my voice to the choir saying that despite all the other controversy, Game Freak really nailed the presentation of the Gym battles this time around. As silly as the mechanic is, I just had a lot of fun watching my giant living bag of garbage puking sludge all over Milo's giant living flower spore. Can Dynamax moves even miss? 'cause whenever I think of that my mind goes back to Vegeta blowing away the audience at the World Martial Arts Tournament, haha. Maybe I'm easy to please because I've never been a console gamer before the Switch, but I think the game looks fine, visually. Everything's nice a colorful and the models are expressive and crisp outside of the modular canned move animations, but you can definitely see where Game Freak's struggling with HD development once you start visiting towns and seeing how few buildings there are that you can actually enter compared to past Pokémon games. Tuffield is the first really big warning sign since the area looks nice, but literally the only places you can go are the stadium and the Pokémon Center despite there being a whole other second loop to the town that you can't even approach. Galar Mines #1 was okay-ish as far as modern 3D Pokémon earlygame dungeons go, but my understanding is that there are barely any dungeons in the game aside from that and the woods at the start. The Wild Area's kinda neat, mainly for the staggering amount of Pokémon variety it has, but it's really not worth crippling the rest of the region for it. Stumbling upon those random caves and islands and such and seeing what's within them has always been one of my favorite parts of Pokémon, and even Alola managed to have some of that despite the region's linearity. I'm having a fun time so far, but I'm definitely seeing some warning signs that the game's undercooked.

Some other misc. thoughts:

• I really don't like the standard wild Pokémon and trainer battle themes. Luckily all the other ones have been excellent. Hop's is straight out of Mario & Luigi (RIP) and the stadium crowd singing along to the Gym Leader battle theme at the climax is real hype.
• I don't know if it's just me, but I seem to be encounter a lot of female Pokemon. Even my starter ended up female, which is rare from what I understand.
• The first golden aura Pokemon I encountered was a Rolycoly…and naturally the first move it used was Explosion…
• I'm pretty sure that Galarian Meowth isn't actually a Meowth but rather some gremlin monster that's wearing a Meowth fur suit.
• Hop, we've battle three times now, stop going on about me mastering type advantages!
• I have to commend the balls on that NPC trainer who keeps bringing a Magikarp to a kaiju fight.
• Team Yell are no Team Skull that's for sure. It's funny to imagine their dialogue being spoken with a really thick Yorkshire/Glaswegian accent, though.
• I wonder how much of this British slang is actually being correctly used?

[.access timeco.]

My attempt to circumvent the Exp.Share ended up making the game much more fun than I suppose it actually is. That's because I came up with a new mechanic with the temporary name of "battalion system".

Like I said before, I ended up deciding that I would only have my team together when I was going to battle Gyms or the league, but for everything else I would have just one member with me and the others boxed to avoid the passive Exp gaining. But in the end that wasn't working because as soon as my single pokémon was defeated (and that's not hard to happen), I would black out (and that's very demoralizing).

So pretty much as soon as Route 1 I came up with the system: each member of my team would have its own group/team/battalion/squad/division whatever, made of pokémon that would follow it to battle. 90% of the time I only use my team members, but in case a truly bad match up appears, one of those helpers may switch in, so I end up having the chance to use many pokémon despite sticking to a fix team of 6 (or 5 so far. Still no sign of Snom).
The trick with those "battalions" is that they are made solely of the pokémon "defeated" by the team member that is its captain. So, for example, I captured Sneasel now while using Impidimp, this means Sneasel joined Impidimp's battalion (and I can't catch a second one to join another. Each pokémon line is locked to the one it first joined). This is interesting because each battalion is like a different team with rotating secondary members, and somehow they end up having their own dynamics (while most members end up rotating the whole time, as things advance I am growing attached to some "battalion members" as well so some are sticking instead of rotating. Like Gloom, who is pretty much Beige Phillip's right-hand man right now).

@WolfWood37:

Hey so which pokemon know false swipe in the game? Or is there a TM of it somewhere?

I caught a Nincada very early on a raid battle. No idea where it is usually available.

[GetsugaZoro]

The exp share isn't bad at all, I wasn't to overleveled at any point and I didn't rush and barelly changed my team (besides at the start).

[Bond en Avant]

One thing I've been doing is only accessing the boxes when I'm at pokemon centres. I completely forgot I could access boxes anywhere until I was about halfway through the game, but I'm so used to not having that so I just kept with it.
I love the way gym battles are presented in this game, and I love the Wild Area. As someone who enjoys catching all sorts of pokemon, I'll probably be spending most of my post game on the Wild rather than in the Battle Tower.

Gonna try to find a ditto later so I can start breeding Sobbles for trade. I've got a female Eiscue too so she's busy making eggs in the daycare.

[Robby]

Experience share combined with "use the box anywhere" mechanic definitely encourages have a laaaaaaaaarge rotating team where you use anything that appeals to you even a little, rather than a dedicated core group that you tightly have to balance and consider every move and replacement. That was alredy the case the last couple games, even more so now with the swap anywhere box.

Pros and cons to both approaches. More casual and more variety for "try em all" is okay, but it's not as intimate or strategic either, in the same way that havign countless heal stations in a cave takes away the resource management, your rival warning you before they fight you, and being given enough money to buy 100 pokeballs and dozens of heals at the start (rather than money being a hard won resource) are all reeeeeally reducing any dificulty the game ever had. I think maybe if the games had always been balanced around teams of 18 or so, (or you were controlling 3/4 trainers all with their own teams ala Nino Kuni and could freely theme them like "this is my water trainer") that'd be more comfortable but its just weird.

Graphics are fine. They're not as good as the competition by any means, but they're fine.

Camping is okay, if not quite as up close and personal as Amie was.

Anyone that claims the game is only 10 hours long was rushing through and powering by with an overlevelled starter to make a negative point. No one actually playing is going to go that fast.

I'm glad I'm playing this with my wife, she's actually taken in by using things like Combee, so that's making it into our party even though I'd never have used it. Made sure we got a female though..

Was excited by the open world mechanic until it very quickly became clear that just because you saw something interesting, doesn't mean you could catch it. They FINALLY fix it so you can actually find a variety of high leveled and evolved things early, but rather than make it a really hard challenge to deal with them and catch them, they just make it straight up impossible? What's even the point then? Let us catch them and then have them not obey because we don't have badges. ANd not in the "they'll do a random move and accidentally kill the enemy" way but just straight up refuse to join the party. But at least let us catch them, then send them to an advanced box so we can come back to it later. Though I guess under the current exp system that would power level your entire squad to level 40 if you managed to beat anything. Also the big open area isn't as big or full of options as it tries to pretend to be.

I'm actually kind of really pissed off that Diggersby is in the game when hundreds of other things got cut.

[Early]

Finished the game, thoughts below.

Length:
Took me about 40 hours (plus 90 min for the postgame episode), however I am someone who naturally plays slowly (most pokémon games take me about 50 hours) and I spent a while doing max raid battles (trying desperately to find the TR for either sludgebomb or sludgewave) and breeding/trading for other people.
On the whole it still felt too short.

Story: (SPOILERS!!!)

! What the fuck was that even? We go the whole game getting small hints at something that is going on, then all the important plot gets shoved in our faces right at the end.
How did we go from "Leon can't come, he's busy talking with the chairman" to "let's team up with Team Yell and storm the enemy base"?
Why did Oleana instead of calming us down go all "MUHAHAHA, YOU WILL NEVER GET TO HIM, I HAVE THE ONLY KEY TO THE MONORAIL AND I JUST GAVE IT TO SOMEONE WHO IS NOW RUNNING AWAY, FEAR MY EVIL GENIUS!!!!".
Leon specifically points out that since the crisis is still so far away there is more than enough time to prepare for it and brainstorm alternate solutions, but Rose just goes "YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND MY PRIORITIES!".
Even the villains of the postgame were more understandable, and they were complete nutjobs!
Worst plot and worst villains out of any pokémon game so far (congratulations Lysandre).

Region:
I quite like the charm of the UK, but this could have been so much more.
As everyone else has pointed out, the region is pretty small and linear with few routes and very few dungeons. The cities look good visually, but are generally way too empty. Even the allure of the wild area, which at first looks massive when you get there, ends up losing its charm quickly.

Sound:
Pretty mixed, there are a few songs that I (at least partially) like, but most of them fell pretty flat. And while I am one of those people who thinks that voice acting is not necessary for a game, it felt really charring when you have character monologue or even sing for awhile, only to hear nothing. They could have even gone with unintelligible sounds like animal crossing (or the adults from Peanuts) and it would have been better.

Gameplay:
All the usual stuff is here and there are many QoL improvements I really like, such as being able to put pokemon in the nursery without needing to enter the building or access a pc. Having both TMs and TRs and the nursery move transfer and an easy-access move relearner opens up a lot of possibilities for move sets. The bike being able to go on water without stopping is nice.
On the other hand the exp-share desperately needs to be turned off, and the gameplay being interrupted by the other characters so frequently is pretty annoying.

Online Gameplay:
This needs a complete rework. Running around the wild area while connected drops your frames through the basement, and the way trading and joining raid battles work is just so counter-intuitiv.
Why not have a simple list of raid battles about to start (that refreshes every few seconds>) that also shows how many people are already in? Now you often have to wait a while before anything shows up and then when you try to join, most are already full or closed or cancelled.
And why can't we simply type in the other persons Friend Code and then pick to establish a connection with them to trade? This whole Link Code nonsense often leads to screw ups, but with the removal of the GTS there is no better way to trade.
Really bad design here.

Replayability:
This is the most important point for me. I love replaying games to try out new teams, but I also don't want to lose my previous team (mostly for sentimental reasons).
In the past few generations I always got both games and picked one copy (White, X, Moon…) to be my completion game, while its counterpart was for new runs. Trading between the games was pretty simple, since I already had two DS/3DS-Systems anyway. Now I have a problem though, because I don't really want to buy or need a second switch otherwise and the ability to transfer pokèmon on one system will likely be locked behind HOME, which won't come out anytime soon.

Overall: Meh.
The basic gameplay we know and love is all still there, but it's bogged down by so many stupid design decisions, a very minimalist world and annoying characters.
Even if you ignore the dex-cut, this game is severely lacking in content and polish.

My Team:
Funkey (Rillaboom)
Clockimedes (Noctowl)
Montih (Hitmonlee)
Flockjaw (Glalie)
Rahma (Alcremie)
Roxero (Toxtricity)

[maxterdexter]

The false swipe tm is at the second Pokémon center on the first city. The one with the fire gym.

[Robby]

So, the move tutor guy is now everywhere and things are a bit different than they used to be… how do it work now if I evolve Lombre to Ludiccollo?

Traditionally elemental stone evos give the stat boost but block you from learning any other moves (unless its a branching evo) but now with a move re-learner always in place how does that even work now?

[.access timeco.]

I had just looked at that because I was thinking "when best to evolve Gloom?". The stone evolutions have all the past-stage moves in their movesets, so I suppose now there is no drawback in using stones, you get the stat boost and not only you can get the moves anyway but you can also get all of them immediately (even those it would normally take 30 more levels to learn).
I suppose this also goes as having a game designed around you don't having to train your pokémon.

@zeltrax225:

Nessa's fight was the most fun I've had in a while.
Granted I did lose once because I was too stubborn and didn't want to do a type advantage team.
But that gym fight is one I'll remember. Goddamn you water turtle.

My experience with Kabu, pretty much. With Milo and Nessa I refused type advantage and also using Dynamax myself, but with Kabu one was out of option (I don't have any team member with a good move against Fire and almost all of them are weak against Fire themselves) and for the other I had to swallow my pride. Still lost the first time (!) and the second one is going into my list of best fights I had in a pokémon game (Orbeetle making short job of his giant pokémon was beautiful to see).

[RoboBlue]

There's a mouse cursor in the ending credits.

It goes by really fast but you can see it fly over Rillaboom's butt at 0:59.

[zeltrax225]

No issues with Kabu because my bird mega uh I mean dynamax whirlwind his last Pokemon.
FYI there's max guard which helps a lot and stalls.
If you want a harder challenge, don't dynamx your team and use strategy.

Oh yeah to add to everyone's points.

The music is bad for a Pokémon game.
The trading is a terrible system despite everything being designed for ease of meta gameplay.
Where the hell is my day one patch to fix the wild area frame rates plummet.
Cities are giant wasted potentials.

There are good tho and a bunch of fun stuff but I'll save it for later. Maybe.

[.access timeco.]

@RoboBlue:

There's a mouse cursor in the ending credits.

It goes by really fast but you can see it fly over Rillaboom's butt at 0:59.

It gets better and better.

[RoboBlue]

[KrogGar]

Do you ppl know how the item work, for changing the nature of a poki? Does it resett the already earned bonus states? Or is there an item, that I Need to feed my poki first, to resett it?

[.access timeco.]

I think you are confusing nature with EV.

• Nature gives a bonus to an stat while decreasing a different one. Using the new "mint" items, you can freely change the asset/flaw stat regardless of the pokémon nature. Mint items are post-game only, though.

• EV (Effort Value) are hidden "points" the pokémon gain as it goes through fights. The more EVs it gather in a stat, the better that stat will grow. Some items like Calcium can give EVs instantaneoulsly to a pokémon. I don't know if there is a way to reset a pokémon EV in SwSh so you can start from zero, though (XY had it, not sure about S&M).

• Plus, there is also IV (Individual Value), also hidden "points" just like the EV, but instead of being accumulated through experience they are fixed and determined when the pokémon is "born". You can raise those artificially to max using Bottle Caps, but only after the pokémon reaches level 100.

[maxterdexter]

I dunno how things worked during the 4th gen. And the loss of the GTS is obviously a ploy to make people use PKMN Home..

But you remember when in the 5th, all you had was the "present a pokemon and use these 3 emotes to say if or :("? I miss that.

I managed to snag the starters but somehow I never match up to any shield player for any of the version exclusives, not that I have a full set of them yet, I was surprised by a random wild growlithe that I could have sworn was version exclusive vs vulpix right now.

[KrogGar]

@.access:

I think you are confusing nature with EV.

• Nature gives a bonus to an stat while decreasing a different one. Using the new "mint" items, you can freely change the asset/flaw stat regardless of the pokémon nature. Mint items are post-game only, though.

• EV (Effort Value) are hidden "points" the pokémon gain as it goes through fights. The more EVs it gather in a stat, the better that stat will grow. Some items like Calcium can give EVs instantaneoulsly to a pokémon. I don't know if there is a way to reset a pokémon EV in SwSh so you can start from zero, though (XY had it, not sure about S&M).

• Plus, there is also IV (Individual Value), also hidden "points" just like the EV, but instead of being accumulated through experience they are fixed and determined when the pokémon is "born". You can raise those artificially to max using Bottle Caps, but only after the pokémon reaches level 100.

Ah thank you. I thought the nature has impact on the EV too. So what happens when I give a lvl 50 pokemon a „mint“? It will reduce my def by 50p and give my att +50 as example? And if I give it to a lvl 10 pokemon it will reduce it by 2 and increase the other state by 2?

[Crossword]

Alright, getting Sirfetch'd wasn't hard at all. Farfetch'd already came with a Leek, so I just game it the Focus Energy TR and spammed Fury Cutter against the Wobbufett on the same route I caught it on and it worked like a charm.

[Bond en Avant]

@maxterdexter:

I dunno how things worked during the 4th gen. And the loss of the GTS is obviously a ploy to make people use PKMN Home..

But you remember when in the 5th, all you had was the "present a pokemon and use these 3 emotes to say if or :("? I miss that.

I managed to snag the starters but somehow I never match up to any shield player for any of the version exclusives, not that I have a full set of them yet, I was surprised by a random wild growlithe that I could have sworn was version exclusive vs vulpix right now.

I'm a Shield player! The only exclusive I don't have yet is Corsola, but I'd be happy to trade any of the others for Sword exclusives.

[Foolio]

I'm still finishing the story, taking my time catching tons of stuff and working on my team, but I'm sure before long there'll be plenty of us here who can trade back and forth. I will need a Sobble at some point, and probably a different-region Ditto for Masuda breeding. And of course hidden ability mons will be a grind and are worth spreading the love on.

[maxterdexter]

@Bond:

I'm a Shield player! The only exclusive I don't have yet is Corsola, but I'd be happy to trade any of the others for Sword exclusives.

Later this week (or weekend if you are based in america or asia time) I'll have a few more to trade. I'm still missing like 60% of the exclusives.

–- Update From New Post Merge ---

Finished: 44 hours, with 205 pokemon, over 50 curry, and a ton of "I feel asleep on saturday because I didn't sleep enough on launch day" play time.

[Foolio]

Haha nice. I might end up with similar stats. I know my dex is way over 100 at this point but still 2 gyms to go. My general plan after the game is to fill the dex and do raid battles to get TRs and hopefully some hidden ability mons. The ones I know I want right now are Frosmoth, Corviknight and Dreepy.

Then I can start breeding for good shinies, once I get a foreign Ditto with preferably a few perfect IVs.

[Bond en Avant]

@maxterdexter:

Later this week (or weekend if you are based in america or asia time) I'll have a few more to trade. I'm still missing like 60% of the exclusives.

–- Update From New Post Merge ---

Finished: 44 hours, with 205 pokemon, over 50 curry, and a ton of "I feel asleep on saturday because I didn't sleep enough on launch day" play time.

Sounds great. I'll try to get Corsola by then. The thing's dependent on weather and only shows up in one spot.

[maxterdexter]

How foreign is enough? I'm playing in english because fuck that noise of "placaje" or "ascuas", but my dittos would be definitelly foreign.

Cheated a bit to unlock the IV checker. Cheated another bit to get vacations today.

The national alola dex took me like a week or two, but that was around 300, I doubt I'll be able to get another 200 in just tomorrow, specially if the game gives me another friendship evolution, thank the curry/friend ball combo that made it faster but still..

I've going at it with a more "go" mindset, to get every sparkly, strong or raid mon, and sort them out later, or toss them to jobs.

[Noqanky]

I have Corsola already but don’t know if our times will align. I can discord you when I’m around I guess, see if it works

[Foolio]

@maxterdexter:

How foreign is enough? I'm playing in english because fuck that noise of "placaje" or "ascuas", but my dittos would be definitelly foreign.

Wouldn't expect your in-game language to matter if your actual copy (or Switch?) is foreign, but not sure. Shouldn't be that hard to test, as foreign mons should fill in alternate pokédex data like they did in gen 7. I plan to catch my own decent Dittos (glowing to guarantee some perfect IVs) so that I can reciprocate.

Edit: I did a bit of searching and the in-game language really might matter. Is it possible to switch your language temporarily and catch things that will be named in that language?

[Medical Orbit]

I heard G-Corsola appears in overcast weather, but I don't know what overcast means. Can someone give me a clue, as in during overcast weather what does the sky look like and is it raining, snowing, anything falling from the sky?

Edit: I realized a few minutes after posting this that I could've either googled the definition of overcast or looked up a Youtube video of someone getting it and looking at the weather there, and that I probably embarrassed myself by making this post.

[Bond en Avant]

@Medical:

I heard G-Corsola appears in overcast weather, but I don't know what overcast means. Can someone give me a clue, as in during overcast weather what does the sky look like and is it raining, snowing, anything falling from the sky?

It's probably easier to use the town map's weather toggle. The icon for overcast is a sun hiding behind a cloud.

[.access timeco.]

Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn!!! Just met Giga Butterfree, but lost the battle because one of the helpers was damn useless Wobbuffet who is just in there to waste a spot doing nothing and keep dying until the limit of defeats is met. And obviously Gigantamax can't be redone like regular raids…

[andre]

@.access:

Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn!!! Just met Giga Butterfree, but lost the battle because one of the helpers was damn useless Wobbuffet who is just in there to waste a spot doing nothing and keep dying until the limit of defeats is met. And obviously Gigantamax can't be redone like regular raids…

Yeah, I'm getting tired of Wobbuffets, Torkoals, Weaviles, and Clefairys.

[zeltrax225]

Don't rush the gyms take your time train a few teams complete the curry Dex get all the TRs
And this campaign might feel long enough to make up for the weakest post game
Have fun y'all
If anyone has a different region Ditto hmu I got a sobble
I'm in Asia so I'm not sure how that works

[KrogGar]

Does the wondertrade work for anyone? I had a poki up yesterday for around an hour, but nothing happend… or does it get interrupted everytime I get in a pokifight?

[Bond en Avant]

@KrogGar:

Does the wondertrade work for anyone? I had a poki up yesterday for around an hour, but nothing happend… or does it get interrupted everytime I get in a pokifight?

I think it's possible you're not connected to the Internet. When you enter the Y-comm, you have to press + to connect to the Internet. Otherwise, you're only sending the pokemon across the local network.
Word of warning, the wild area gets very laggy once you're connected.

[Robby]

What features work with the base internet and what needs the subscription service?

[Bond en Avant]

I'm pretty sure the online subscription is needed for just about everything Internet related. Online trading, battling, sharing league cards, joining raid battles…
Without it, you're playing a strictly single player adventure.

[KrogGar]

@Bond:

I think it's possible you're not connected to the Internet. When you enter the Y-comm, you have to press + to connect to the Internet. Otherwise, you're only sending the pokemon across the local network.
Word of warning, the wild area gets very laggy once you're connected.

Damn, thanks for the help. Works now…

[maxterdexter]

First shinny is a diggersby. Fate is mocking me.

[Robby]

@Bond:

I'm pretty sure the online subscription is needed for just about everything Internet related. Online trading, battling, sharing league cards, joining raid battles…
Without it, you're playing a strictly single player adventure.

That is really such a ridiculously huge step down from the last like, 10 years worth of games.

[zeltrax225]

Why wouldn't Nintendo's biggest IP capitalize on internet subscription money after PSN and Xbox live did it first?

[.access timeco.]

Yes, that's not on Pokémon, but the whole video game indutry that moved on to this model of paying a fee to have access to internet service this latest generation. Microsoft started it, Sony followed, Nintendo did the same.

Still, Pokémon apparently took it a step further by removing things like PSS then and GTS now, most likely so we'll pay an extra fee to use those on Home. It's like whenever GF realizes they did something right, they instantly decide to remove the feature from the game and save it for when it is more profitable. Pokémon history is made of step downs in that sense.

Regarding game experience, btw, after I lost the chance to get Giga Butterfree, I was pleased at least I got its model on the dex so I could check its animations whenever I wanted. Only to find out today that I was apparently too excited about missing my chance that I ended up forgetting to save the game…

[RoboBlue]

@.access:

Yes, that's not on Pokémon, but the whole video game indutry that moved on to this model of paying a fee to have access to internet service this latest generation. Microsoft started it, Sony followed, Nintendo did the same.

Those other companies offer some additional benefits to subscribing like dedicated servers and free games, whereas Nintendo is just gating off user-powered P2P online multiplayer.

@.access:

Still, Pokémon apparently took it a step further by removing things like PSS then and GTS now, most likely so we'll pay an extra fee to use those on Home. It's like whenever GF realizes they did something right, they instantly decide to remove the feature from the game and save it for when it is more profitable. Pokémon history is made of step downs in that sense.

Regarding game experience, btw, after I lost the chance to get Giga Butterfree, I was pleased at least I got its model on the dex so I could check its animations whenever I wanted. Only to find out today that I was apparently too excited about missing my chance that I ended up forgetting to save the game…

Nintendo owns part of The Pokemon Company so Gamefreak had a major inside connection to the big N and completely failed to convince them that if online isn't free, the trading economy will completely die off within a year of each major game's release.

Unfortunately the trading economy is probably going to die off fast anyway now that they've angered hardcore fans and made catching em all impossible, so maybe that's why they didn't bother pushing for free online trading.