Let's Play Pokemon Sword: Crown Tundra, Part 1: The Cold Never Bothered Me Anyway

Nia buggers off to go to a Max Raid or whatever, and Peony goes off to rush after her, but, me being me, I end up exploring at least the surrounding areas of the Crown Tundra. 

So I was just a wee bit late in getting to play this. No real reason, it's just that I wasn't paying attention to dates and the like so I didn't quite manage to get to the whole "Day 1 Release Hype!" like the rest of the fandom. 

Anyway, DLC number 2, Crown Tundra! I did have fun with Isle of Armor, as much as I still do think that the overall experience is kind of... lacking? I dunno. Sword and Shield as a whole is such a weird beast as a game, and its very staggered release date is kind of a weird one. Still, Crown Tundra! I am excite! Technically the final part of the region of Galar. 

So after the DLC works its magic and the game directs me to go to Wedgehurst Station, I stocked up on Ultra and Quick Balls, and swap around my party for a bunch of new faces -- mostly Pokemon that I kind of want to play around with because they look cool, with my current party that I bring around to the Crown Tundra consisting of the high-level Frosmoth from my original playthrough (because Crown Tundra), plus three new faces -- a Runerigus, a Cursola, a Galarian Slowbro and a G-Max-able Appletun. (Oh, and feed them full of candies to get them to level 60) Cursola's a fun one since I really wanted to use one but it's not available on Sword. Mine is a wonder-traded German one, so it's called by its badass German name of Gorgasonn. I left a slot in the party empty for whatever new Pokemon I might be happy to add to my party from the Tundra, as well as the undoubtedly plot-mandatory Calyrex. 

And turns out that the Crown Tundra is on the south side of Galar, which is kind of weird to me. I've always assumed that it would take place on the far north, since the north side of Galar is also pretty ice-covered, but... okay, sure. As usual, I really enjoy the train animation. 

And I'm immediately greeted by a dad and her daughter, Peony and Nia (Peonia, technically, but I don't have enough energy in me to try and figure out two similar-sounding names). And... these sure act like energetic anime characters! I don't hate them, but I do find them pretty indifferent. I would rather have the side characters be a bit goofy and over-the-top than just generic and serious, though, so just like Klara and Mustard from the previous expansion, I definitely would prefer them to be silly. 

The plot's pretty paper-thin, but it is a nice little excuse plot. Peony and Nia are apparently here on vacation, and Peony is one of those overly-excited irritating parents that just wants to be a bit too excited in being a cool dad (or, borrowing the man's catchphrase, ultra-mega-cool) and is utterly overbearing while also actually being very nice and silly about it. Meanwhile, Nia is the sort of overly-angry independent teenagers who refuse to have anything to do with their parents' plans and just wants to fuck off on her own. Both are kinda-sorta irritating characters in their own way, and I've met people in real life that behave identically to them and need a good talking to. Let's see if these two get some character development to make them less irritating!

In a neat bit of freedom, the game actually allows me to say no to Nia's random requesting of a stranger for help (which is what I would do IRL, what they do is their business and it's like, just an argument over vacation plans) but then Nia just asks me to fight her dad and apparently Peony's an ex-gym-leader. An ex-Steel type gym leader, one of the few types not otherwise represented among the Galar gym leaders. He's got a Copperajah and Aggron, at which point... yeah, I need to get my team up to the 60's and 70's, huh. Somehow, my Frostmoth manages to beat two Steel types, and I'm not entirely sure how that happened. I think I used most of my party as a sacrificial lamb in switching in and switching out. 

I just sort of run around and this part of the Crown Tundra is just a huge exercise an 'hey, we have all the Ice-type Pokemon!' We've got Abomasnow, Piloswine, Cryogonal, Jynx and Amaura... turns out Amaura aren't extinct anymore and they just waddle around like the cuties they are. I guess Kalos's fossil-restoration professors might've gone a bit overboard? Also making sense in the Tundra area are Swablu (I bet they're warm in their cute floofy feathers) and Audino... which I've never thought about it, but Audino does look like someone who'd be fine in the cold.

Out of these, Swablu (who almost immediately evolves into an Altaria) gets to be the sixth member of my party. I've always adored Swablu. I've used an Altaria in my many, many Hoenn playthroughs, but I do like it enough that I wouldn't mind using one again. 

I get to see that they do have a small town in Crown Tundra, called Freezington. A very descriptive name. They've got old people! I think these are actually brand-new human models, so they actually made some new assets instead of just the two or three new Pokemon and the environments. Apparently all the young people buggered off to live in the city, leaving these grandmas and grandpas behind. One of them tried to sell me Carrot Seeds, and, uh, asks me for Dynite Ore, which I'm going to assume is the annoying farmable resource like Armorite Ore. Okay, sure. It's a charming small town. 

Utterly randomly in Freezington is a fucking Cosmog, just casually chilling with an old lady. This isn't Nebby, it's Fwoofy, and she just appeared out of nowhere with a bunch of random Pokemon. What? Obviously, something that I'll be able to claim later on, but still. What? A random Cosmog? And it's not in the bag??!?!

Nearby is the less-snowy area called the "Giant's Bed", with Nidorans, Eevee and... Aerodactyls? The Crown Tundra does have a bunch of fossil Pokemon just casually no longer extinct. I am glad that the entire expansion isn't just going to be a snowy wild area. In addition to the hail being annoying, one of the biggest charming parts of the Isle of Armor is how many different terrains it manages to fit into its map. There's a lot of ruins in the Giant's Bed, but I didn't really venture too far out. 

Oh, and there are random footprints in the snow! These are the Crown Tundra's equivalent for the Alolan Digletts, I suppose. Except there's actually more of a motivation to get these ones! Sonia shows up, and I'm glad that she does! She's researching legendary Pokemon but isn't happy to be working in this weather. If I dressed up like she did, I'd be frostbitten, too. So apparently these footprints are clues, and if I have enough, I can hand them over to Sonia to get the way to track down certain legendary Pokemon that live in the area. Judging by the species names, I actually know that these are the three ungulate musketeers... which actually feel like a trio that would totally live in the tundra. 

That was most of what I did, really, just run around and explore the icy lands and whatnot, before continuing on with the Max Lair nonsense. At this point Peony's all overly-excited and being a moron (he is sort of worried about his daughter, though, so I'll give him a pass) and some generic NPC gives us exposition. Sure. 

And... and you know what? The concept of it is nice. But the execution... not so much. Or, at least, not so much if you don't have a fucking Nintendo Online Services subscription, which runs out after a month and I have to keep paying to access it. Oh man, yeah, I absolutely hate these sort of model of... well, it's basically monetization, yeah? And, sure, I get it, they need money for the servers and everything, but it makes playing this Max Lair thing on single-player utterly aggravating. 

So the idea is that these Max Lairs is an adventure with four people, and at the end is a legendary Pokemon. That's cool, that's like, a dungeon raid and stuff, right? Unlike most, I actually even like the fact that we can't enter with our own Pokemon but have to essentially bring a 'rental' Pokemon to make things challenging. It's giving me very strong Generation III Battle Frontier vibes, especially the Battle Factory, when I realize you're allowed to 'switch' the Pokemon with the Pokemon you encounter in the cave and defeat in the string of battles. 

Unfortunately it's all just fucking Dynamax battles.

And let me tell you, if the original game's mostly-optional Wild Area Dynamax battles didn't already tire me out, Isle of Armor's extreme-grinding fiesta certainly did. These ones, at least, doesn't have the stupid 'I will put up a shield at the halfway point of my health regardless of the damage you are doing' crap feature, which thank fucking god, but at the same time it's all just Dynamax battles. You fight and fight and see the same old boring recycled 18 G-Max animations and the slow panning shots over the Dynamax stuff over and over again. 

It's kind of frustrating, really, which kind of sucked a lot of the fun out of this because... I actually do like the idea of most of this. Choosing the pathway? Managing the health of your Pokemon since it doesn't get restored between battles? Having to use rental Pokemon? Even as much as I'm indifferent about the multiplayer aspect, the idea that the four party members must synergize to decide whose Pokemon is best to swap out is an interesting one. 

But a combination of it just being the same old Dynamax battles and the whole I-must-pay-for-multiplayer thing... yeah, it really soured me off the Max Lairs. 

-sigh-

The biggest saving grace, again, is that they removed the goddamn shields from the base game's Dynamax Battles, and if they quietly removed all of the shields from the Dynamax battles in the original and the Isle of Armor's Wild Area, I would be 100% okay with it. That's an utterly stupid gimmick that just artificially prolongs the battle without adding any sort of actual difficulty anyway. 

And at least if I can't go online I can turn animations off, because otherwise my first run through the Max Lair took so long and it's so repetitive. I did enjoy the swapping-Pokemon aspect and the fun simplistic dungeon-pathway stuff, so it's not all bad. 

Anyway, because I'm a total moron, I didn't realize that Peony was supposed to look like Chairman Rose until random NPC scientist lady points it out. I guess that's why he's using Steel-types? He's probably Rose's brother or some shit. Oh, and I do like the brief nod to the original main story about how there's a bit too much Galar particles in the Max Lair, so I have to bring their special, Galar-particle-resistant Pokemon as an excuse for the whole rental Pokemon system. 

Anyway, my first Max Adventure Lair Max Dynamax stuff had me fight against a Gigantamax Sandaconda, a Gastrodon, a Scolipede, and finally a Suicune. It's actually a fun bit of having to actually manage my resource and plan ahead, because turns out facing off Suicune with a Scolipede that has absolutely nothing in its arsenal that can really damage Suicune? Kind of a stupid thing to do. More stupid than that, though, are my three AI companions, all of which kept doing stupid defensive moves (the goddamn Dynamax creatures can remove your buffs) or, in the case of my stupid AI companion with an Oranguru, refuses to do anything but Instruct. 

So yeah, I lost to the Suicune, because all my allies kept dying. I do find it an... interesting choice that I can only keep one of the Pokemon I caught. But I keep throwing pokeballs at them? I'm not sure why that's necessary? But okay, I do get to keep the Gigantamax Sandaconda, which is one of the ones I don't actually own, because I never encountered one in the Wild Area, because a rotating population of available Gigantamax encounters is another feature that I just dislike. 

After my utter failure in the Max Lair, I met Peonia. She's got great hair! She's just totally obsessed with the Max Lair Dynamax Battles of Max Adventures of Max, and she just wants to stay in the Max Lair forever and ever. You do you, kid. She basically pawns off her dad on me, though, because her dad has cooked up this elaborate 'adven-tour' (if you didn't already get heavy dad energy from Peony, the puns will do it), and she's at least not that shit of a daughter to leave her dad dejected and alone. So I've got to be Peony's surrogate kid. Okay, sure. 

Peony, on the other hand, is ultra-mega-hurt, because he tripped trying to look for his daughter behind some rocks. As the tired scientist lady asks, 'is your daughter a Rolycoly sir?' She doesn't have a name, but she is low-key one of my favourite NPC's in this game. Peony's a weirdo, and he's overly enthusiastic to bring me along in his adven-tour for hunting legends. Okay, sure! Overworld exploring,  I'd be up for that so much more than Max Lair Adventure Raid nonsense!

One good thing that I can say about the Max Lair stuff? The scientists actually will remember what legendary Pokemon you encounter last, and allow you to 'retrace' your steps to fight it so that if you get a fucked-up team (whether you're playing with A.I. or just random humans on the internet, it's bound to happen) you won't lose anything if you encountered like a rare legendary Pokemon. So, yeah, thank goodness for that. 

So after picking a Nidoking with all three elemental punches, I blazed through my next batch of dynamax battles (which, this time around, was a lot easier) and meet Suicune and just Thunderpunch it the fuck to death. So yeah, I have a Suicune now. I'm not sure if all the legendaries will be as easy to capture with the Dynamax Pokeball or whatever, but I bet I won't have a fun time having to fight like, a Dynamaxed Giratina or Reshiram or Xerneas or something with a bunch of A.I. dumbasses.

With only four lives and the A.I. trainers not knowing when not to use Wide Guard or Rain Dance, it's very aggravating. Also another point of contention? The A.I. trainers won't ever dynamax, but the cooldown still applies as it does if you play with other trainers, so anyone playing alone is basically handicapped for half the run. 

My second, animation-off run was a bit less painless, and by a bit I mean my A.I. teammates managed to pick the right Pokemon and didn't hang on to Pokemon in red (which they did in both Suicune runs) before I reached the Tapu Bulu, where they are at least consistent in clicking the moves that do damage. 

Anyway... yeah. Part of it is I guess my fault for playing this without multiplayer on, but if I do the Dynamax animations annoy the heck out of me and if I don't, the game's a gigantic festering ball of irritation thanks to the dumb A.I., so... yeah. I really, really wished they had done something that's a bit less shoehorned in our face for the next generation's gimmick or multiplayer gimmick, please. Like, okay, things like Gen IV's Underground or Gen VII's weird (and stupid) four-way battle are kinda half-assed, but at least they aren't something I minded if you play with them in single-player, and they're not necessary for me to play through the game or catch legendaries or whatever, y'know?

I dunno. Sorry to end the first segment of Crown Tundra in such a bummer, but I was already all bummed out about dynamax raids being so utterly prevalent in Isle of Armor, and even though I was pretty excited about exploring this new land and the Nia/Peony story and meeting Calyrex and all that jazz, I just got so exhausted just fucking with the max raid battles. So... yeah. Like, Crown Tundra and Sword/Shield in general does a lot of things right, but as far as a repeatable, possibly-social feature goes, this just is something that I went from being apathetic about to full-blown irritation. Got to get that off my chest, sorry, because those are my honest opinions about it. 100% more power to you if you have a fun group of friends that can play Max Lair Max Adventure Raid with, and that's great... but I don't, and I don't have the internet services subscription, and the experience I had with it just feels 'a great concept that I just can't enjoy'.

Next up, more story, and hopefully I'll be a lot less salty. 

Random Notes:

• 
  The larger amount of NPC's that are spread out a bit more in the Crown Tundra, compared to the Isle of Armor where all the NPC's are in the dojo, does make this feel a bit more like a lived-in area. Except that it's still mostly just Wild Area, and by god I do miss trainers.
• Some fun Pokedex entries here. I've only caught a handful, but apparently Jynx used to be worshipped by the people of Galar as the 'Queen of Ice', and Aerodactyl has never been perfectly restored -- a fun little nod to something that the fandom have always suspected, the 'Rock' side of fossil Pokemon reflects on how the resurrection process isn't perfect. I bet the real Aerodactyl had feathers. Or maybe the real Aerodactyl is just Mega Aerodactyl.
• "EXCUSE ME SIR, IS YOUR DAUGHTER A ROLYCOLY?"
• I was about to raise a stink about the lack of Pokemon following me, but turns out that they do. Boy, I would've looked like a complete moron (a complete tosser, since we're in the British lands) if I said that, huh?
• Speaking of British, I feel like the Crown Tundra is a lot better in using random British slang like 'kip' or 'noggin', and at one point you get the option to say 'wotcher, my name's X' which I appreciate a lot. 
• Not so well done is the bit in the story where Peony says 'can you imagine if I actually talked like that', and I'm not quite sure what he was referring to. 
• I found a held item called an 'Utility Umbrella', which shields the Pokemon from weather conditions. It's got such a fun and flavourful effect, even though being able to avoid rain and sun effects seems to be pretty pointless to sacrifice your held item slot for. 
• Cryogonal had a catch rate of 7.7%. I have to note this, because this isn't actually terribly bad. But for the amount of trouble I had with that one single Cryogonal I met and tried to catch, it sure feels like it had a much, much smaller catch rate!
• The Pokemon in the Max Lair Adventure or whatever actually have a nice touch where their movesets are very likely to have one of the weird new moves from Isle of Armor. Which is not only a way for the moves to show up outside of your own party members, but also a way to get them without spending in-game resources!
• I've used Suicune in playthroughs of Johto games before, so I'm not in a hurry to use one, but I've replaced the Altaria with Tapu Bulu, a Pokemon I've never really used. There's not really going to be a whole ton of battle it seems. If the max raid battle is a bit more appealing I'd actually do a full-legendary team with the first six Pokemon I caught there.