The WASTED POTENTIAL of Pokémon Sword and Shield 

Whew, this took forever to make. SO, what's YOUR opinion on Pokémon Sword and Shield? Would you like to see more of gen 8?

The fact they introduced regieleki for dlc made how Chairman Rose was written even worse, since the Dex entry literally states how it could power all of Galar. A Pokémon that could power Galar without dynamax rampages and just so happens to be sealed up in the tundra where the chairmain's brother lives. And the game does nothing with this.

(Writing in the start of the vid lol) Truly the worst thing about sw/sh IS the fact that you can see the bones of a good game. The character design was phenomenal and some of the pokémon designs introduced here are my favorites! Even some of the area designs are nice! But they clearly didn’t want to let it cook longer and the story plateaus so hard that it’s embarrassing… I remember playing the climax and being immensely confused at how sudden and unprompted it went from dropping ‘lore hints’ to ‘BEAT THE BIG EVIL NOW DO IT NOW’ … ugh Anyways at least Raihan is my man now /j

As someone from the UK I was so excited for a region based on my home nation. After Unova I daydreamed about it so often. All in all I think it does a pretty decent job of getting the essence of the UK down. A lot of small details I initially overlooked because they are so normal to me. The spelling of mum instead of mom being one of them. I like that it has the bigger city areas but also the quaint picturesque areas like the hometown and balloonlea that are very cottage-core. And Spikemuth’s deprived state and strong local protectiveness of those who rise up is pretty accurate. I was so bothered by things like the lacking, almost non-existent routes BECAUSE I loved the little nods scattered throughout and knew there was so much you could have done to make diverse routes like in Hoenn or Unova where there’s mysteries and secrets and fun areas to find. Some elements and areas were good and had thought so it made the corners that were cut feel almost painful and disappointing to me. There’s just something lacking or a slight hollowness. I still think an elderly King or Queen style figure as the champion who turns out to be brutal despite their mild mannered exterior is such a missed opportunity too. And yeah we do love a good curry.

I wish Hop had had a "corruption arc" of sorts after losing to Bede, maybe even going to Chairman Rose in an attempt to get strong like Leon. A multi battle with Leon against Rose and Hop could have been cool. I think Galar did a good job of depicting the Pokémon-ification of the UK, especially with the implications of only those with connections and endorsements being allowed to become famous.

I remember some theories of SWSH's story being about Leon only being a ruse- that "unbeatable" was his marketed title- like N being a puppet king, but corporate.

This is why the fanbase are 100% wrong about the 3ds era being the downfall and if y’all going to say otherwise than criticize me!! Gen 7 is a masterpiece

I didn't even bother with Sw/Sh. I couldn't even be bothered once I DID have the money to get it. It seems unfinished, uninspired, and uninteresting. That being said, I'm excited to watch a nearly 3h video on it haha also they knew EXACTLY what they were doing with the human character design in this game

1:34:57 Ah, that is one of the things done right in S/V. Like, yeah, there are still some mons what are roaming aimlessly, but there are also a lot what are actually just do their things, be it eating, playing with each other or sleeping, also some fun interaction s like Sevipers fighting Zangooses, Jumpluffs and Drifloons being cast away if there is some windy weather occurs, occasional packs of Tauros or Cyclizars passing through, Sudowoodo pretending as a tree but then comically fast running away if you get too close or Zorua in a form of some random Pokémon behave unnatural in comparison so you could tell..

I feel like just the slightest, simplest change, just before the climax of the story, would make it much less confusing and messy. Instead of Piers saying that Leon had a meeting with Rose and inform you and Hop he would be late, he tells us he saw Leon being escorted by some Macro Cosmos employees to the Rose Tower, "in a not so friendly manner". Just that change creates a natural emergency based on the way of the action, instead of Hop randomly thinking rhat Leon is in trouble and something is wrong when, for all we know, it's just a simple meeting. Also, just sprinkle in some touches of Rose wanting to be the center of attention for everyone in the whole region at all times, throughout the game. This way, his "impatience" in the climax makes a world of sense. Brimging the Darkest Day just before the Final will turn everyones head towards you. You become the spotlight. And given that Rose has followed you quite a bit throughout the game, he knows you have actual, real chamces of beating Leon. Dethrowning the unbeatable King. Doing all this after the Final, especially if you beat Leon, does nothing for his persona. But doing it just before, with the whole region stuck on their TVs? Now THAT'S how you become the center of attention. That's how the whole world talks about you. And that's how, at the end of the day, you become a hero. Which I always felt was the path they wanted the plot with Rose to take.

I'm glad I wasn't the only one that likes this game and felt like it needed more.

I believe that, ever since Pokémon went 3D in Gen 6; Pokémon has been going on a decline, but I expected Gen 8 and onwards to be games that would make the Pokémon experience greater in every way... but we somehow ended up with games that feel with less content than those which were made for handheld consoles. Now we live in the era of Dexit, of blatant dishonesty from The Pokémon Company, of selling incomplete and poorly made games for 90 dollars when they're not even worth 60 dollars. When they announced that they axed the feature of being able to bring along any and all Pokémon from previous games into the newest games in exchange for "better looking graphics and animations" that, in all honesty, are embarrassingly bad compared to other games on the same console-- that's when I realized that Pokémon is dead to me. I've forgiven Pokémon for many things, but forcing Dexit upon us and then giving us a bullcrap excuse to justify their greedy and lazy choice was the straw that broke the camel's back for me.

UK person (living in England) here who watched a LP of Shield - I really liked your video! I never played the game as I have no Switch, but I appreciate all your points. For the culture stuff, from what I saw in the LP, I think they did a lot right and worked really hard on it. I especially liked the localisation, rural areas with the cottages and the attention to detail with the steps and signposts. They even had art based on the giant "hill figures" in UK fields. Deprived cities like Spikemuth having a strong local pride and culture also feel very accurate. Some disappointments for me included the caves and rocks in the base game - from what I could see, they were underwhelming parts of routes with thrilling names like "Galar Mine No.1" and "Galar Mine No.2". And the UK has great caves! Wales has some fascinating ones in particular. And a cave that springs to mind is Cheddar Gorge in Somerset, England, which I've been to on a school trip. It's where Britain's oldest complete skeleton was found, and which is currently still being used to make... cheese. Yes, really. The game could have had a lot of fun with something like that, and it's a shame we don't get any cool caves in the base game. And Stonehenge is so mysterious, but it shows up here as a barebones village and one of the worst Rock type designs in a while. It's a little bit disappointing. Additionally, it would have been good to see more inspiration for Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland show up in the games - they could have based the DLC more on these areas maybe, like they did with England in the base game? I was also not a fan of some of the Dexit choices. The UK has a ton of swans and deer, and there are memes or stories where a swan was strong enough to break someone's arm or where someone got into an accident because a deer walked in front of their car. But the Deerling and Sawsbuck lines got cut and I don't think they're in the DLC either. I know Stantler's more of a reindeer, but we didn't even get them! I would have loved for these 'mons to be there, and to maybe get some love via regional forms. Also yes, we do eat a lot of curry, I made a korma the other day and it was very nice sldhfkjshf

Also, as for ”dexit” situation. I’d say Gamefreak & Pokémon Company are unintentionally placed themselves in a trap here. So, you see, no other monster-taming-centered game series ever had that rule of thumb to always keep the whole roster in all subsequent games. Because people developing these games understood from the get go what if you will keep ALL AND EVERY one of your creatures in all subsequent games, then one day the amount of those creatures overall will be so humongous, so it just will be unfeasible to continue on keeping ALL of them in every new game. ESPECIALLY when you have to up your game’s graphically and then you’ll have to remade all that humongous amount of creatures from scratch to meet newer graphical standards. So, GF at first tried to do exactly that. Keep all and everyone of them in all games. So the playerbase became accustomed to that being a norm. Whereas realistically IT NEVER WAS a norm to begin with. And then I guess SWSH became a straw what break the camel’s back, so they just had to cut on amount of accessible monsters. OR WAS IT??? Actually nope. It seems what this time they absolutely could have had them all in (because this time it wasn’t the time where they had to redo all of them from scratch, even despite them saying that themselves) but for some reason they decided not to. Well, there’s one rumor what they apparently lost some of the models from 3ds era (exact models were used for SWSH) so they just had no other choice. But no matter the cause, of course such change from ”the norm” was perceived as negative, more so because the game itself was barebones so it couldn’t even be balanced out by positive things. Now, from my point of view, id say what dex cut still was inevitable (already explained prior) so I was ready for such decision to become a thing sooner or later. BUT I’d still say it certainly wasn’t the right time to do it. Oh no, absolutely not the right time.. Like, if the game itself were good overall, and if it had many positives to it, then sure, people wouldn’t had to react to DexCut as negatively as they did.. But oh well.. It just couldn’t be helped I guess..

the games felt empty, the graphics upgrade didn’t feel like it justified the cost going up while the content went down p, and the stuff that would be post game content in other games ended up as DLCs, put me off of the switch games

It’s worth noting that the lead up to Sw/Sh was a complete disaster. Dexit (and the strange lies/excuses around it) was the biggest part of course. But there were also things like a 24 hour “live feed” of the region that barely showed any Pokémon during it (with only the Galarian Ponyta at the end being the “brand new” reveal of the whole show. Whoever was in charge of hype marketing had NO idea what they were doing lol

legends eternatus in 2030 will save galar!!!

First of all, applause for the effort you put into making this video. Really enjoyed watching it! As a Scottish (UK) Player since Pokémon Blue, SW/SH is a strange one. The game has so many graphical, character and story flaws and I get upset thinking about all the wasted potential this game has… though on the other hand, the Gym Challenge and Max Lair is probably the most fun I’ve had since Pokémon Soul Silver and exploring the Crown Tundra (a region inspired by Scotland) was like a childhood dream come true. It honestly makes me wonder what a hypothetical 3rd Game would have done for Gen’ 8 as it’s mostly Emerald, Platinum, B/W 2 and US/UM that I found set the standard for the Generation. I do wish though they had taken more inspiration from Scotland, Wales and N.Ireland as most of the inspiration for Galar seems to pull from England. Even the majority of new Pokémon seem to pull from English folklore and I’m surprised they did nothing with Lapas, the Pokemon inspired by the Scottish Loch Ness Monster, when in the Crown Tundra. Also why the Isle of Armor wasn’t based on Wales or N.Ireland I don’t really get. If there ever was a Remake I would love for them Double Down on the Gym Challenge. Learn more about the Minor Leagues and earn your way up the ranks. Then if there was a Legends Game focus on the Legendaries as I feel we know the least about Gen 8’s Legendaries compared to all other ones. As a side the National Dish of the UK is a curry, “Chicken Tikka Masala” and it’s not uncommon for Pubs to have Historical Items in them like we see with the Final Tapestry in Galar… although this has been less common with Museums collecting them and general modernisation.

Glad to know we both had to make an entire video to lament this disaster of a game. Great video btw!

Thank you for the closed-captions ^^ You've talked well about the bad and good of swsh(almost done lol!). The Gyms and the characters/designs are my favorite things of it. ed: Also I like the Curry Dex!! & camping. But interacting with the 'mon feels limited.. though some of the animations are nice :)

First off: VOICE ACTING WAS A HUGE GRIPE OF MINE. Holy shit!!! Fire Emblem from the DS era had voice acting!!!! AND ANIMATED CUTSCENES. Pokemon doesn't animate cutscenes at all. Also the sentiment of "the adults need to do their part" was better implemented in Black and Whire, where the gym laders take on the Sages while you got to do *Protagonist Shit.* You weren't left out, but they made it clear that adults did care and didn't leave the fate of everything in a child's hands. The points I disagree on: - I was originally MASSIVELY against Dexit. My buds in the bank have been with me so long that some of them can legally drive! These are my Pokemon friends! But I realize that if this franchise wants to survive and keep making dozens of new pokemon, they have to leave some behind. We don't make a big deal when games like Digimon leave some out. BUT there was a side-effect I hadn't considered until recently. Pokemon, who hadn't seen any play, got competitive niches because of the limited choices. I think back to murkrow in early Scarlet and Violet. Murkrow is such a weak pokemon, but it became competitively viable! Seeing any pokemon from Generation 2 be competitive is so gosh dang rare that it was exciting. By shuffling the roster in every game, I think they keep competitive pokemon interesting and alive. Keeping the roster the entire dex makes the games stagnant. - Megas needed to be removed from online play. The designs were SO COOL. Honestly, these are beloved amazing designs. And having gengar with levitate finally gave us a competitively viable poison type!!! Losing the mega ability really dropped how usable Gengar was. And really, the Pokémon who lost the most were the Pokémon who needed the stat boost to begin with. Power creep really made pokemon like Pidgeot and Beedrill absolutely useless for competitive play. And if megas only gave these Pokémon the +100 base stat increase, then we would be all rioting for megas back. The problem is that Mega Evolution didn't just give needed buffs to weaker pokemon. It gave massive buffs to already OP pokemon like Lucario, garchomp, and rayquaza. It got to the point that not having one of these on your team was simply a handicap, so building interesting meta teams was harder. Competitively viable pokemon became so narrow that the archytpes got names: The Big 6, CHALK, and Double Primal. It is frustrating that the newer gimmicks don't have the same vibe as megas. Mega evolutions made you feel very close to your pokemon. Like they trusted you enough to evolve further. And their designs were outstanding! But! The newer gimmicks allowed for more varied play. In Mega games, you knew which pokemon were likely to get the gimmick. You knew how to cripple that team. But in the new games, you can make adaptable decisions on the fly. You lose the pokemon you normally gigantamax? Don't worry, you can still make use of the mechanic to keep the game going. You normally tera offensively to get more damage out, but your support pokemon have a bad matchup to the team you are up against? Defensive tera becomes an option. The new gimmicks are great! And being available to all pokemon is so, so valuable to the competitive play. You have to remember, most people only play pokemon for a few months and put it down again. But competitive players play FOR YEARS and have to keep it interesting. An evolving meta is healthy for that. All this to say: I love mega designs, I love mega in single-player games. But MAN am I happy to see them kicked from multiplayer. (Absolutely HYPED for Legends Z-A bringing them back for the single-player experiences though!!)

I feel like out of all Pokemon games, this one would’ve gotten a sequel or a 3rd version. Like everything was there in the story that lead to seeing where some characters would end up. But like XY, we’re left w wanting more and probably not gonna get anything for like 10 years

You've definitely earned a sub. Hearing someone who is a long time fan like me express such profound and vividly conveyed disappointment with this game in such a comedic and well written and researched manner is a breath of fresh air. Cheers

I'm at the dexit portion now, and I can definitely agree on a bunch of these. Despite the glitchy mess that is Tera raids at times I still like them more than Dynamax raids and especially Adventures on the single player experience simply because of the ai. Adventures also suffers from terrible boss balance. The minor legends are fine, but every restricted legend from gens 3 to 6 has the most unfair kind of power level compared to the luck you need to face them except for Yveltal and Rayquaza in that range. Good luck shiny hunting Kyogre and Groudon when they each have spread moves with a base power over 70 that they can and will fire off, some of which in respective weathers. Yveltal and Snarl were deadly but annoying but then came Xerneas with Fairy Aura Dazzling Gleam and Zygarde being far too tanky for a raid boss being fought by unoptimized rental mons, often having hindering natures in stats that matter because I should not be seeing Orbeetle outspeed Dugtrio as much as I should. Then comes the Creation trio with Pressure and a PP conservation check with Dialga and Palkia being nukes and Giratina not being too bad only because of his many weaknesses. And finally, the Tao trio are all nukes once again, further cementing that having lives lost due to dumb ai is a terrible game design choice. There is more I can complain about but my phone is about to start lagging from the length of this comment. As for Dexit, idk if you brought this up, but did you know there was apparently a tweet about a girl being excited to play with Bayleaf in SWSH that Masuda or someone on the team responded to, only for it to never happen? It also solidified my crackpot theory that they don't like gen 2 given that they decided to include gen 3's but not 2, 4 (though there was a remake on the horizon), or 5's starters. Hopefully they keep doing what SV did and keep them all. I think the main thing SWSH was going for was introducing people to competitive.

Finally someone other than me sees that swsh had such wasted potential. I really hope they do galar justice in the future the same way they are (hopefully) doing kalos justice in legends: z-a. I personally like so many aspects about the region itself but I do agree the games themselves were just done so dirty. The problems that I feel are very common among the community with swsh are: - the starters final evolution designs - the TREES (and graphics in general but I thought some areas looked cool) - the story - the following Pokémon - still a lack of voice acting especially in the cutscenes with Piers singing. You just hear the microphone make sounds and it’s just really awkward. - dynamax in terms of how it functions because everyone knows megas are better. I love the idea of giant, epic kaiju Pokémon battle but it felt a little unbalanced and weren’t executed well enough. - TEAM YELL - the Y-com And that’s basically all I can think of on top of my head. It’s really such a shame because I think the ideas in galar could have worked so well if they were just executed better and maybe if gamefreak had more time like everyone wants them to. Even with the DLC there are still many issues. I would love to see a legends game set in galar and I would love to have a boss fight with Eternatus like the noble Pokémon in Legends: Arceus although I wonder how that would work considering how massive Eternatus is actually meant to be. Unfortunately him and Wailord always get the short end of the stick and get shrunken down way too much when you use them in battles. I would like them to explore why Calyrex glows blue instead of the normal colour for dynamax when you dynamax it and I wish they gave something to Zarude so people don’t forget it exists. Maybe like a special jungle area and a cool side quest like mythicals used to have instead of being distributed because that’s lame. Edit: I forgot to mention Dexit. I personally never had an issue with it but I feel bad for people who’s favourite Pokémon have a chance to never be in the games unless they’re modded in or something.

I think a legends game would do wonders for galar

About to start this video! Wanted to say that Gen8 has been the only Pokemon game I've bought that I couldn't finish. I love the visual design of the NPCs, towns, and routes so much (except for the wild area), a lot more than SV's visual design, but the game still felt 'blah.' I haven't even gone to challenge the league yet. Maybe I'll be able to finish it, endure the post gone for Zamazenta, but it's just missing something crucial for me to enjoy the game. I just wish I knew what.

As a spaniard, everytime I saw "Kagada" in the video I giggled, it got me every single damn time XD.

It's gonna be weird when people start getting really nostalgic for galar

My best memory in the dlc is in the Dmax Adventure I had a pretty weak Raichu and it was on the Kyogre route and we were one loss away from getting kicked out. My online team had Pokemon that could use elec moves and Kyogre used Thunder and with Lightningrod as the ability Raichu got boosted to the point it could one shot. Good memories.

Yeah.. You know, while playing Scarlet/Violet in it’s (usual) messy technical state i sometimes wonder ”hey, maybe SWSH wasn’t that bad after all”.. But NO. It definitely WAS that bad.. Unfortunately.. Yeah, yeah people can (and should) complain what S/V was, and still is, a laggy mess of a game.. But at the very least, if you imagine it without those glaring technical flaws, it could stand its ground.. Now SWSH is clearly does not stand that firmly.. SWSH is like, a skeleton. It have an interesting background, interesting inspiration, interesting bits of lore (albeit we know minuscule of it) and yet it is just a skeleton. It doesn’t have any muscles or meat on it’s bones. It’s executed extremely formulaic in any corner.. It’s story feels like an early, very early draft from newbie writer, who still have no idea how to handle most crucial moments of the story.. And the same could be said about technical implementations.. Like, from a first glance it might look fine. Good even. All those routes are quite small but they looks fine in an on themselves. Yet soon you realize you could run through entirety of the region in the matter of like 5-10 minutes.. And then you see a ”wild area” what drastically shifts from little and tailored to look good routes, to barren and JARRINGLY flat patches of land.. That’s., quite a transition.. and not a good one at that.. Overall, I’d say, SWSH is one of the most(if not the most) glaring cases of wasted potential in this entire franchise.. Because in the case of other games, they might miss some content in the end, while these are missing it through and through..

Dude I just want to say THANKS A LOT! today i watched your vid while doing my Klara cosplay makeup and it entertained me so much. Thanks for the love you gave galar. I appreciate your hard work on this video. Please keep on doing such great content :3

1:18:17 huh, that's the first time I've seen anyone interpret that as Eternatus, rather than simply the G-Max Toxtricity shooting out a Max Lightning.

You're not being nitpicky, you're being thorough. And I, for one, appreciate it. Thank you for this excellently researched and well-crafted video. TPCI and GameFreak are companies that may never change, but that shouldn't prevent fans from observing the cracks in their methods nor should it stop critics like yourself from talking objectively about the products we're being sold. Again, thank you. And great work.

I am actually a fan of Gen 8. I like how people who have proved their strength take care of the issues that arise, not a snot nose 10 year old who shouldn't be the ones to deal with it, it's the only region where the adults seem to give a shit about happening. (Gen 5, partially as well, but they still want a 12-14 year old to help find criminals, looking at you Clay) I found this brought the region to life far more than other games, I mean why would Cynthia not stop team Galactic? because the story can't continue if she did, at the cost of her seeming like a lazy c**t. Leon takes care of business, I do think we could have gotten a cut scene where we see him take care of the Dynamax Pokemon, but i think missing it adds on to the fact we are not ready yet, we aren't of help or going to been as a help until we prove we have the strength to help by being the number 2 in the region. The gym tour is an event in gen 8, it's the purpose of the game, it's about proving yourself, and making battling a spectacle, i do think that the animations could have been better to really show this off but there not terrible. I don't hate the wild area as someone from the UK who lives near 6 parks, the wild area really looks like those parks, mostly grass with a few trees and a random man made "beach" or sand bank. Honestly the wild area is a pretty accurate medium to large park. It feels like it should have called the safari park instead of the wild area.

20:06 ngl, I actually got all of the fairy gym’s answers right, and it’s because I luckily chose the right time to read the league cards. Sometime between receiving Opal’s league card and fighting her at the gym, I decided to finally check out the league cards looking for lore details. Her favorite breakfast and favorite color were on there lol 😅

i only went through the rose and manga chapters since i REALLY should be asleep right now -- but i need to give my thoughts (as someone passionate about this game. autism does crazy things to someone lemme tell you). that being said this is going to be long, my bad shield is my favorite pokemon game thus far despite its myriad of flaws, and the reason is its characters. swsh suffers from the major problem of "pretty decent ideas, awful execution in writing." almost every character has an incredible amount of depth and attention to detail put into them -- but the issue is that its all either out of the way info or simply implied. i think a prime example is bede and roses relationship. theres so many tiny details that really exemplify the tragedy of bedes character, and specifically how rose treats him. a favorite of mine is rose giving him a hatenna, a pokemon where youre _forced_ to suppress your emotions if you dont want to scare it off. with bede describing his endorsement being revoked as being "disowned," clearly their relationship was more than bede hopelessly chasing after a man who was kind to him once. and yet, the game frames bede as something akin to a child throwing a tantrum. im sure i dont have to explain why thats inaccurate since youve read the manga, lol bede is the main example but this extends to the league; specifically, the exploitation of the gym leaders and leon, and especially of the children. the culture of galar means its gym leaders end up as internationally recognized celebrities, and even outside of the anime this can be inferred from the games by how the matches are huge events and how everything is covered in sponsors. but then you read the league cards -- allisters rare card has his face on it, his own cards treat his supernatural abilities as something hes just making up. beas cards go into detail about the frankly abusive nature of her upbringing, her rare card showcasing her smiling -- something she considers a flaw. consider how leon has been in the league since he was 10, and it paints a vivid picture of rose and macro cosmos as a whole. but thats the thing. this is all stuff you have to go out of your way to notice or find. stuff that no one will notice unless they already like the game and its characters. and thats a part of the reason why the manga is so good -- besides the story improvements, it literally handholds you through the more complex characters. it makes it IMPOSSIBLE to misconstrue them. when reading official material i shouldnt feel _validated_ in them confirming what i already inferred about my favorite character. anyway that is to say i totally agree and swsh are good games if youre insane (like me)

Yeaaah... I didn't want to play this game. I mean I liked the starters (even tho their designs weren't as good as those of previous gens but thats okay), I wasn't going to play this game but a friend of mine bought me Shield and i was gifted a used switch (that was still in good condiition) and I played it. I enjoyed all the character designs and the pokemon designs, i didn't even mind the dex cut because, there are a shit ton of Pokemon out now and it's impossible to keep bringing back old favorites over and over again. Anyway, the biggest thing disappointed me was that all throughout the story when there was something big happening, you the player, the main character of the story are told by the champion Leon, to ignore the possible dangers going on and go about your gym challenge while he and the other "adults" solve the problem. And instead of witnessing an awesome cut scene where Leon at least prepares to face off against whatever is going on (kinda like how Hau's grandpa was preparing to face off against Tapu Koko in the og Sun and Moon games when all the Guardian/Tapu pokemon were running wild), we're just given the TDLR version by Hop that his brother took care of things. Like I thought that all of the trainers across all regions are supposed to help out with emergencies like dangerous Pokemon being out of control and whatnot. And dont get me started on the post story.

Sword & Shield give me such mixed feelings, as someone from (and still living in it) the UK I was hyped for Pokemon Games finally based on my Home Country yet was pretty disappointed with it though after how glitchy Scarlet & Violet turned out and that the story, especially Indigo Disk was so meh i'm actually looking back more fondly on Sword & Shield and prefer over them (I really hated seeing people and mountains glitch out of existence when playing). I had no idea the Manga fleshed out the Plot so much, it's depressing. I bet they kept the Game Plot simple to keep it aimed at a young audience. Honestly? I liked that our Character was treated like a Teenager and not fixing problems that adults should be doing, my issue is how they dragged us into a background plot and treated the Player as knowing about everything that was going on. The plot should've continued to concentrate on our Gym Challenge and even expand on it since the Rose stuff was being handled by Leon and everyone else. I love your idea of making Swordbert and Shieldbert the Main Villains of the Game, that would've been much better. I also personally love Hop he's actually my favourite Rival and think he's everything Wally should've been. Dexit, I will never be a fan of it not matter how anyone tries to defend it. It did not need to happen and it we done to gatekeep Pokemon and force players to keep them on Pokemon Home and pay for it. The reason why Nintendo/Pokemon Company won't add Voice Acting is because they don't want to payout for it, it's sheer greed. For me, Gen 9 is the worst Generation the never ending glitches ruined it for.

I agree and I hate the current ones but need a remake asap

At least the game was playable; I haven’t even bothered trying to finish the train wreck that is Scarlet and Violet.

Oh and I wasn’t over leveled or ev/iv trained I was on level and some of my Pokemon were under level and I just leveled my Pokemon with candy so I tried my best to be on level with the npcs the only thing that would be considered broken is I used 2-3 potions per battle which are broken but if the npcs can use potions in battle then so can I

Pokemon SwSh is the game I dislike the most

Recently went back and finally finished my 6th and playthrough of Sword that I started and put down right before SV came out these games could have been perfect but a lot of wasted potential

02:21:59 tu é br também mano? Kkkk mt bom o vídeo, fiquei ouvindo no trampo aqui.

tava vendo o video de boas pensando q vc era britanico e do NADA a revelação de q vc é BR otimo conteudo amg, meus maiores problemas c SwSh são a falta de dublagem e as mentiras q a gamefreak contou. mas eu amo os pokemons novos introduzidos principalmente Calyrex, espero q eles façam algo nos moldes de Calyrex sempre, só ficar interagindo c o lendario até resolver o problema dele, ajuda muito c a parte de apego a um pokemon q na maior parte do tempo só vai ficar na box

Sw/Sh reminded me X and Y, trying something new and it being very flawed but very fun too. I enjoyed it and still sometimes play for online battles and dynamax adventures.

You put him in the "realized potential" section, but to me, Hop's arc is still one of the biggest examples of wasted potential in the game. As it is now, it's just a half-baked mashup of Bianca's and Hau's arcs that doesn't do either the "giving up battle and becoming a professor" or "being overshadowed by a famous relative" aspects as well as them On paper, some things work. Hop trying his best and still not being able to live up to Leon's reputation, but finding what he is good at instead is an interesting idea for a rival, but like I said, both of the main aspects of his arc are done better by prior characters and all Hop does is mash them together in an uninteresting, and sometimes incongruous way. To me, him choosing to become a Professor of all things is the most emblematic part of his wasted potential. Because... why a PROFESSOR? He says that he likes to help people, but what about being a Professor specifically is about helping people any more than, say, a firefighter? Hop could come out and say that he wants to be the next Ball Guy and it would fit just as much as his claim that he wants to be a Professor At no point do we see Hop develop any interest in academic research. Hell, half of the time Sonia shows up to talk about the history of Galar, Hop tries to rush things and steer the direction back to battling anyway. If we take the Isle of Armor into account, then he's not even particularly GOOD at helping or making observations about nature, since he drags us around the island making no progress because he doesn't know the difference between nectar and honey and doesn't think to slow down for half a second. It feels like they only made him a Professor to force a parallel with Sonia, making him the Sonia to our Leon, but it just doesn't make any sense for his personality or interests for him to choose that particular career path What gets me is that you actually present the solution to it at the end of the video: Pokemon Battle MANAGEMENT. The game is constantly telling us about how Hop studies battle tactics in order to beat Leon. He's the one making comments about our use of Super Effective hits or Critical Hits. He's always going on about things like perfecting his throwing technique. The fact that he changes his team up shows his willingness to experiment with various tactics. So why not make him a Pokemon Battle TEACHER? And if that's too similar to Cheren in B2W2 or you don't think it makes sense given that Galar is the only region that inexplicably does not have a Trainer School, then a COACH to expand upon the parallels to modern sports. As it stands now, Hop makes it all the way to the finals for Gym Challengers and loses and just... gives up having anything to do with battle as a career forever, and I don't think that that makes any sense for him at all. He's a GREAT battler, and what better way to utilize his skill, deep knowledge and passion for battle tactics, desire to help others, and deepen the sports aspect of the game than making him some sort of coach for aspiring Gym Challengers? Compare that to Bianca, whose decision to become Professor Juniper's assistant at the end of the game is actually developed throughout the game. Even after our first battle with her, she's more amazed at the power of our Pokemon than the outcome of the battle, showing early on how her interest is in the actual Pokemon themselves and not necessarily combat. She's always asking questions about the world around her, and in Chargestone Cave we see her stay behind and spend time with Professor Juniper, giving us the implication that they're bonding offscreen and talking about the realities of being a Professor. She also brings up the idea of being a Professor before the postgame where she makes her decision. Hop has none of that, and at times actively goes against it by not really caring that much about Sonia's research And while Hop's relationship with Leon is still decently well done, I still find it weaker than Hau's similar desire to escape from his family's shadows, and it drives me nuts how often people completely miss Hau's whole character arc and act like Hop having essentially the same core conflict, but with a different outcome, is groundbreaking. To an extent I can understand why, because SuMo's presentation of it is a bit weak (and I say this as someone who's loved Hau since SuMo, but even I'll admit that his arc was done much better in USUM... and was the only arc that was better in USUM), but reducing Hau down to just a happy-go-lucky rival with no real depth while building up Hop is such an insult to Hau and I see the fandom do it constantly People forget that, like Leon to Hop, we are not Hau's endgoal; Hala is, and as such Hau's main goal isn't to be a Champion, but to be a Kahuna. The biggest difference that I find that makes Hau's story more compelling than Hop's to me is that Hau is ALREADY living with the aftermath of Hala's shadow. It's told to us in various NPC dialogue and explicitly in the SuMo postgame, but Hau's father literally left the entire Alola region and his whole family because he was sick of being compared to Hala, abandoning his young son and wife (who we can find in Hala's house) because he couldn't handle the pressure of being seen as a Kahuna's son. Hau is growing up in a broken home, and all he wants to do is succeed where his father failed, not by running from Hala's shadow and tearing apart his home, but by besting Hala and overcoming his shadow entirely. He mentions in the SuMo postgame that being the Champion is something he'd want to do to show off to his father if/when he ever sees him again, and I've always taken that to mean that he considers the Champion title to be an impressive feat that proves that he's left Hala's shadow that he can actually obtain right now, since we're told that the position of Kahuna is for life (so he can only become a Kahuna once Hala passes away) And because people miss that context, they miss the entire point of his characterization and progression. Hau's cheerful nature is a FACADE. Gladion calls it out when you first meet him. He says that Hau IS strong, but he's kneecapped by not taking battles seriously. Why? Because he's afraid of losing to Hala even if he does give the battle his all, failing to overcome the same pressure as his father that caused him to tear their family apart. He's afraid of failure, so he chooses not to try all that hard, giving himself an excuse if he loses by claiming that he wasn't really doing his best anyway, so of course he lost. This way, he doesn't have to take responsibility for his failures and risk becoming disillusioned like his father did. Lillie's kidnapping is his turning point in both games, where he realizes that by not taking things seriously and trying to minimize his responsibility for failures, he's set himself up to ACTUALLY fail in situations that require serious effort. And it's through this that he learns how to actually overcome Hala as a Kahuna, because a Kahuna isn't just a good battler, but a local leader who bears responsibility. This is part of why I like USUM's additional scene with Hau in the Hau'oli Cemetery during Mina's trial, because he makes it more explicit that his way of doing things before was also hurting his Pokemon, who wanted to win for him but lacked his leadership to do so. It demonstrates how he's changed and how he's learning to reconcile "having fun" with responsibility, how his prior justification of "having fun" wasn't actually fun for anyone and just an escape mechanism to avoid a possibly unhappy reality Hop's relationship with Leon isn't even bad, and I do find the idea of him ultimately FAILING in his goal where Hau succeeded to be an interesting twist that could have set him apart, but in comparison to Hau they just don't DO anything with it to relate it back to the themes of the game, and it ultimately comes across as just setup for the nonsensical Professor career swap. There was so much potential to expand the idea into the more sports-oriented aspects of Galar by showing Hop wanting fame and trying to be more showy, marketing himself as Leon 2.0, and trying to make his own fanbase the way that Marnie has Team Yell all in an effort to get his family's attention only for his fans to leave him after a catastrophic loss to Bede rather than just having him lose to Bede offscreen and then feeling bad about being worse than Leon for the rest of the game. They could have tied him more to the "strength" themes that they claim to have by showing him as the SHIELD to Leon's SWORD, with Leon having the offense and power, but lacking the tactical prowess that Hop has, and Hop coming to realize that a slower and more analytical approach can be a different kind of strength when compared to his prior rushing around trying to catch up to Leon. This could all come to a head in Hop choosing to become a battle coach/manager, accepting that he doesn't need the same fame that Leon has to be his equal by taking a less showy job, becoming the shield who protects and helps the newer Gym Challengers in contrast to Leon's sword that inspires them to take action The end result for me is that Hop ends up lost in the mess of rivals in SwSh, all of whom really fail to live up to their full potential from interesting concepts in my eyes, but at least Marnie and Bede don't actively make me want to rip my hair out the way that Hop's decision to be a Professor does. He's ultimately a victim of SwSh's overall shoddy and rushed writing the same as everyone else, but Hop is the character that I find the most frustrating because the ideas are there, they just aren't pushed to the level that they could be and that's what makes him the biggest waste of opportunity in my eyes

O jumpscare do Brasil eu realmente não tava esperando kkkk, ótimo video e trás pontos que nenhum outro video sobre ShSw que eu vi abordaram, como a história do anime e mangá e a exploração, além disso, é muito bom ver um video de um br analisando Pokémon de uma maneira mais crítica e elaborada e vendo também os pontos positivos (que no caso desse jogo são poucos mesmo 💀), já que a maioria das criticas acabam sendo feitas apenas dos problemas de performance e gráficos.

Game freak is the worse company of all time. They're so lucky pokemon has a crazy good fan base. They can't even give us voice acting in 2024 yet

man I love gen 8 but the story that was there felt rushed an honestly unfinished. the thing that bothers me the most, is Bede has so much depth and they just kinda....did nothing with that? aaa also, its not "bayday" in masters EX his voice actor actually says his name out loud and its just "Beed". Bede's namesake is after beetroot, and his character developement nods to this as well. and I want to add we learn about Bede being a former orphan long before the mural. its on the back of his trainer card that he gives you in galar mine 2.

While the SwSh block of the TCG was kinda at its lowest at the time, it also brought about a Renaissance of sorts in terms of TCG art. Creatures hired a lot of unique artists and animators to illustrate for the TCG and continued to do so well into the SV block. Some artists include Kinu Nishimura, Kiyotaka Oshiyama, Nobuhiro Imagawa, En Morikura, Akira Egawa, and much more.

Just the fact that they don't even have text bubbles blurbs like most indie games bothers me so much. It makes the game feel so dead

I'm only noticing now how ill fitting Bede's hair swipe animation is, his hair doesn't have physics and he doesn't even have hair that goes in his face. bro why are you always doing that, stop

Theres so much wasted potential w/ the galarian birds + dyna tree hill as a whole!! I refuse to believe that tree exists without containing any lore on purpose.

I still like SWSH, but I agree that it has flaws & I’m hoping it’ll be the next region to get a Legends game to try improving its problems Additionally, there’s a Pokétuber called Zactoshi who did an SWSH AU series for Ash and it handles the Galar story better than the games

Rose’s plan was stupid sure he stopped the tournament but once eternatus is stopped the tournament continues and Leon literally promised to help rose so rose literally became a criminal for nothing

I really enjoyed your video despite also liking Pokémon shield. That being said I wonder how you feel about Pokémon Scarlet and Violet and it’s dlc. Despite encountering a few minor bugs, I enjoyed Pokémon scarlet and especially the dlc a lot more than I did shield and it even got me to complete all 3 Pokédexes in the game which I’ve never bothered to do in any other Pokémon game

You know the "it's happening again" meme? the one where pokemon fans complain about the current generation of games only for the next one to be worse so they now remember it fondly well it's happening again

1:46:44 "dubbing is one language is fine when it's English/Japanese then having subtitles for the rest" is an absurd statement. It's like having no dub at all imo so not that ass when you have 9 languages going on with transaltoin already.

I must admit. I found Opal's whole AmDram thing very charming (although it would have been better if the rest of the game wasn't so half-assed). Also the accidental implication of Circhester having the suffix -chester is that the Pokémon World had ancient Romans, which I am fascinated by.

Galar is the epitome of wasted potential, hope for a legends game to salvage it a bit in the future.

In response to the parts where you said you get rejected from the action think of it this way. In Pokémon you play as a 10 year old child or whatever but in every Pokémon game every adult relies on said child to take care of world ending and dangerous disasters which are created by full grown adults.

One big issue I have with Leon is he’s the unbeatable champion but he doesn’t feel powerful I know we can’t make Leon actually unbeatable but I wish his team actually felt unbeatable I literally only lost one Pokemon in the entirety of the championship brawl and that’s only because I let my Pokemon die

Good stories in gen 5? Dunno chief 😂😂

loved the video, especially for defending my boy hop!

Nice video ❤

bring back XY audio quality

The gym music 10/10

Dude. Piers name is the only thing you pronuncied well

underrated video!

So... hugely against Dexit... and every time it is brought up I can't help but debunk all the things people say to support it as something good. Basically any argument for Dexit is just dumb... and doesn't make any sense besides paying for less... 1. It is hard to balance Pokemon for competitive. A. Yeah, the more Pokemon their are... the harder it would be to balance all those Pokemon against one another. However, This is a non-issue. One, Pokemon by a majority of the playerbase is a PvE game they don't care about competitive. Two, Competitive Pokemon already utilizes a list a legal Pokemon. So if this was a real concern, you could balance the handle that you wanted to and every "unbalanced" Pokemon could be on the ban list while still allowing the majority that doesn't care about that to use all of the Pokemon. 2. Making models with higher fidelity and better animation. A. What? They are still using the same shit from X and Y... It took until Scarlet and Violet to get updated textures. Sure there are some outliers like Venasaur... but for the majority of Pokemon they have the same framework from 3DS that Gamefreak themselves they went to far with to ensure they all of them would be usable in the future.... which they did. Add to that. This excuse only really pans out for a single game as even if you were (which they aren't) remaking every Pokemon model for the switch... you aren't do that for each game, and if you are the is an absolutely stupid waste of time and budget.

1:30:00 F

i can tell you this is my second fav region and my fourth fav games

Lots of wasted potential in the main games. It's been pretty stale for a good while now. The last time the main series had a decent in-game story was BW for me. Dynamax Adventures is fun though because you get to shiny hunt with random pokemon. I'm having more fun in Legends Arceus though because of the difference in game-play.

Honestly at the end when you're brainstorming Legends games both time periods would probably involve us playing as a Pokemon just because PLA seems to imply pokeballs are newer tech and PLA likely took place less than 200 years ago? Magearna's existence arguably could contradict this but its also possible pokeballs were inspired by that mon's appearance and not the other way around. Like Game Freak may be able to create a convenient excuse or how our player character is able to catch Pokemon without needing Pokeballs (like some type of magic item Arceus gives us) but that's about it. Like other ancient people that had Pokemon by their side are implied to have effectively just befriended a wild animal rather than truly "own" those Pokemon so we'd definitely require some plot convenient nonsense to explain how we can have hundreds of these creatures willing to follow our orders. Otherwise the only other logical conclusion is to be a Pokemon because we know Pokemon do work together without capture devices being involved.

This was a good video to listen to

I have a love/hate relationship with Pokemon Sword and Shield.

2:21:58 Brazil jumpscare But yeah, it's all true hahahaha

before i get too far into this video i want to say i love u sword and shield mwah mwah ur one of my favs despite ur downsides

The story recap wasn’t really necessary~

not to be mean, but do people really watch 3 hour video critiquing a game? Just a genuine question

For story we probably will get Pokémon legends Eternatus: Taking place during the darkest day and maybe have 2 player compatibility and you can catch origin form Zacian and Zamazenta. With a big plot twist of the real sword and shield were the friends we made along the way! I mean the darkest day is sitting there perfect for a legends game.

On the Lysander note- I think he’s one of the best villains the franchise has ever produced. It’s just the popular opinion to dislike him. His motivation made sense. He was the first villain with a “global,” plan that had reasoning- he tried to improve humanity through his business ventures but found himself disillusioned with the world.

SWSH were trash IMO. Mon designs were great though.

While I love gen 8 and 9, I feel the main problem is that the creators aren't being given enough time by the company. Galar's story definitely feels like it needed a few more passes, and Gen 9 is a mess performance wise, and both of these could almost certainly have been fixed if they weren't rushing the games out basically unfinished. I'd rather wait for a good product made by healthy, happy people than a mediocre one made by exhausted and overworked ones. Also, I assume the Hammerlocke thing is just for challengers, not normal people.