Pokemon Sword/Shield Direct Reaction

Well, that happened. I watched the Nintendo Direct live last night, that was... that was fun? It's really interesting, though -- I had to stop myself from writing up a spur-of-the-moment rant about how I feel about everything and how relatively underwhelmed I was about everything other than the new Pokemon designs... but then I decided to take a nap and when I woke up, I realized that I would've been making a fool of myself and working myself up for what's honestly relatively minor complaints.

Firstly... the trailer was pretty dang gorgeous. The sights of Galar that they showed us, as well as more in-game models and that brief montage of the random parts of the region as we jump from a snowy road to an icy lake to a desert to a forest, with Pokemon wandering around in the background... those Rhydons, Golurks, Milotics, Butterfrees and whatnot wandering around... I'm not sure if these "Wild Areas" are just going to be a bit of a bait-and-switch, and these overworld Pokemon will only show up in two or three specific large areas, like those riding Pokemon in Pokemon XY, but I'm trying to look at the positive side and be happy for what seems to be what everyone was expecting from the Switch Pokemon games. A proper overworld. And I love that -- we're retaining the random grass encounter angle from the Let's Go games, but in some parts of the world you'll be able to see these majestic creatures wandering around in the wild. Big fan.

And honestly? From a visual standpoint, the environments and the general graphics might not quite be up to the New-Gen standard of graphics, but I've never been one for ULTRASUPER 1080PIXELHD graphics anyway, and I never expected this to be a repeat of Breath of the Wild (which IMO put too much emphasis into 'style' as opposed to 'substance' anyway) so it definitely doesn't take away too much for me. I do also like the areas that we see, as well as what little we see of the characters and Pokemon.

There are a bunch of new Pokemon reveals, which I'll be saving for the end, but the big one is the revelation that there is going to be a feature called the Max Raid Battle, which will feature "Dynamax" Pokemon that essentially transform into giant Stand-like versions of themselves.

Which I find really, really dumb.

And thank god I slept on this one, because my original attempt at writing this article was filled with far more profanity. My opinion still hasn't changed, thogh.

Like... there's not a single part of this that I really like. The co-op feature is something that I have seen people begging for a while, but I've never really liked it in any video game other than those that are built to run on multiplayer like MMORPG's and MOBAs. With every other game out there, these sort of co-op features have always been something that is never been my thing. I hope that we don't have too much content locked behind these silly raid battles. Not everything has to have a multiplayer content to it. Still, if it will satiate those with a huge desire for co-op, it's a neat feature for them, I guess. I just really don't care about it. While I understand that it's something people want, for me, personally, it doesn't do anything and if the next generation has absolutely zero co-op presence, I wouldn't care one bit.

The visual for the Dynamax thing also looked really ridiculous, too, with the energy Pokeball manifesting out of a wrist-band or something... I dunno. Maybe I'll warm up to it if I've seen it in the anime or manga or something? My gut feeling still really, really disagrees with it.

The other huge thing is Dynamax, which is a fucking stupid name, but is essentially a less-creative version of Mega Evolution and Z-Moves. Like... I dunno. Mega Evolution is sort of like a temporary power-up similar to things like Super Saiyans or form changes or whatever, and gave us a bunch of neat new designs. Z-Moves are super-powerful versions of regular moves that you can only use once. They feel like they're incorporating the existing system and lore well, y'know? This Dynamax thing is like... what is it? Something like Totem Pokemon, I guess? Something like those giant Torterra in the Ryan Reynolds movie? I dunno. It's a ridiculous super-duper-giant form that your Pokemon can achieve in the middle of the battle for a temporary power-up, and I can't help but feel like this is a poor man's Mega Evolution.


Like, I'd rather have no new mechanics and just have a bunch of new Mega Evolutions or Regional Variants or just a bunch of new Pokemon, y'know? Just because the previous two generations introduced Megas and Z-Moves doesn't mean the new generation has to follow suit in one-upping that. I dunno. Again, it's perhaps something that I'll have to sleep on for a bit, but I really don't like the idea (or the name) of Dynamaxing your Pokemon.

If nothing else, though, at least unlike Mega Evolutions, it seems like we're at least incorporating the Dynamax (ugh the name) into the actual story mode, since the gym leaders have access to them.

Rant over? Rant over. Let's go through the human characters quickly, before we talk about the Pokeymans. I tend to really have nothing much to say about human characters until I see them in-game, and even then sometimes I don't have anything to say about them. Among the characters we see in this trailer are: Leon, the champion; Hop, your friendly rival; Sonia, the professor's granddaughter, as well as a bunch of generic NPC trainers. Those three are honestly pretty generic, although I really find Leon's fashion sense to be hilarious. Two human NPC's stand out to me, though:


Milo, the gym leader, looks like a baby's head Frankensteined onto the buff body of Chris Hemsworth, and the contrast is so fucking jarring. It's hilarious. He doesn't have a neck. He is a strongkt boy.


The professor of the region is an old lady, Professor Magnolia QUEEN ELIZABETH. Come on. I'm not the only one who's seeing this, right?

Okay, new Pokemon talk time! We get a bunch of new ones in this trailer, as well as the two mascot legendaries. We also get little extra teases in the website updates about new Rotom forms, although I suspect those will be like the Rotom Dex from Generation VII where they aren't battle-usable forms and are just fun things in the background. The Rotom iPhone will be replacing the Rotom Dex from Generation VII, and eagle-eyed viewers also point out that the floating cameras in the huge stadium gym are also Rotoms. Neat!


WOOLOO is a sheep. It's a cute sheep. It's a normal type sheep and it does sheep things. It can roll away from danger. Everyone and their mother is ablaze about how adorable Wooloo is. It's cute. I hope we get a huge farm with Wooloos and Mareeps hanging around. It's one of those fun little "just an animal" Pokemon that nevertheless manages to be pretty charming.


Drednaw has a badass name. He's a scary turtle monster with a huge jaw and... and a weird rock-horn thing? It's a bit of an obvious design and I think I like him the least out of the non-legendary reveals, but he's still pretty neat. I bet he hangs out with Drayden. Apparently it's a Water/Rock creature, which is... interesting? There's a neat detail about how a lot of trainers abandon it because it's a handful, which I'm curious... are there a lot of abandoned terrapins in Europe or something? I do approve of the sheer amount of fun little turtle Pokemon we've been getting in recent generations, though. First Turtonator, and now Drednaw.


Gossifleur and her evolution, Eldegoss, are both pure-Grass types, and they're... they're neat? I think I like Gossifleur a lot more than Eldegoss, which looks like a more awkward and less expressive Jumpluff, but both are decent designs. Not really much to say here, their dex entries talk them up as these healer types, so kind of like Comfey? Not super excited about these.


Corviknight is everyone's favourite Pokemon from the Direct that's not a fluffy sheep, and I do really like how it was just silently shown in a couple of brief scenes in the trailer itself, while the focus was given to Wooloo, Drednaw, Gossifleur and the starters. It's also the subject of memes noting how hilarious it is that this armoured demon-raven of edginess also doubles as what's essentially your uber driver, since they're apparently replacing the Fly HM in this game, confirming once and for all that we aren't getting HM's in this generation. Thank god. Otherwise, Corviknight is a cool demon bird. I approve. He's Steel/Flying. Everyone's clamouring about how he's a more badass Skarmory, and I kind of have to agree.


Zacian and Zamazenta are the box legendaries, and they look kinda dumb, but I mean that in the least disparaging way ever. My first reaction to seeing the two of them initially in the trailer was "well this is some Twitter OC levels of dumb"... but then over the day it evolved into a different sort of "dumb" compared to how I feel about, say, Zeraora. These are the Unovan Musketeers done right, I feel, where the legendaries are still quadripedal, but are also themed after weaponry or something. They're still going to rank pretty low in my own personal tastes of what legendary Pokemon I like -- particularly Zamazenta, which looks stupidly cluttered... but I appreciate just how fucking ridiculous the fact that the legendary is a dog with a crown holding a sword in his mouth.

And honestly? After the previous generation ended up really appealing to me with the Ultra Beasts and how fucking weird their designs ended up being, I am sorta fine with this generation going back to over-cluttered legendaries? At least they aren't dragons or giant birds again, because if we're going to make these things ridiculously cluttered and silly, the image of a dog running around with a sword in his hand is way, way more hilarious than, say, a dragon made up of swords or something. At least these are ridiculous in a fun way, instead of just cluttered-looking and bland.

Overall, not a big fan of either the legendaries or the Dynamax/world raid stuff. But I can appreciate the legendaries as being fun designs even if I'm not the biggest fan of them. I'm definitely looking forward to seeing the rest of the Pokedex, though.