Let's Play Pokemon Sword: Isle of Armor, Part 1: Armor Time

So yeah, the new Pokemon Sword/Shield DLC came out a couple of days back. And despite my reservations about there being DLC for these Pokemon games, I have more or less came around to it, I guess? I still don't like it on principle, but at least they're selling it in a single purchase of an Expansion Pass, and sort of treating it as an alternative to buying a second version of the same game a la Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon is certainly a bit of a palatable comparison. But that's a discussion for another date, because, well, we're off to the Isle of Armor!


I won't lie, I really haven't touched my copy of Pokemon Sword for a while, and the last time I did was when they had that Galarian Slowpoke event as a little mini-prologue for the Isle of Armor DLC. And the DLC starts off at Wedgehurst Station and I bugger off via a fun little usage of the loadscreen map showing me riding the train, then hopping onto a Corviknight taxi and moving out of the Galar mainland to the Isle of Armor, located on the east side of Galar. There's a couple of quick introductions as some random lab-coat lady upgrades by Rotom Pokedex to add in however many Pokemon that the team finally managed to make updated models for the Nintendo Switch. I completely did not try to look up anything about these DLC at all, beyond the very first announcement trailer, so any Pokemon inclusions (or exclusions) are going to be a surprise. I also don't know if they're going to add any new Pokemon other than Kubfu, who shows up a lot in the trailers, so... yeah. Again, this is once more a mostly blind playthrough.

And right after arriving into the Isle of Armor station, the game quickly tells us a lot about what to expect from the area. Some random dude talks about how he was supposed to sign up for the dojo, but he gets intimidated by some fierce-looking trainer. And enter Klara! I like Klara a lot, her aesthetic of combining the loud green-and-purple Poison-type gym outfit, her bubblegum-pink hair, her white jacket and her Dustox hair ribbon do end up making a pretty memorable design. I briefly met her in that Galarian Slowpoke preview thing, but she's just kind of an airhead.

Turns out that Klara's personality is that... she's kind of a bitch and a show-off, and I love that. Again, while I'm not saying that all of the friendly rivals are trash (Hop and Hau had stories, at least) they're certainly boring, and Klara has the added bonus of not only being a rival, but also being your senior and your senpai on the Isle of Armor.

The whole thing ends up with a misunderstanding, though, when Klara tries to talk to the new recruit for the dojo, but instead assumes that I'm the actual new recruit and that Im "mocking" her when I picked the truthful answers that, no, I had absolutely no idea what's going on. Obviously, this is Pokemon so it's not like there's going to be like a Witcher II or Skyrim style "select your allegiance carefully" choice, but it's interseting that the game does give us the chance to either be honest or to absolutely take advantage and bluff my way into the dojo.

And right away I realize one problem that's going to impact my enjoyment of the Isle of Armor -- I'm carrying around a level 80 Centiskorch on my lead, and the rest of my party is in the 70-80 level range. Klara's Pokemon? A level 58 Venipede and Slowpoke. Yeah, even putting aside that she's the sort of silly late-game trainer who doesn't evolve her Pokemon for some reason, the sheer level difference is going to make it a bit hard to not just steamroll everything on the island. And I get it, the DLC is constructed in a way that you can head off to the Isle of Armor at the moment you reach Wedgehurst, and it's not really meant to be post-game material... but really, couldn't they have given Klara something more instead of just scaling up the levels? Like, if I'm at the point of the game when Klara has level 58 Pokemon, wouldn't she be walking around with a Scolipede and a Slowbro? I dunno.

Klara panics when she gets defeated, and is all scared that if I join the dojo, I would eclipse her popularity and no one would pay attention to her, so she gives a bunch of excuse and essentially bribes me to not enter the Dojo because maaaaybe I'm not good enough? The Dojo is where Leon trained, after all. And hey, she also gives me a Style Card as a little bribe, which would apparently allow me to get exclusive items in boutiques and hair salons. I know the DLC adds a bunch of new cosmetic choices, and this is an interesting way to implement it, but this does raise a bunch of interesting questions... is this sort of exclusive shop access club card thing a thing in real life? Is there, like, a secret Hot Topic or Uniqlo membership card that will allow me to purchase real life DLC clothes? The mind boggles.

So anyway, I swap out my entire party of level 70-80 Pokemon from my original Sword playthrough for a bunch of the B-team that I was sort of working on building up and never really actually allowed them to catch up to the higher levels. Taking Klara's Pokemon as a measuring stick, I ended up picking Pokemon from my 'I like these guys, I'm going to train them up' box and crafted a new team. Dhelmise (I've always wanted to use one in Sun/Moon but never had the patience to catch one),  Toxapex (who's the highest at level 68, since I actually did train her up), Toxtricity (also started off at around 65 or so, and also one of the higher leveled members of my team), Dragapult (who basically just fresh-off evolved), Fringe the Hatterene (yes, it's the one from the in-game trade) and... a random level 10 Arctovish. I know we're going to get Kubfu at some point in the storyline, so that's going to be a little temporary team member that I'll allow to leech experience.



Speaking of which, I've never actually seen Dhelmise's Anchor Shot attack in this engine and it looks badass. Dhelmise is honestly fast turning from a Pokemon I like into one of my new all-time favourites just in this short playthrough.

And... hey, I could go immediately to the dojo and actually see the story of the DLC play out, but I quite literally got distracted by the new giant Isle of Armor for like an hour or two before actually setting foot in the dojo. One thing that I've always criticized about Galar's original Wild Area is that... it's so boring. Once the novelty of an open-world area has worn off, it's basically just two huge flat fields with a couple of ponds and bridges and sandy areas thrown in. And I'm not complaining that much --  while it's a neat first effort, ultimately the only real thing that the original Galar Wild Area is that it's big. There's really nothing else to it. Isle of Armor, on the other hand, feels so much more interestingly designed. Sure, volume-wise, it probably isn't that much different than the original Galar field, but instead of just flat land, there are like, caves, there are far more visually interesting locations like a beach, a swamp, a mountain, a bunch of caves... it's all interconnected and the exploration ends up feeling so much more interesting. The first impression of the Isle of Armor is certainly far, far more positive to me compared to my first impression of the original Galar Wild Area.

And... there's a lot to see. I admit that I have been kind of grumpy in previous segments about how adding the missing 500+ Pokemon is just like, something that's really kind of the bare minimum of what the DLC should do, but I really do like that the areas and the Pokemon that spawn there do feel like there's a lot more thought being put into it. I don't want to rag on the original Wild Area again, but suffice to say that the creatures that show up on the cave or desert or swamp areas actually make sense to pop up there. The biomes and the Pokemon that live there actually feel like there's a fair amount of thought put into it instead of basically just having the population rotate depending on the weather regardless of whether it made sense or not for Snover or Sneasel to spawn en masse at a random grass patch in a grass field. Again, it's nit-picking, but it's things like this that I really do appreciate.

The vibe of the Isle of Armor does seem to be kind of a tropical island, although it's not quite just Alola redux. There are a bunch of Pokemon that's 'new' to Sword/Shield, and right off the station there are a bunch of Buneary, Jigglypuff, Chansey, the curry-headed Galarian Slowpoke... and a giant-ass Wailord in the distance. That, I think, was the first thing I headed off to. Wailord being absurdly tiny compared to his canon size in anime, manga and older 3D games has been something that the fandom has been ragging Nintendo for, and I guess Wailord is here just to show that, yes, in the overworld, Wailord is still as large as a whale. It's just that in the battle system, he's shrunken down. Fair enough.

Also, when you surf (cycle-ride) through the sea around the Isle of Armor, you get assaulted by fucking Sharpedo, and I absolutely love the way that they're depicted here, just bursting through the water like... like, well, torpedoes. The Sharpedos are dicks.

And then I just ran around the mainland in the beaches and foresty area near the terminal. We've got Kingler scuttling around the beach, a random Mow Rotom in an island grinning like a shit, Wingull and Pelipper flying near the beach areas, Klefki jingle-jangling in the grass, Abra teleporting in and out of the grass (which is something that Sw/Sh has done with Ralts, but is still cool as hell), Starmie... walking on the beach? That's ridiculous but kind of something that doesn't take me for surprise. Like, I know Staryu and Starmie can walk, I think I saw them doing that in like the anime or the Mystery Dungeon games, but I kind of usually imagine them floating around. There are also Psyduck and Rockruff, too. I have around 50+ quick balls, so capturing a lot of them isn't particularly hard, even if they're mostly at level 55-60.

On the bridge leading to the dojo, there's a very familiar tuft of yellow grass sticking out of the ground, and it's.... an Alolan Diglett! There's a hiker that apparently caught a lot of Diglett in Alola and brought them to the Isle of Armor, but somehow lost all of them. And when he said 'a lot' I thought like he meant... twenty or something. But turns out Mr. Diglett Man lost a hundred and fifty. 151 if you count the Diglett I found in this encounter. Ha, I get the reference. Gotta catch 'em all and all that. I appreciate this, it's sort of like an easier version of the Korok hunting fetch quest from Breath of the Wild, or the Zygarde cells from the Alola games, and I definitely am happy that there's this extra little side-quest.

Speaking of things I really like... there's a random bike person near the dojo who calls me over and offers to customize my bike, and THANK GOD. See, one of the biggest complaints I had in Sword and Shield is that it's got the same amount (or even more) of character customization as the past couple of games, but if you try and ride the bicycle you're shunted into this absolutely ugly bike shirt with the alternate colour options all looking like shit. So yeah, having my bike be repainted into a badass red-and-black colour, and I ditch the terrible vanilla Sw/Sh bike outfit for a far cooler-looking black-and-dark-purple (I use the 'dragon' variant) Rotom shirt with red trims. It's a small thing, but one that I definitely appreciate.

A bit nearby Mr. Bike Lad is a swamp/wetlands area that definitely reminds me of Sinnoh's Pastoria Great Marsh, although that might just be because it has a lot of Quagsires, Woopers, Skorupis and Drapions. Can I just say how much I appreciate that the Isle of Armor isn't just entirely newly-introduced Pokemon? Pokemon that are originally found in Galar also show up here, which makes this feel like an extension of Galar since you get to see the likes of Drednaws and Cramorants hanging out with some of the newly-introduced Pokemon, and, again, it really does feel like they put a lot of thought in designing the population of a marsh area or a beach-front area instead of just haphazardly looking through the list of available creatures and slapping them in. One of my favourites has to probably be the little underground cave network that you enter through the rivers, filled with amphibious creatures like Chewtles, Golisopods and Poliwags.

There are also a bunch of interesting new items! Apricorns now drop from berry trees, there are a bunch of those random feathers from Unova, I could swear some of the berries are new, and there are items like 'Armorite Ore' and 'Galarica Twig' whose purpose I'm still not entirely sure about. And there are a bunch of TR's just sort of laying around.

I also tried out a max raid against a Dunsparce, hoping that maybe they made the max raid a lot smoother and less just 'spam attacks while the raid Pokemon puts up multi-hit shields over and over again' but sadly the max raid battles still suck. Thankfully, there are a lot of other random Pokemon out there. Bouffalant! Tauros and Miltank hanging out in a grass field! Corphish and Crawdaunt swimming alongside the Arrokuda in a pretty river! Tentacool in the ocean! Amonguss and Foongus in a cool forested area! Emolga sitting on tree branches and you have to whistle to call them down! Mienfoo hanging out a Victory Road-esque set of stairs leading up to a pagoda on a mountain! A river that leads into a cave where Golisopod and Woobat and Dwbble and Chewtle hang out! Comfey! Magnemite! Tangela! Passimian! And, interestingly, it seems like they've assigned the "Pikachu Clones" as the wandering Pokemon that's not inside the grass, because I've met Pikachu, Marill, Morpeko and Dedenne showing up like this. Plus Emolga in the trees. And, hey, Marill's considered a Pikachu Clone now, I guess.

Of course, through my wild exploration I basically find out that the two prominent pagodas are called the 'Tower of Darkness' and 'Tower of Water' and I need to progress in the plot to enter either of them. So... yeah, around two hours of just running around exploring and taking a lot of items and throwing quick balls at these Pokemon (and evolving some of them) that I finally end up actually going to the dojo.

And in the dojo, we meet Klara talking to the wife of the dojo's master, Honey, and Klara is basically all panicking about how the new student arrived. Again, I tried to pick the honest answer of them getting the wrong person (and in the dialogue, Honey lampshades that the name given is different with mine), but all this leads to is Klara going "oh I'm so happy you decided to come after all". We get some information dump about how Leon used to train on this dojo, and how Klara is training to become a poison-type gym leader, and there's a brief shot of some gray bear Pokemon watching from the top of the dojo. Right, Kubfu! He's supposed to be a thing.

The dojo's pretty neat, we've got a lot of overworld models of things like gym equipment and the Japanese-style doors and whatnot, and I do like that there is just a random Poliwrath (and I'm not 100% sure, but I'm pretty sure this is another one that was not in the original Sw/Sh) and Scraggy hanging out with the dojo students. I'm quickly introduced to Hyde, Honey's kid, who's wearing headphones and is a tech dude that gives me an Exp. Charm that the game explicitly tells me has a machine inside of it instead of it just being a 'mere' charm.

The master of the dojo is this kooky old man with super-long eyebrows called Mustard, and I feel like his vibe is basically those 'hip' grandpas that walk around dressed in like, teenage T-shirts and hoodies. I like him a lot, actually! Mustard wants to test me in battle, and there's a bit of oddity that we see this battlefield in the middle of the dojo... but apparently the team didn't actually render it for battles so the fight against master Mustard takes place in a formless cloud void? My Dragapult is actually lower-leveled than Mustard's Mienfoo and Shinx, but I still take him out very handily. See, that's the sheer difference that the stat boost of a pokemon's evolution can cause. Also, I know this is the early part of the DLC storyline and I know it's super-nitpicky, but I wish that even if it's unevolved Pokemon, they probably should've given Mustard and Klara like, three or four Pokemon at least, yeah?

Mustard quickly figures out that I showed up on the dojo more because of a misunderstanding, and he's not stupid, but he's super friendly and happy to just hang out and say that I'm welcome to hang out as a student as long as I've got the will to learn. Mustard gives me my dojo uniform so I can look like all of the other dudes in yellow training gi, which is a full set of clothes that also involves a new bag and turning my hair into a topknot.

Klara also wants a uniform, because despite being my senpai and being around a fair bit longer, she's never actually gotten the uniform. So I guess she's actually barely earlier than I was in joining the dojo? Whatever the case, though, a pink blur stole Klara's uniform... and it's three curry-head Slowpokes! Or rather, Fastpokes, because apparently Mustard's training somehow causes these Slowpokes to move very, very quickly. Mustard tells us that this is the first of three trials to get the 'secret armor' of the dojo, and Mustard tells everyone to go go go and hunt down the speedy, running Slowpokes, beat them up and the ones that return with Klara's uniform wins the trial. There's an adorable bit with the camera lingering on just a while longer after all the students run out and then this poor Scraggy is just toddling along behind them.

Exploring the dojo, there's a dining room, plus a little room where I can both rest and change my clothes -- which is great, a small thing I really liked about XY is that you can change your clothes at a booth in the Pokemon Center which Sword and Shield (and I'm 90% Sun and Moon too) didn't have, so it's a neat bit of convenience. And then there's the living room... where good ol' shifu Mustard is... playing Pokemon Quest on the Nintendo Switch, while his table is filled with half-eaten snacks. My god, this is so funny. There's an adorable Tympole plush, and a bizarre robotic Cramorant contraption that Hyde has made, and apparently it requires watts? Hyde refuses to take any of mine, though, so I guess it's later in the story.

See, the thing is that the Slowpokes are darting through the overworld leaving gigantic dust clouds like Speedy Gonzales, and no one is able to catch up to them... except for me. And not because my character is any skillful, but because I've got an expensive bike that can keep up to speed with the Slowpokes rampaging around the swamp. The other dojo students are bikeless peasants! Kinda wished that the game didn't make it so obvious that I only won because of this unfair advantage, but eh. I try to beat up the Slowpokes with my Dhelmise's Giga Drain and it's at this point that I found out that Galarian Slowpoke has lost their Water typing and is pure-Psychic. Okay! The Slowpokes themselves were simple and all used non-damaging attacks like Psych Up, Rain Dance and Healing Pulse, so it's a simple matter to beat them up. I also randomly rammed a Zorua (some of these character models are small and hard to see when you're on a bike) while pedaling after the Slowpokes, so that's a cool yokai fox in my collection.

Apparently the others all caught up to the Slowpoke but are unable to defeat them, which, uh... how? The Slowpokes didn't even fight back, not really, but I guess when all you have are unevolved Venipedes, I guess you struggle against the Slowpokes? Some of the random background characters fail the test because they didn't even catch up to the Slowpoke much less fight them, but then Honey brings in Bulbasaur and Squirtle and tells me to choose from one of them. They can gigantamax, and hey, it's a bit of an apology for the fact that Charizard became the spotlight-stealing squad in the base game. It's still just the kanto starters and I would demand for equality and ask for my gigantamax Serperiors and Feraligatrs, but hey, I get Bob the Bulbasaur. The Bulbasaur line is my jam, so I swapped out the Arctovish for Bulbasaur, at least until he soaks up enough experience points to become a Venusaur.

Also, again, I know that I'm the player character, but it must suck that Klara and the other students don't get anything, huh? The stronger one that already has the unfair advantage of a bicycle gets a free Gigantamax-capable starter Pokemon. Okay. Honey explicitly keeps the Squirtle, which, if the last game is anything to go by, means that at one point I'm going to have to fight her with a Blastoise.

Around this point, I'm also introduced to a random student that becomes a new move tutor, and this is where I spend my Armorite Ore, apparently. All of the moves, I think, are brand-new and are like a combination of unconventional types and effects. Their names are fun, too. Terrain Pulse, Triple Axel, Grassy Glide, Scorching Sands, Skitter Smack... It's all pretty wacky, although I admittedly didn't really give them much of a look. I'll probably spice up some of my new team members with some of these new moves. And, honestly, I'm actually having a lot of fun just dicking around with my new team of randoms, because I didn't really have a whole ton of a chance to use them in my original Pokemon Sword playthrough. Dhelmise and Hatterene are a lot of fun to use, particularly Dhelmise -- I have to keep reminding myself that he's Grass/Ghost instead of Ghost/Steel or Ghost/Water! He's the algae, not the anchor!

The second trial is apparently mushroom-hunting, because Mustard wants Max Soup, which is made up of Max Mushrooms, and this magic soup will... allow Pokemon to Gigantamax? That is freaking awesome! This is actually something I wished they had in the base game proper, because I felt like the way you actually get Gigantamax Pokemon is kind of nonsensical bullshit that encourages abandoning your old Pokemon for newer, 'special' ones, so that's certainly a neat addition. Anyway, I have to hunt down the Max Mushrooms, which grow in dark humid places. Which is apparently usually the Forest of Focus (the Amoonguss-infested forest I wandered onto earlier)... but a swarm of Greedents showed up and ate everything. Mustard tells me -- and only me -- to check the Warm-Up Tunnel. And sure, there's the excuse that I'm a newcomer to the isle of armor, but that really feels like yet another unfair advantage, no?

I actually haven't entered the Warm-Up Tunnel in my madcap exploration, and it's basically the Generation 1 cave, filled with Cubones and Sandshrews. There are three Max Mushrooms in a spot, and Klara runs up and demands them. And... I actually do want to give them to Klara, but she instead treats it as an insult and that I'm giving her attitude and pitying her. Which leads to a fight. She now has an extra Koffing and her Venipede is now a Whirlipede, but ultimately none of them are an actual threat. Case in point, my Hatterene is almost 15 levels below her Koffing, and I still took it down with two hits. Klara buggers off and allows me to take the mushroom. Behind the Warm-Up Tunnel is the Pot-Bottom Desert, although I didn't really spend too much time exploring it.

Back to the dojo, and apparently everyone end up getting lost in the forest and I'm the only one to find mushrooms... and then Klara shows up, late, and she actually got the mushrooms and is actually crying from the effort? There's this bit where Klara wants and near-demands that her mushrooms be the only ones used in the soup because she wants to share her hard work... and Honey tries to tell me that Klara's not trying to steal my thunder (she's totally trying to steal my thunder) and that it's character development... but hey, that leaves me with three mushrooms I get for free that I can use to make a Max Soup!

The entire dojo eats the max soup on the dining room, and then Mustard makes jokes about 'hey, do you feel dynamax energy welling up inside you?' except, well, nope, that doesn't work with humans. Then god damn it, Mustard, stop wasting valuable resources that my Pokemon could eat! One of the random yellow-shirted dojo mooks becomes Mr. Soup Man, who will prepare Max Soup for me. Which, of course, I make and immediately feed to my Centiskorch. Nice, that saves me the trouble of looking for one and replacing the good buddy Centiskorch I traveled with. I will need more of this soup, thank you very much, because at least my Inteleon and Corviknight deserves to achieve this new form. For me it's more of the principle of the matter, but the fact that you can finally get the option to allow any member of a certain Pokemon species to Gigantamax and it's not just reserved for special, specific ones you get from the max raids is definitely something I am a huge fan of. And, like, now people can dynamax their EV-trained or shiny partners, and that's definitely awesome.

The third and final trial is apparently a regular old battle with Klara with dynamax stuff, so I'm assuming that Klara's either going to get a gigantamax version of one of her Pokemon, but this is where I sort of stopped with the story mode and sort of buggered off to run around the Isle of Armor's overworld again and look for random new Pokemon to capture, look for Diglett and harvest some Max Mushrooms. Check in tomorrow or the day after for more of this playthrough. I'm doing this at my own pace, after all, and I do want to take this DLC a bit slow.

Random Notes:

• If you play Shield, you get Avery instead of Klara as your rival-senpai, and while tastes are subjective... man, Avery looks like such a dork. Like, part of it is maybe simply due to the fact that I find the sports jersey-and-shorts combo to look pretty bland (in general, not just in Pokemon) but at least Klara's poison-type palette fits with her loud aesthetic and the white jacket does help to make it less obvious that she's just wearing the jersey. Avery, though, just has a hat and that weird tie-esque thing, and while he's going for the vibe of a magician or a posh gentleman, it's hard to take him seriously when he's wearing shorts. 
• Klara's pre-battle pose involves her pushing the button on her poke-ball and holding that pose. I actually don't think I've ever seen someone do that outside of maybe the anime, but this is an actually pretty sensible way of clicking the button as opposed to how the pokeballs are usually just thrown and the button is only involved when the ball hits a Pokemon, huh? 
• Speaking of klara, her cute white Dustox ribbon has little 'tails' that move up and down according to her mood. It's adorable. Also adorable is her battle theme. 
• Klara having a Venipede means that it's almost certain that Venipede exists on the Isle of Armor, and I NEED ONE. 
• The internet tells me that the giant Wailord doesn't respawn, so I rebooted the save file to make sure that the giant Wailord will be a fixture in the overworld of my save file. 
• The new badass bike's colours also come with a bunch of sparkles... which sometimes distracts me when I'm trying to look for sparkles indicating overworld items. 
• I forgot why I tried it out, but unlike the original Gold and Silver games, Galar and the Isle of Armor are connected when you try to use Fly, and that's a nice bit of convenience right there. You only have to bother with the train stations the first time you enter the Isle of Armor. 
• I would use some of the pokemon I captured in the Isle of Armor, but I'm still trying to make it a point of using mostly new Pokemon, which is why my team is still made up almost entirely of Alolan and Galar Pokemon. 
• I wasn't even trying, but even then I've already gotten around twenty Digletts by this point. 
• Squirtle says 'drip' and Bulbasaur says 'vine'. Okay. 
• The game does give me the option to swap back from the dojo outfit to my regular look (and evidently, Klara switches back) and it's nice. I believe I'll go through most of it in the new dojo look, which actually is kinda neat, but it's still a nice little option.
• I love the little detail of the red Dynamax/Gigantamax clouds appearing above the soup when Honey is cooking, and when Mustard does his little joke about humans getting dynamax powers from the soup, there's a brief moment where my character seems to glow with the dynamax aura as a joke.