Let's Play Pokemon Sword, Part 3: Attack on Eldegoss

Last time we left off in my playthrough of Pokemon Sword, I was about to enter a mine! It's the Galar Mine, and its a pretty mine that we've seen a lot in the trailers. And... and it's a very linear mine for sure, a very simple cave even by the standards of the 3D games. It's one that looks pretty as all hell, though, with gemstones and mine carts rushing through the cave. Or, well, not quite mine carts, but rather a mine cart Pokemon -- Carkoal, the evolved form of Rolycoly! And the first time I saw one of the mine carts pass by, I genuinely didn't think that it was a Pokemon that you could encounter as essentially a random event.

And I'm pretty sure that if I saw a still image of a Carkoal first, I probably wouldn't like it as much, but man it just looks so neat! Zipping around on the mine cart tracks, with its little rock lizard head and spider-like legs, while its pile of coals light up in red... it's another one of those designs that certainly works a lot better in 3D. And it's a creature that I wouldn't call my favourite, I actually did like it enough. Also, my own Rolycoly turned into a Carkoal throughout my journey through the mine. (I later renamed him into "Locomotive", which felt a lot more appropriate)

The cave's otherwise pretty standard. There was a segment where I can look down on an unaccessible lower level with mine tracks and I can whistle for the Woobat that fly around to come over. It's neat. The end-boss of this little cave is the white-haired asshole that keeps shoehorning in the fact that he was sponsored by Chairman Rose, and we learn that his name is bidet Bede. Which I guess is supposed to be pronounced like "bead", but I choose to pronounce it like "bidet". Because that's what he is, he's kind of a shitbag, but oh man it's so refreshing to see some adversary and animosity from the side cast after the blandness that is Hop. Because Bede is such a stuck-up dickwad from the get-go, continuing to claim about how he's the best, how he's only losing because he's letting me and how this little setback's just him scouting my moves so he can beat me, and he's so important neener-neener-neener.

He's neat! And he's actually building his team based on a specific type, I feel, which is Psychic type. He's got a Solosis, a Gothita, and a new creature called a Hatenna. It's a cute little pastel-coloured hat with a smiling mouth and little stubby legs! It looks like, fuck, I dunno, an NPC in a Kirby game or something? I like it. It's apparently a pure Psychic time, considering how my little fire centipede dealt super-effective damage to the wacky walking hat? I would've bet that it's Fairy based on its appearance, but I guess Galarian Ponyta isn't the only Psychic-type-that-looks-like-a-Fairy.

Anyway, with Bede gone, I'm out of the Galar Mine, a pretty short but pretty little area, and straight into Route 4. And Route 4 is pretty huge! I do like that you can just skip a huge chunk of it and go straight into Turffield Gym and fight the gym and move on, but the combination of Route 3, Galar Mine and Route 4 ends up making a pretty neat length of play where I just run around, exploring and capturing things and fighting trainers instead of being interrupted every goddamn five minutes by Hop.


Anyway, Route 4 is a pretty neat area with loads of yellow farmland crops, and a whole load of farmers and little children cosplaying as Pikachu and Eevee. Which, thanks to how the game is framed, actually fooled me into thinking that the Pikachu kids are actually Pikachu. It's a pretty neat farm style area, with a lot of neat encounters. Electrike, Pikachu, Yamper, Wooloo, Pumpkaboo (which makes so much sense), a bunch of Diglett that only pop in and out of a patch of dirt with Diglett holes...

And Galarian Meowth.


No. Seriously. Look at this thing.

Galarian Meowth. Which initially looks stupid until you pan around his back and you realize that it's still regular old Meowth, and that the massive chunk of fur is its dwarf-style beard dangling from his chin. And it's a freaking pure-Steel type for some reason. And... and I don't really like this thing all that much, but man it's a hilarious looking motherfucker in the same vein that Alolan Dugtrio is a hilarious looking motherfucker. Based on its dex entries, it's also Viking-themed? What are they going to do with Persian, then? Have Persian just have a big fuck-off beard? And I thought Alolan Persian was weird! It's so fun playing these games blind.

Also, Galarian Meowth and Electrike are helluva aggressive. I really do like that at least they did something interesting with all of the creatures they kept around in Sword/Shield and actually made the overworld encounters somewhat variable. The Pumpkaboo just don't give a shit and float in place, the Meowths and Electrike run and try to murder you, Digletts just sort of do whatever and pop out of the ground in their area.


Oh and also I met that little blob-like pale white thing from the cafe in Motostoke, which is the rare encounter. It's called Milcery and it's pure Fairy. I like it, but I'm just sort of 'whelmed. It's basically a creature born out of 'sweetness in the air'. It's a Diabetes Elemental. I'm assuming it will evolve into an Alcremie.

The journey Turffield Town ends up with a little encounter with Big Buff Baby Milo, who has a Wooloo -- and I thought Milo was going to use Wooloo in the battle. Or maybe its evolution, like, maybe Wooloo turns into a Normal/Grass creature or something, but nope, Milo just keeps a lot of Wooloo in his gym that he doesn't use to battle. There's also a brief little detour as Sonia's Yamper bow-wark's and got me to go up a hill to see the massive Geoglyph, the giant drawing carved onto the side of a mountain that we saw very prominently in the trailers of this game. Basically we get more foreshadowing of the ancient battle, of the "Darkest Night" or whatever it's called, and based on the Geoglyph's image, it most certainly invovles Dynamaxing and Gigantamaxing and some shit.

Also, Turffield Town and Route four has a whole lot of random standing stones that have either fallen over or be overgrown, while some are kept around as tourist attractions. I like it! There's this bizarre puzzle about a hidden treasure in Turffield that only the standing stones will point you to, and I am ashamed that it took me way too long to figure the riddle out. It takes a bit of a while to talk about the riddle, but suffice to say that it's surprisingly not as simple as you'd think would be from this franchise.

Other than that... it's the gym! And as far as I can tell, the concept of these Galarian gyms are essentially like a sports event, where the competitors sort of go through some American Ninja style obstacle course (that take the place of the traditional gym puzzles) before going through a huge gym battle in the center of the stadium. Also, you have to wear your silly football jersey throughout it all... which I'm not a big fan of. Also, despite having a bunch of type jerseys on sale, you can't actually wear them in the gym challenge -- I had the fancy neon poison jersey and apparently you just wear that in the overworld. Kind of an odd limitation if you ask me.

Milo's gym is pretty neat! It's basically a version of the opening sequence to the Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess with the goat herding, and my character has to herd 20 Wooloos through multiple mini-areas as they roll around and move away from both my character and the random Yampers that wander around. Oh, and there are gym trainres, too, because it's still a Pokemon gym, after all. It's... it's a bit hard to describe, but it's easily one of my favourite gym puzzles in a long, long while.

The fight against Milo is... it's got pretty visuals and cutscenes to set up the fight and set up Milo's eventual Dynamax. But it's ultimately just two level 20 pure-Grass types in Gossifleur and Eldegoss. And sure, the Eldegoss can Dynamax, but it's genuinely a pushover. I did give myself a handicap by adamantly not dynamaxing in this battle to make this feel a bit more like the Totem Pokemon battles in Alola, making it feel like a challenge, but even then my Corvisquire swept through both the Gossifleur and Dynamax'd Eldegoss pretty quickly. It's the first gym, I guess.

With Milo done, though, that's badge number one out of eight, and apparently this time we're like, filling in like a jigsaw puzzle ring or some such? It's neat.

That's all to Turffield City, though, because other than the gym and the Geoglyph, there really isn't much to the city, and off to the East we go, to the pretty long Route 5. And it's pretty neat! Lots of trainers, lots of grass with lots of neat wild encounters... including the reason I picked Sword over Shield -- Galarian Farfetch'd! Or, well, Sirfetch'd. I wasn't even aware Farfetch'd himself is getting a Galarian form, but he now looks like a super serious anime protagonist with those eyes, that sheer attitude and sass he has, and the fact that he's got a massive Cloud Strife style giant leek slung over his back. I caught one and added him to my team immediately, calling him Sir Duckvos. Because, y'know, Onion Knight.

Also, even Galarian Farfetch'd himself is pure Fighting, which... okay? I guess it's a flightless duck now. Sure. It's still weird, but I do think that this one at least kinda made some sense.

The Pokemon Day Care Center is also here! Renamed the Pokemon Nursery, which sort of is a name that fits the function of the Day Care Centers a lot better. And I get a free new Pokemon, which is the bizarre Poison/Electric creature Toxel, apparently newly hatched and it has absolutely baby-like animations. It's, uh... it's cute for sure. I'm not sure what it's meant to be, like some sort of... shit, I genuinely have no idea. Some sort of baby creature. It's certainly not what I expected from our very first Poison/Electric combination for sure!

Also, speaking of wacky-ass new creatures, a random cook has Applin. Which is like, a fucking apple with a pair of worm eyes jutting out of it with a worm tail on its back. It's a worm wearing an apple, which is a lot neater than "just an apple with eyes", which I legitimately would complain about. And... and it's not pure Grass or Grass/Bug as I would expect, becuase my Corvisquire's Flying-type attacks do neutral damage to it. So I don't know. It does look adorable, though! It's a babbu.

There's a bit of an event where a pair of Team Yell Grunts are harassing a random doctor dude in scrubs, demanding his bike, and I have to beat them up. Which I do. The Team Yell Grunt has a Thievul, Nickit's evolved form, and... and it's a pretty fox with a hilarious bandit mustache. It seems to just still be a pure-Dark type, though, and it's still kinda weak (it's basically the Liepard/Mightyena of the region) and gets KO'd without a problem, but it still looks pretty neat! I like it a lot.

And now I have the bicycle, and... and it's neat to have the bicycle, but I'm not a huge fan that we're once more shoehorned into a shitty-looking 'riding outfit' in the same way that the Sun/Moon games did whenever we ride our ride Pokemon. They clearly spent a fair amount of time allowing you to customize your trainer's appearance a lot, but then you don't get that visual neatness whenever you ride the otherwise very convenient bike? Boo, I say. It's moments like this that really kind of make it clear that the game isn't quite as finished as it probably would've been if they didn't rush it to release this year. And I am still having fun, but the National Dex isn't the only casualty of the rush. I just hope that if one good thing came out of the hideous online response towards Nintendo and Gamefreak is that they'll take their time and actually let the game developers take their time to make the game that they want to make instead of having to rush it to meet a deadline.

Anyway, the bridge that I have to go through after getting the bike is conveniently very long with minimal encouters, with a nice, pretty view of a huge-ass gym in the distance that we'll presumably be visiting in the future. There's a Hop battle here, and he's still only got three shitty Pokemon, although he's evolved his bird and his starter. Scorbunny is adorable, but he evolves into Raboot, which is, uh... it's... it's something I guess. And while I was kinda lukewarm the first time I saw Drizzile and only warmed up to him after seeing his animations, Raboot is just... it's just a gangly, angry bunny with an emo jacket. Okay. Hop's still just kinda there. Am I being too harsh on Hop? I dunno. Now that he's not as omni-present he's a bit less of an irritant, but I really do wish they gave him any sort of personality at all.

Next up is Hulbury Town, which is a coastal town, and I'm immediately greeted with President Rose in his... hilarious civilian outfit. A very hot-looking white sweater and shorts that kinda look like boxers? Yeaaah. Also, Rose has his own sharply-dressed secretary called Oleanna, who basically is just there to keep Rose from making too much of a fool out of himself. Oh, and Bede shows up and despite all of his high talk, the chairman clearly doesn't remember him a whole ton. It's... it's going to be interesting to see how Bede progresses in the future. He's clearly an asshat full of himself, but his supposedly high-and-mighty friends-in-high-places don't really think of him as someone super-special. Judging by Rose's dialogue to Bede and my character, it's clear that Rose's a bit more interested in whatever the champion's endorsed challenger is all about.

...which makes me wonder if either Rose or Leon will end up becoming the main villain. Becuase one of them surely is, right? That's been kind of the obvious pattern since XY, that one of the influential characters we meet end up being the secret sponsor of the evil team. (Although I highly doubt that Team Yell's actually going to actually amount to much more than just rowdy sports hooligans)

Anyway, Hulbury City's a lot more expansive than Turffield. Granted there's not much to actually do, but as someone who loves exploring every house in any new Pokemon city I did enjoy the vibe of this coastal town. There's a lighthouse where the gym leader, Nessa, is hanging out. There's the restaurant that President Rose is hanging out in and his fans are waiting outside. There's a little bit of docks that I can fish in. There's a little neat local-marketplace thing where they sell the nasty tasting herbs and the breeding incenses. The layout of the town is also nice. Again, not a whole ton to talk about, but I did enjoy exploring the town.

And fishing. Also fishing. A lot of the encounters from fishing are kind of the same old Chewtles and Magikarps I've been getting, but this is the first time I got an Arrokuda, which is the regional fish, I think? It's a brown barracuda, that's also vaguely arrow-themed. It's all right. I'm not too crazy about it, but I don't hate it. I'm not sure if it evolves, though -- you'd think it's one of those early-game fishies that evolves, but the game also just reminded me that Basculin exists. So.

Also, Yamper evolved! Into... a generic lightning hound dog. Which is cool and all, but I will miss just how adowable Yamper looks. Boltund has an insanely large increase in damage and speed, though, making her inclusion in the party actually a pretty useful one instead of just me really liking the good dog corgi Pokemon.

And then... the gym! The gym is a pretty standard water puzzle/lever thing that we've seen a fair bit of in many Nintendo games before, and even a couple of times in previous water-themed Pokemon gyms. You have to figure out the right order to switch on different sets of giant hoses that unleash a torrent that block your way. It's a pretty stadium, but otherwise the gym challenge feels surprisingly mundane compared to the surprisingly refreshing Wooloo herder minigame.

The battle against Nessa is... also pretty trivial. I actually did use Dynamax in this one, just to see how easily I can sweep Nessa's team. She's got, what, a Goldeen, an Arrokuda and a Drednaw that she Dynamaxes? My Boltund one-shotted the Goldeen, went Dynamax and then unleashes the Max Thundermurderofdoom move to one-shot Arrokuda and two-shot the Dyna-Drednaw.

...wasn't Drednaw supposed to be one of the lucky few to have the Neo-Mega Evolution Gigantamax Form? I guess that's a wholly different thing from Dynamax, then?

Anyway, that's two badges down. Six more to go! Having a pretty grand ol' time so far.

My current team:

It was kind of a bit of a toss-up, but I really wanted Galarian Farfetch'd on the team, so it came down between the overlapping types in the team -- Sizzlipede isn't going anywhere, so it's either Carkol or Dottler, and I feel like Dottler's... such a defensive creature and it's both evolving a lot later than I thought and also not really doing much, while Carkol's a pretty powerful asset in the team.

Sometime along the line, I guess I'll start rotating in and out some of the other newer Pokemon to level them up and see what they evolve into. I certainly do want to get Nickit, Dottler and Toxel up! Probably when I do a bigger excursion through the Wild Zone.


Random Notes:

• I got the event Pikachu and the wonder-gift Meowth! I can get Big Chonky Pikachu and Longcat Meowth in Gigantamax battles, I think. I haven't tried it out.
• The gyms still have the silly Zelda-Dreadrock sprite statues all the way back in generation 1. I approve. 
• It's honestly kinda neat that despite all of the outcry about Nintendo being slaves to Generation I nostalgia that we're getting genuine random dudes from other generations like Remoraid or Corpish or Basculin or Swirlix or Drillbur or Woobat or Timburr make the cut. Like, I'm not like the biggest fan of some of these critters, but I do like that they seem to actually be cherry-picking through all seven previous generations instead of just the first. 
• Apparently, sending your Pokemon to the box back and forth through the R button without going to the Pokemon Center does not heal your Pokemon, which is actually pretty great, and makes the feature actually be a convenience that doesn't make an already-easy game too easy. Like, you can still swap out your party members with a B-team ready to go, but it at least requires you to have a B-team trained up instead of quite literally having a portable Pokemon Center everywhere you go. 
• The Sword/Shield localization team doesn't quite put in too many british slangs outside of Team Yell's "oi, mate" dialogue, but one phrase they like to shove into every other line of dialogue that I felt showed up a fair bit in the Turffield area is 'chin-wag'. 
• The Geoglyph viewing spot has a little 'stick your head into a picture' bit, and while one of them is clearly a Skwovet, it's posing next to an absolutely bizarre thing that I could only assume is a Pokemon based on Stonehenge, and a body proportion that's like 80% rock-legs. Okay. I think it kinda looks silly, but I'll reserve judgment until I actually see what it looks like in the flesh. Or, er, the granite. 
• Making the fourth Rotom variant that we can't capture is the camera Rotom that shows up in the gym leader challenge zipping around the stadium. Some of the POV's are even from these Rotom-cams! Pretty neat stuff, honestly, and I do really like that we get these little extra forms. 
• My favourite bit of the Milo fight is the little affectionate pat that Milo gives his Dynamax pokeball before he yeets it into the back of the stadium. 
• Route 5 has a pair of interviewers, but unlike the interviewers from the Generation III and IV games, they don't actually try and get a funny comment from you or anything. Boo!
• Out of all the wild Pokemon in the game, I think the Stufful's running animation is easily my favourite. 
• The huge bridge in Route 5 has a chance to have a random hapless Eldegoss just spawn and float on by and you can fight it and catch it. I thought it's adorable. 
• When you whistle on your bike, you ring the bicycle bell instead. That's also adorable. 
• I would make the obligatory Fire/Fighting joke for Scorbunny, but I actually already got spoiled that all three starters are mono-typed until their final evolution. So. 
• Chairman Rose's weird orange green elephant Pokemon shows up as a random NPC creature in Hulbury Town but I still don't know what the hell it's all about.