Let's Play Pokemon Sword, Part 10: Anime Hair Power

So I finished the post-game for a while now, I just haven't had the time or energy to type it out. Anyway, last we left off, we meet the post-game villains, a pair of dapper tossers with a positively ridiculous hairdo. And the game sort of sends us in a bit of a little roundabout trip around Galar, which I do appreciate. Sonia, Hop and, surprisingly, Piers end up being the main characters that hang around us for the majority of this post-game adventure.

Right after the encounter with the two weirdos (what Sonia insist we call them because "Sordward and Shieldbert" is a mouthful) we get roped into Turffield gym where a dynamaxed Pokemon is running amuck, and it's not Eternatus's fault this time, Eternatus is off on a PC job delivering huo guo or something. And finally, something that should've been implemented in the main story in the first place, is a dynamax raid fight with in-game NPC's! Hop, Piers and Milo join me in a fight against a dynamaxed Tsareena, which isn't the hardest thing to do, really, particularly since I was leading with Corviknight and a single max airstream takes out the mangosteen queen.

We also briefly go to Professor Sonia's lab, and she's got an assistant! The game sort of makes such a point of waving her in front of us during a cutscene that it's kind of obvious when she becomes evil and plot-relevant later on, but it's not that bad and for the life of me it actually takes me by surprise when she becomes relevant later on.

Then after Sword and Shield dude taunts us a bit about how they're causing the Pokemon to dynamax in power spots to test out their master plan or something, I can choose to go to Motostoke City or Hulbury City to deal with their respective dynamax problems. It's... it's not quite as exciting, but it does give the gym leaders a couple extra lines of dialogue and it's neat. Hop and Piers show up with an extra guest star, and with Nessa's help we blow up a giant Gyarados in Hulbury and with Kabu we blow up a giant Torkoal.

It's neat! This is honestly what the buildup to the climax's story should be, a bunch fo giant pokemon rampaging and I have to enlist the aid of the side characters to help out. It's not like the perfect story or even a particularly epic implementation of the dynamax/gigantamax sequence, but comparing it to Mega Evolution or Z-Moves, Sword and Shield honestly just sort of shoved it into the story without any properly big moments. It's just... there. I wonder how much of the Sordward/Shieldbert storyline was meant to be part of the main story from the start? Because if we had this storyline sort of happening in the backgroud... the story would've been a bit messier, but at least we'd have a lot more continuity between Rose's "exploit dynamax energy" story and the "mysterious history of the Galar kings" story.

Sword and Shield dude shows up in Professor Sonia's lab, and they sort of challenge us plebeians to a double battle. I do kind of like their dialogue, it's so twattish and the upper-class twit attitude works well to make them unlikable. Hop's stupid Dubwool is honestly kind of dead weight, but the fight's relatively challenging, with the levels being relatively matched between the weirdos' mixture of steel and fighting Pokemon and my own. Sordward brings his little posse of Golisopod, Bisharp and Doublade, whereas Shieldbert's Pokemon is kinda more defensive? Bronzong and I guess Falinks are, whereas Klinklang's sort of there.

My Centiskorch and Sirfetch'd sort of wipe out both their teams, but let it be known that I now very much respect Falinks' signature move, No Retreat. Let that be known.

Anyway, Sonia's nameless assistant shows up, revealing that she's a minion of Sordward and Shieldbert and that there's this whole organization of fanatics who want to put the old royal line back in power, which is probably kind of a social comentary on something but I'm not sure what. Whatever the case, the bad guys have gotten all of the Wishing Star, and their main motivation is... uh... to make the public think that Zacian and Zamazenta are evil evil fakers and their original ancestors are the true heroes. Which is a neat motivation, and a neat story beneath all of the hammy bluster.

It's four gyms at once this time that get fucked up by the tossers' plan, and it's a neat little hop aroud Galar. I do appreciate that it gives Bea and Gordie, the two gym leaders with the least focus some extra oomph. They're still kinda boring, but it's neat to kinda see them again. Anyway, I help out Raihan to beat up a giant Haxorus with my giant Frosmoth; I help Gordie beat up a giant Gigalith with my giant Sirfetch'd, and just for kicks I bring out Eternatus to fight the giant Conkeldurr menacing Bea. Interestingly, Eternatus can't dynamax despite being the source of all dynamax energy! In this case it's Hop that dynamaxes his giant football bunny, but Eternatus's signature move, Dynamax Cannon, deals extra damage to dynamaxed Pokemon.

Ballonlea ends up in kind of a neat little encounter with Bede again, who's still kinda-sorta in this passive-aggressive relationship with his new mentor Opal and his new role as a fairy-type gym leader. Absolutely love the animations here. Bede talks a big game about how he's already beaten all of the rampaging dynamaxed Pokemon, and then we get a rematch! And by 'rematch' I mean my centipede fries his Mawile and Corviknight murders the rest of his party by spamming Steel Wing. At least you tried, Bede.

Throughout it all, by the way, poor Hop's still dealing with a fair amount of guilt about how he's just not good enough to stand up to the weirdos, how he can't measure up to Leon or my character, and he blames himself for losing the rusty shield, and I do really like that he's actually getting visible character development and it isn't instantaneous. It's clear that he had tried "being happy" and "moving on" back when he first challenged us in the Slumbering Weald, but him dealing with his guilt and inferiority complex is a process and I do like that he basically throws himself wholeheartedly to redeem his mistake and tries his god-damn best. I give Hop a lot of grief earlier in my playthrough, but in the second half of the game and the post-game he end up being pretty well-developed!

That's where we're leaving off for the post-game story, because I did a bit of a detour here and there. I visited Spikemuth and it's now filled with NPC's. Generic Team Skull grunt NPC's, but it does make the long corridor feel like kind of a small town, even if it's one without much content. Piers is still rocking out in his stage. Marnie's there, and she challenges me to an exhibition match, and... and it's a neat little match; her Pokemon's high-leveled but there isn't anything particularly special. She's a gym leader now, though, hooray for our goth friend.

Wyndon's basically our big post-game area. The Wyndon stadium is apparently up for more championship tournaments or whatnot, and it's basically the Elite Four equivalent of the region. I think it's randomized every time, and that's easily one of the coolest features of the fan-made Pokemon Uranium, a game which also features a gym leader tournament as its Elite Four equivalent. My first attempt through got me Piers, Marnie (sporting a fancy new sporty outfit!) and Kabu. My second attempt has some random challenger lady called Icla, who's like this cute poison-type user who's all happy to be around, so I guess it's not just gym leaders! A very awesome addition, really.

More interestingly apparently Leon revamped the Rose Tower into a Battle Tower, which is neat! Some random dude gave me a Type: Null... which... uh... I'm not quite sure how that happened. I guess Aether Foudation had a couple more of the chimeric abominations stashed somewhere? Or did these critters find a way to reproduce? I haven't tried out the Battle Tower that much, but apparently some of the rewards I can get include nature-swapping candies, as well as the hyper training stuff from Generation VIII. S'cool. The Battle Tower offers you rental teams, and I tried the 'tough team' or whatever that allows me to dick around with a Dragapult, a Mimikyu, a Heat Rotom and an Aegislash. It's a team of a bunch of my old favourites, I liked that.

I went back to the hotel in Circhester and went to the Game Freak office, and I can challenge Morimoto! Who's the data-efficiency dude whose biggest claim to fame is optimizing Gold and Silver so much they were able to put the entirety of Kanto into the game. Gee, maybe if you led development on this game, we'd have a lot more Pokemon and moves adapted in? Morimoto has the absolutely hilariously creepy-friendly sprite of the police officers. It's hilarious. He's got an interestingly balanced team -- I think his past cameos have had him play around with elemental sets (elemental monkeys in Generation V; the Eevelutions in Sun/Moon and Let's Go) whereas his team this time around is a lot more varied. It's the first time I saw a Cursola in-game, too, it looks neat. Morimoto also has a Dragapult. Lots of people have Dragapults in the post-game. I need to get myself one.

I also did a fair bit of Wild Area exploration. I still don't like the raid battles, particularly with how irritating, repetitive and artificially-lengthened the silly 'shield' mechanic is. The actual Wild Area itself is a whole lot of fun to run around in, though, and I'm trying my best to catch 'em all. But until then, that'll have to do, I suppose, until I continue the Sordward/Shieldbert storyline!

Random Notes:

• One thing that I haven't really mentioned is that all of the gym leaders give me their 'rare' league cards, which adds a bit more to their bios and whatnot. Would've been nice to see some of these characterization as part of actual content we got when talking to the characters, but it's at least something. 
• The running gag of Piers going "oh no dynamax pokemon are rampaging I need to make sure Marnie's all right" only to be reminded that, no, his town doesn't even have a power spot is pretty cute. 
• Sordward and Shieldbert making fun of Piers's hairdo is also fun. 
• Someone told me about the little Marnie easter egg where she trains herself to smile by literally using her fingers to lift up her lips in Motostoke City's hotel. That's adorable. 
• I got Gigantamax Charmander all the way to a Charizard. Hooray, it can become big and flamey now. Whoo.