Let's Play Pokemon Sword: Isle of Armor, Part 4: Kung Fu Showdown

So after spending a bunch of time just chilling and doing max raid battles with no animations, I ended up getting the requisite amount of max mushrooms in order to make the honeyed mushroom soup for Urshifu. Is that a thing, actually? Can you actually add honey to a mushroom soup? It feels like something that could end up being tasty or nasty, I feel. During my little grind, I also ended up catching a bunch of Gigantamax Pokemon -- there's the Appletun and Kingler I talked about before, but I also got two Giga Laprrases from my raids. I had thought that they actually buffed the catch rate for these Gigantamax Pokemon, but a couple of successive failures when I ended up running into a Gigantamax Snorlax and two Gengars tells me that it's probably just my feeling.

Anyway, again, I probably could easily sweep Mustard if I had used my regular team, but I went in with my Isle of Armor team, which at this point are in the 71-76 level range. It's Toxapex, Hatterene, Dragapult, Toxtricity, Dhelmise and Urshifu. The Urshifu has got to be there, because it's her expansion after all. (I didn't notice it until writing this segment, but my Urshifu is a girl kung fu bear, mostly because I didn't think that Urshifu would be one of the legendary pokemon with genders.

And in order to make this a bit of an interesting fight against Mustard, I changed my battle style to set instead of switch, which means I don't get free switches to anything Mustard sends out. And not knowing what Mustard's team is other than the fact that he's almost certainly going to have the opposite version of Urshifu, and that's likely going to be his final Pokemon, I save my own Urshifu to fight his own, too. The battle starts up with Dhelmise versus Mienshao, and... the damn thing knows Blaze Kick against my poor ghost algae monster, but I did manage to ninja away with Phantom Force, and after two cycles of Phantom Force I take out the Mienshao although that left me with minimal HP.

Mustard sends out a Corviknight, which is both faster and super-effective against my Dhelmise, not that the poor algae-anchor ghost has anything to really go up against a Steel/Flying. I send out my Toxtricity against Corviknight and OHKO it with an Overdrive (obaaaa doraibuuu) and man, the animation for Overdrive is pretty awesome, huh? With all those neon electricity effects bursting out of Toxtricity? Next up is an electric-vs-electric fight as Mustard sends out his Luxray, so I get my Toxtricity to use Boomburst, which is boosted by Toxtricity's ability. And the animation for Boomburst gets me every time, with a gigantic sonic boom wave being angled upwards as the user basically goes AAAAA. Mustard's Luxray uses... Psychic Fang? That is a move? What? Looking it up, it's apparently Bruxish's signature move. Okay, that's... that's interesting. My Toxtricity manages to survive with like 6 HP or something, and since he's faster, he manages to take out Luxray with another Boomburst.

Mustard sends out last generation's pseudo-legendary, a Kommo-o, which proceeds to use Clangorous Soul, which is basically Dragon Dance meets Belly Drum. The Kommo-o basically shrugs off my Toxtricity's Sludge Bomb (I really should've used Boomburst again for the damage, huh), and then proceeds to wipe the floor the next turn with a single Aura Sphere hadoken. I bring out my own pseudo-legendary, and my Dragapult is faster, and can hit twice with a Dragon-type move, and the little baby kamikaze Dreepies get sent out and blow up Kommo-o. Mustard's next Pokemon, the Lycanroc, also gets dragon darted to death.

Mustard then tosses out his rapid-strike Urshifu, who, naturally, proceeds to Gigantamax into its giant form, the white-and-blue rapid-strike Gigantamax Urshifu. It's... it's all right? Very Power Rangers-esque, and this is the first time I've actually seen the Gigantamax form. And I probably could've solo'd the giant kung fu bear with my Dragapult, but I do want the bear-on-bear kung fu hustle showdown, so I used U-Turn to switch into my own Urshifu... which is a dumb move since that means my own Urshifu ends up taking damage from the Max Ooze that Mustard's Urshifu uses. Gigantamax time, and Giga Single-Strike Urshifu is... it's the same thing as the other dude, but it's red instead of blue. Okay, then. I don't particularly love either one of these, but they're neat.

And... it's not until this point that I realize that my Dark/Fighting Urshifu is at a severe disadvantage to the Water/Fighting Urshifu, because now the Rapid Urshifu is able to deal a super-effective STAB Fighting move to take mine out. My Urshifu is faster, though, and unleashes the dynamaxed Aerial Ace that blows through around two-thirds of the enemy Urshifu. Which, of course, immediately takes out my Urshifu with a Max Knuckle. Sorry, Urshifu. Better luck next time.

I could bring out Dragapult for the pseudo-legendary stats, or Hatterene for the super-effective STAB, but I sort of dick around with Toxapex. Hey, maybe I can stall and poison-kill Urshifu with Baneful Bunker, right? Wrong, because Urshifu's ability is Unseen Fist, allowing it to break through protect moves. I completely forgot about it, and a critical Max Knuckle takes out Toxapex, Baneful Bunker and all.

It's Hatterene against regular rapid-strike Urshifu now that the Gigantamax time has ran out. But despite having both Psychic and Fairy type moves, which are both super-effective agaist Urshifu... the dang bear is faster and one-shots my Hatterene with Iron Head. All those buffs from the Max moves really made it powerful, huh? Of course, I still have my Dragapult, and my sneaky little Sucker Punch. And that's how I beat Mustard's Urshifu. What? I'm a Tower of Darkness kind of guy.

Mustard really did give me a run for my money, though, especially after I thought that I wasn't even going to need Hatterene or Toxapex. That Urshifu is a beast. Maybe I should've taken the Water/Fighting version instead? Whatever, too late to change my decision anyhow.

Mustard gives this talk about how the apprentice has surpassed the master, gives me his other league card, and the entire population of the dojo show up and talk about how badass the fight was. Klara gets a bunch of final words, and she's still kind of a bitch, but... at least she's aware of her own flaws. Mustard gets to say something cryptic, noting that we should all train "just so we're ready from the time comes..." whoa, wait, some actual foreshadowing for something else in the future? Is the Crown Tundra going to be more epic compared to this more light-hearted 'hey let's join a dojo and have fun' story? That's actually interesting. We get a 'The End', but apparently that's not all the DLC has to offer.

There's still a bunch of grinding for the Max Mushrooms and Max Dens and the like, of course, and I'm honestly somewhat seriously considering dropping money on Pokemon Home and the online services thing just for the hell of it. I'll get a Zeraora and might be able to get some of the other Pokemon like starters and trade evolutions from the GTS (and I could import some of my spare starters from my copy of Sun and Moon), but probably not in this week. I do really like the Isle of Armor, though -- the vibe of the overworld and a lot of neat quality of life changes, as well as making some of the more frustrating things in the base game a bit more palatable is neat.

One of the dojo students tell me about restricted sparring, something like a battle tower where you can only bring a single type of Pokemon. Looking at my current high-level Pokemon, the only ones I can really bring in are probably either Bug-type or Water-type. Sure.

There's a bunch of interesting rewards. Klara gives me the 'Klara 4-Ever' shirt, which is actually kind of cute and on-brand for her. Hyde has a Porygon in the living room and rants about it in a bunch of fun overlapping lines of dialogue, before giving me this awesome, retro Pokemon. Man, remember in the first generation 1 when Porygon's whole deal is that it's this super-advanced digital creature? It's now retro and quaint. Ah, how the times have changed.

There's a bit of a scene where Klara hangs out in Potbottom Desert trying to train her Slowpoke (didn't you have a Slowbro before, Klara?) and is all tsundere and stuff before giving me her other league card. Okay, sure. Kinda wished you had a more intricate arc, but she's kind of all right, I suppose. I read through the two newer league cards, and Klara's second league card has her with a face mask working out while her Slowbro is all derpy-derp. Klara apparently couldn't bear the training required for the Poison-type gym (what gym, though?) and ended up enlisting in the dojo because the master looked kind.

Speaking of the master, we get a neat nod to Opal, who used to fight Mustard when they were both young, but ended up falling into a spiral of depression and eventually his career self-destructed after losing his partner Pokemon (wait, what) and refusing to fight in a rigged match. Okay, fuck, I didn't expect something quite so deep from Mustard.

Also, we get random gym leaders showing up in the Isle of Armor. Marnie shows up in the Forest of Focus going all surprised and stuff, and Kabu shows up in the desert. None of them actually do anything, though. A shame. A battle with them having updated teams or like them wanting to trade or give free items would've been nice, but I guess this is just meant to be like a little easter egg more than anything.

And... that's about it for the Isle of Armor, I suppose! I still have to find all the Digletts, but it seems like the rewards are going to just be more regional variant Pokemon. I'm definitely going to do it in my own pace, though. There's also Honey's little Watt-upgrading project, and apparently Honey's league cards and the battle with her having either a Giga Venusaur or Blastoise is locked behind this Watt-upgrading thing. This is going to be something I eventually finish, but probably not in this week. I'll be maybe updating this part of the text let's play if/when I get around to doing it.

So... yeah. New Pokemon wise we didn't really get a whole ton. There's Kubfu and Urshifu, there's Galarian Slowpoke and Slowbro, and there are five different new Gigantamax forms for the Galar and Kanto starters. And for the most part, they're all great designs, and for the Galarian starters in particular I do feel like it's a very thematic addition, so I don't really mind. And I suppose that's all right for a DLC, especially a DLC whose main point of selling point is the titular Isle of Armor and the reintroduction of 100+ older Pokemon. Yet at the same time... I'm surprised we didn't get a Giga Galarian Slowbro, especially considering it's our new rival's ace Pokemon. What we do get, though, I'm actually pretty happy with -- if we take Isle of Armor and Crown Tundra together, that's probably around a dozen or so new Pokemons and new regional/Gigantamax forms, which is around the same ballpark of new additions in OR/AS and the Ultra Alola games.

Again, the DLC is still very pricey for what it ultimately is (even if it's sold alongside Crown Tundra) but I do like my Pokeymans and I do actually find myself enjoying this one a fair bit. It is definitely a decent little expansion, and while it's nowhere as content-heavy as something like The Witcher 3 or Skyrim's expansions or as well-integrated into the vibe and lore of the main game like Breath of the Wild, I do feel like this is a decent first effort. Probably not worth the $40 price tag, especially after how incomplete Sword/Shield could be and how you still need to pay to use some parts of the online services... but I dunno. Despite being in a foul mood about the Pokemon DLC for the past couple of months, I actually find myself really enjoying the Isle of Armor! And that's about it from me for this little expansion, at least until the Crown Tundra. I'll probably add a couple of addendum paragraphs if/when I manage to grind enough Watts to fight Honey.

Random Notes:

• Let's react to new Pokemon games here because I don't think my reaction is enough for a new post, but holy shit guys NEW POKEMON SNAP! I am extremely excited for this, the graphics look so good (granted, it's a trailer, but I think the graphics look better than Sw/Sh) and it's fucking Pokemon Snap, guys, I played this game twenty years ago! Which makes me feel super old, but holy shit guys New Pokemon Snap! 
• Also, I finally gave in and watched the Crown Tundra trailer. It's neat! Looking at the content added in Isle of Armor, we're probably getting just the new legendary, the two new Regis, Galarian Slowking, and the three regional legendary birds. And maybe it's just because they're legendaries, but man, the new Regis and the new Galar versions of the legendary birds are awesome! Dark Phoenix Moltres looks badass, Roadrunner Zapdos is probably my favourite for how surprisingly well it works out, and masquerade ball Articuno looks so pretty! The two new Regis, Regieleki and Regidrago, look kind of underwhelming in the half-a-second glimpse of them we saw in previous trailers, but in motion, they look pretty dope. I don't like Calyrex and it looks weird, but I don't hate it either. Isle of Armor's storyline does imply that we're getting a bit more plot-heavy stuff in Crown Tundra, but either way, even if it's just exploring the tundra and investigating the Regi ruins and the weird Yggdrasil-esque tree, I think I'll still enjoy it.
• In addition to the six Isle of Armor dudes, I also trained my Coalossal (which I abandoned around halfway through my original Sword playthrough) and my Arctovish up to the 70's. I also got the free Type: Null up to a Silvally and he's pretty neat to fight raid battles.
• Adding Chansey and Blissey as common spawns in literally the entire island (other than obviously ocean areas) is actually a neat way to get some experience points and grind for them if you don't want to use exp candies. 
• Lurantis and Fomantis are in this game! I somehow missed the two of them entirely despite going in and out of the Forest of Focus so many times. 
• I'm not sure if the chairman that told Mustard to throw a match is supposed to be Rose or not. I mean, Rose is a lot younger than Mustard, bu it could be that Mustard was already pretty old when maybe-Rose told him to rig that match. 

Addendum: Welcome to the Internet

So apparently I had Nintendo Switch online activity purchased somehow when I bought the DLC, and I have it active for a month. So I ended up doing a bunch of wonder trades surprise trades and did a bunch of max raid battles and... man, the max raid battle experience is so much less frustrating when it's three or four real people against the AI that it's not even funny. And sure, "go buy the damn online subscription, it's a lot cheaper than the game" is an excuse, but I still don't really like max raid battles at all. I mostly just put the Switch on my lap while doing max raid battles while I watch TV shows and whatnot. Being allowed to join into other people's raids is a fun bit, though, because now I can slide and pick whatever raid I find interesting. 

So far, I've gotten a Gigantamax Garbodor and a Gigantamax Toxtricity from the online max raids I'm doing with people, which I think are the two big 'wants' from me as far as G-Max Pokemon go. I really do like the silliness of Giga Garbodor and the cool factor of Toxtricity. 

Online wonder trading has been... interesting! The lack of a GTS is a huge kick in the nuts (although apparently Pokemon Home has the GTS system?) but wonder surprise trading has been fun. I wonder traded like a lunatic in my Pokemon Y years, and within a day of non-stop button mashing, I've gotten a bunch of Pokemon that I really wanted. A Mimikyu (who I've never encountered in my game) and a bunch of version exclusives like Heracross and Galarian Corsola. As you might imagine, the Corsola is the biggest win for me. I try my best to trade out either Isle of Armor Pokemon (for the people who didn't get the chance to buy the DLC) or Sword-exclusive Pokemon.

One huge thing that I got in the wonder trade is... a Shiny Primarina! What the hell, that's amazing. I've never really looked twice at Shiny Primarina, but changing the colour of his light blue hair to blonde and adding a bunch of pink trims does look so pretty! ...and of course, sadly, my wonder-traded shiny Primarina is actually nicknamed something that is kind of offensive. Oh well, I got a free shiny out of it so I can't complain.

I also booted up the 'free' version of Pokemon HOME, something I've got installed on my Switch for a while but never actually opened up... and Grand Oak is there to greet me. What a character, Mr. Grand Oak, I genuinely had no idea you existed and I am so happy they made you up. You're so much more interesting than the other previous Pokemon storage NPCs. The basic simple version of Home, I think, only allows me to swap back and forth between Home, Let's Go and Sword/Shield. I'm going to have to do a little paying and finaggling to import things from my 3DS games.

I got my shiny Zeraora from the distribution event, plus I got a trio of Galarian starters with their hidden abilities. If nothing else, transferring Pokemon back and forth from Home to Sword or Let's Go seems pretty dang convenient. It's kind of irritating that the mobile and Switch versions of Home seem to have completely different functionalities. You can only claim rewards and access the GTS from the mobile version of Pokemon Home... which is a bit weird. And you can only transfer Pokemon from Home to the main games from the Switch -- that part makes sense, at least. Not the biggest fan of Zeraora, still, but it's certainly another one that I feel looks a lot better in motion.

I might probably splurge on the premium plan for Pokemon Home some time in this year when I bother to dig out my generation 6 cartridges. I do have my backlog of legendaries from generation 4 and 5 stored on my generation 6 games, and I was honestly kind of sort of wondering where I'm going to store them to -- I'm just not the biggest fan of a completely digital service is all, and the fact that Sword/Shield can't actually store all of my trans-generational Pokemon is always something that I felt iffy with. Maybe I'll just transfer the ones that can 'survive' the jump from XY/ORAS/SuMo into Home into Sword? We'll see.