#cuz people know i like eeveelutions so they buy them for me

[naomiknight-17]

I can't clean and tidy all of my apartment at once like I wish I could, but at least I can dust some shelves and put all my Pokemon pops together

Also Lion from SU is there. When I finally complete my Eeveelution collection (just need Umbreon!) I will have to relocate him... he is a placeholder

[usagi-zakura]

Pros and cons for Sword and Shield

Okay since I’m pretty much done with the main story now and have caught most of the Pokémon I think I can give some thoughts. SPOILERS AHOY.

Pros:

- The Pokémon. They are awesome. I honestly can’t think of one new Pokémon I outright dislike. There’s a few “meh”s in there sure, but overall they’re cute, cool and Cinderace. 

- I also gotta give some extra props to the Galar forms. There were a lot I weren’t even expecting and several of them even have alternate evolution (like Meowth and Yamask) or just new evolution altogether (like Farfetch’d and Corsola). 

- The storyline isn’t super-intrusive, demanding you to do this and that all the time before you can enter the next gym... typically if you’ve reached the gym you can just go challenge it right away. The storylines haven’t been great in general in older games and this one’s no different, so I prefer less focus. 

- You can actually catch Pokémon before you get the Pokedex. Its not right away, but you do get pokeballs from your mom after your first little excursion (even though she doesn’t tell you she’s given them to you so that’s a little weird). 

- The Wild Area...I barely know where to start with this... So much awesome!

- Once upon a time I had a wish for Pokémon that they’d release a game where you could actually see other players walking around in the overworld, kinda like an MMO. Never thought it’d happen though... but then it DID. 

- You can change a pokémon’s “nature” and even teach them egg-moves...so if you have a shiny you really want to use but its nature is shit and competitive battlers keep telling you it’s gotta have this and that move or you’re doing it wrong, well first of all tell them to shut their faces and play the game however you want, but then you can just go right ahead and give them a nature-changing candy, give them those egg moves and do some Hyper Training while you’re at it. Haven’t tried this system yet since it requires BP that I don’t have, but its there. 

- Raid battles. They’re pretty cool.

- Vitamins (like protein and carbos) can now be used more than 10 times on the same Pokémon. (Still costs a ton though...but so long as you buy the game before January you will get a pretty decent money-maker in Gigantamax Meowth.) 

- The music. It just keeps getting better I swear. I can’t stop listening to the Gym Theme. 

- I like how the Pokémon League works in this game. The gyms borrow some features from Sun and Moon by having you go through “Gym Tests”, that are basically various minigames like herding sheep or a weird pinball game. But at the end its still the same old Gym Leader Battle. The tournament is also treated more like an actual sports tournament in real life would work, all your battles (including the League itself) are done in front of an audience and you even get fans. There’s also no Elite Four anymore, instead there’s an actual tournament with your rivals and the Gym Leaders. 

- The starter that isn’t picked by you or your rival still gets a time to shine. 

- I’m not 100% sure on this but I feel like they’ve changed the gender ratio for Eevee and the Starters...cuz I got a female Scorbunny after only three tries and I caught a TON of female Eevees. (Bonus: You can also catch Eeveelutions in the wild area). 

- Speaking of Eevee they simplified its evolution. Specifically Leafeon and Glaceon, they now evolve with a Leaf Stone and Shiny Stone respectively. Sylveon also appears to evolve via friendship now so remember if you want an Umbreon or Espeon, delete its fairy moves. 

- Pokémon camps are adorable.

- The game isn’t bogged down with legendaries. In fact there’s only three. 

Cons:

- We gotta talk about the elephant in the room... 

No...not that one.  I’m talking about the lack of a national dex.  To me its not a deal-breaker, it still has 400 Pokémon in the Galar dex and there are apparently a few more that exist in the data (mostly previous starters and some legendaries) that can be transferred over from earlier generations, but... Fennekin isn’t available. That’s a shame. (Where did Leon get his Charizard from anyway...as far as I’ve seen you can’t catch Charmander in the wild...The player gets one as a gift from Leon if you were wondering.) 

- Haven’t found an IV judge yet. Could have just missed them though. If anyone knows where they are let me know.

- There’s no easy way to EV-train your Pokémon at least to my knowledge.

- When you’re in the Pokémon League you’re automatically healed between each battle. It may sound like a nitpick but part of the challenge of the League was always that you had to face each enemy WITHOUT healing...so it kinda takes away from the challenge. 

- You can only catch Pokémon up to a certain level. Again this wasn’t a big deal for me, as I usually don’t go looking for super-strong Pokémon anyway, but it felt a bit restrictive. So yes you could technically go challenge a level 30 Onix with your level 10 Sobble... but you’re not gonna be able to catch it no matter what you do.

- The Catch rate is too darn high. I don’t know what they did to it but it feels even harder to catch even the most common of Pokémon. (Despite the fact that I caught Zamazenta with the first Quick Ball.) 

- While it was nice that it didn’t focus too much on a grand storyline this time, it also meant the plot kinda just comes right out of nowhere at the end of the game, and suddenly you gotta fight a final boss you never knew existed. That’s a little awkward. 

- You gotta do WHAT to evolve Galarian Yamask?? 

- The animations in the cutscenes are a bit awkward at times... There’s a sequence where you watch Hop try to catch a Pokémon but he’s clearly not holding a Pokéball for example... you have animations where he’s throwing a ball Game Freak... 

- No more walking with Pokémon... 

- The Day and Night System is only active in the Wild Area. The rest of the game time changes based on where you are in the plot. 

- There’s no GTS. What the fuck. I know it was pretty broken already in the last gen what with people asking for a shiny Marshadow for a Rattata before Marshadow was even officially announced, but it was a pretty good way to get game-exclusives. Now I actually have to go out of my way to TALK to people to get them, and I can’t even do that in game. 

- SO yeah my next problem is that while you can SEE other trainers in the overworld there’s no way to communicate with them.. but that seems to be a problem with Nintendo in general. They are terrified of people communicating it seems... 

Despite all that though I like the game and have been playing almost non-stop the past weekend XD Heck this was the first time I just went ahead and bought both games on the release date.. and I don’t regret that decision. I played Shield normally and now I’m doing a Nuzlocke on Sword. (Case you were wondering how I’m treating the “catch only the first pokémon-rule” when you can see them, I close my eyes and run in circles till I encounter something.) I also don’t care about the trees. Pokémon models are more important than trees.