Let's Play Pokemon Sword, Part 11: The Legend of the Sword Dog

Last we left off, we're around halfway through the post-game epilogue with Sordward and Shieldward causing a ruckus, unleashing gigantic dynamaxed Pokemon that wreak havoc all over Galar, reveal a secret cult among your neighbours, steal a rusted shield, trying to do something with a pair of wolves, insult Piers's hairstyle and force Hop to go through character development.

It's back to the secret underground lab under Hammerlocke again as Sonia's Yamper yip-yips it active and grants us access, and I do like the short scene of Sordward blocking my way with a random ecclectic group of just random civilians and trainers that are part of the royal-bloodline cult, which is a little detail that I really like but they didn't go too deep into. These are just random trainers and regular people who just really want to believe in the descendants of the royal bloodline! Anyway, another rematch with Sordward and his team, and it's back up to where we fought Eternatus back in the main storyline.

And Shieldbert is trying to make Zamazenta into a giant dynamax form to rampage all around Galar and make a bad name for himself... but then the dumb idiot gets surprised when the plan to make the legendary wolf monster go berserk causes the legendary wolf monster to go berserk and attack him, knocking him on his ass.

And... and it's a battle against Zamazenta! In her 'uncrowned' form, of course, and she's at level 70! I can't capture this doggy since I'm playing Sword version, but I do really like that we're involving the opposite game's legendary. Zamazenta's pretty tough, taking out my Sirfetch'd with a Play Rough, and then surprising me by not being Fairy type when I sicced Corviknight's Steel Wing at it. Apparently Zamazenta's pure-Fighting, which... okay, yeah, that kind makes sense, it's a fighting wolf or something. Anyway, Drill Peck 'till it's dead.

Except it ain't dead! Hop tries to calm down the rampaging Zamazenta, but it's Zacian to the rescue, blocking Zamazenta's attack. Zamazenta buggers off, Hop follows, and while all of the side characters witness, Zacian sort of acknowledges me and stands in the middle of the battlefield. I give it the Rusted Sword... and I can fight and capture it. It's at level 70, and it attacks with powerful moves like Behemoth Blade, Sacred Sword and Crunch, and also has Swords Dance.

And... basically my entire team got swept by Zacian. I can do relatively decent chunks of damage with most members of my team, but Zacian's got legendary stats, it gets a free Swords Dance with its ability, it can Swords Dance even further and I'm still trying to catch it. It's been a while since I actually felt threatened while trying to capture a legendary Pokemon, something I haven't felt for a long, long time. It's actually a race against time as I get Zacian to yellow then start chucking Ultra Balls while Zacian goes through the badass Behemoth Blade animation and one-shots or two-shots most of my team. It took me two tries and getting my Boltund out to Nuzzle Zacian and inflict her with a status condition before I finally got her in a ball.

Sword doggo getto da ze!

Anyway, at the sight of the badass sword dog and the sheer badassery both Zacian and I showed, Sword dude and Shield dude sort of beg for forgiveness and Piers escorts them away to be arrested and atone for their crimes. Because apparently Galar doesn't have an active police force, and half-retired punk rock stars have to do as law enforcement around there.

I take Zacian to the Slumbering Weald to meet up with Hop, who's trying to calm down Zamazenta and succeeds, and Zamazenta is apparently so grateful at Hop's relentless pursuit of it to help 'cure' it that it joins up with Hop's team without even a capture attempt. And then, of course, it's battle time, and Hop's swapped out his Cramorant for Zamazenta. At this point I sort of know Hop's team like the back of my hand, and I decided to take Hop's entire team out with a single Sirfetch'd who has Sword Danced three times. That's what you get for sending out Dubwool as your lead Pokemon, Hop. You allow your team's sword duck to set up. Not even a legendary shield-wolf is able to stand against the terror of Sirfetch'd.

And anyway, Piers, Leon and the sword'n'shield duo show up with Sonia to sort of congratulate us for showing off a badass battle and how Hop's totally gone through a whole lot of character development. It's a neat enough coda, and Hop even resolves to become Sonia's assistant because he wants to learn more about the history of Galar. It's actually a pretty neat ending, I suppose, with Leon acknowledging Hop as a rival, Hop getting a new purpose and being reinvigorated, and Piers insisting that he's basically going to be the hairdo bros' parole officer or something. It's a well-done post-game story.

Anyway, that's where we'll leave off for now. I think there are a bunch of other extra things to do in the game, like rematches and battle towers and stuff (which I guess I'll briefly edit into this post's 'random notes' segment if/when I bother to do them), but that's about it for my playthrough through Pokemon Sword, and it's... it's certainly a neat post-game that helps to add a bit more story and content to the game for sure. I definitely enjoyed the game and I enjoyed the pretty graphics and new Pokemon, but I think a lot of my complaints about Generation VIII's games still stand, particularly revolving around the rather slipshod storytelling, everything revolving aroud Max Raid Battles, the short routes and basically not really delivering on a lot of what they promised they would give us for Pokemon's first foray into consoles. Without that expectation, though, Sword and Shield are... they're all right Pokemon games, adding a couple of decent new features and having a very solid vibe as far as the region and new Pokemon go, but ultimately my feelings on the game is more on the negative side. I still enjoy it for sure, but if I had to do a ranking of them as actual games, I'll be hard pressed to actually find much good things to say about this pair of titles. I think my past let's play sessions have summed up a lot of my rants about the poor storyteling and why I think the max raid battles and gigantamax stuff is kinda terribly implemented, so I won't repeat myself.

And yes, apparently there is DLC being announced for Pokemon Sword/Shield. I'm... I'm not sure if I care enough to buy it, to be honest. It won't be for a couple of months, which might actually help me with the little burn-out I've been feeling from this game, but I dunno... I just find myself being super-duper apathetic? I haven't even looked at the Nintendo Direct trailer or whatever, because I kind of want to leave myself relatively unspoiled if I ever do get the DLC, or if I decide to just watch someone Let's Play it. Apparently this is how they're implementing all the older Pokemon back in, as well as bringing in some Sevii Islands style content, which is nice, I guess? And also a bad precedent for future games? I dunno, and I don't know enough about how they are monetizing this that I'm not going to comment all too much. The pessimistic part of me really wants to grumble about how they really should have included everything in the base games, but at least they're giving us something to tide us over and give us a larger chunk of the roster back or something. Part of this kind of stems from my dislike of DLC in general, though, and less about Sword and Shield's specific DLC.

I still had fun, though, and I'm definitely itching to catch all of the available Pokemon in this region. If nothing else, the ever-changing Wild Area makes catching Pokemon neat. I'll see you guys again for Pokemon content hopefully next month or so when I review Galar's batch of new Pokeymans!

Random Notes:

• By the end of the post-game, I've raised my Toxapex and my Toxtricity into relatively high levels that they can catch up with my level 60-70 party. Significantly at a gap behind them are Grimmsnarl and Orbeetle. 
• I got my Sirfetch'd to level 70 and he learns Meteor Assault, which is like, Fighting-type Giga Impact! Neat.
• Kind of a shame that Marnie doesn't even get involved in all this. I like Piers and all, but I feel like it's a wasted opportunity to develop the least-developed rival character here. 
• Piers being the tired, long-suffering Dark-type trainer whose expression is just so tired as he drags away the criminals makes him kind of a neat couterpart to Nanu, doesn't he? Except we all know Piers is a rock star on his day job. 
• The 'event' Dynamax Pokemon in the gyms don't grant experience, rewards or are even able to be captured. What's up with that?
• I'll do my "Gotta Review 'Em All" feature for every single pokemon, and form change we got in the base Sword/Shield game throughout February and March, depending on how fast I type. I will not be doing any of the DLC stuff until after we actually get high-res images and full stats and whatnot, which means that I won't be touching those in "Gotta Review 'Em All" until significantly after the DLC's release. 
• Brief update at around... oh, the 25th of January or something? I haven't looked at much of the DLC trailers beyond a brief glance since I did enjoy being surprised while actually playing through the game (whether I'll play the DLC is another matter entirely). There's a fun little teaser for the DLC where a brand-new character who's apparently our rival shows up in a train station from the Isle of Armour, and along with her is the brand-new Galarian Slowpoke, which is... regular Slowpoke but with yellow markings on his head. Which apparently looks like curry according to the in-game characters (I don't see it). Okay? That's cute, at least. 
• Still can't quite get to get the 'event' Gigantamax Pokemon like Snorlax or Lapras to show up on my game, and I'm not sure if I have to be signed up for Nintendo Online or whatever to access it. Not that I particularly care all that much, honestly, since the more I learn about the actual numbers and mechanics, Gigantamax is honestly a dud from a mechanic standpoint, too, isn't it? You get a visual change for three turns that maybe gives you a slightly-more-useful G-max move? Man, this is a terrible gimmick.