#it could even coincide with a pokemon go and home update that would allow for the storage and transfer of shadow pokemon

[dahniwitchoflight]

Me: Sees Pokemon Legends Arceus has Boss Pokemon that will attack humans, are filled with rage and have red eyes to denote a paticular change....

Me: Knowing if BDSP doesnt incorporate platinum stuff but Legends is connected to home, then theres a huge possibility that Giratina will be caught in Legends alongside Arceus, perhaps as some sort of final boss, or maybe even the game will be about the ancient conflict between arceus and giratina, when giratina was still a red eyed rage filled shadow-y demonic pokemo-

Is... Is the red eye boss pokemon how normal people see shadow pokemon?? If they cant see auras like in Colloseum and XD??

Are they like that because of some twisted influence from Giratina?? IS ANGY GIRATINA POSSIBLY THE REAL ORIGIN OF NATURAL SHADOW POKEMON??

OF ALL THE GAMES TO MAYBE PERCHANCE BYHAPS HAVE A SHADOW POKEMON PLOTLINE AS PART OF IT IT WOULD BE A GAME IN THE REGION/GEN TO INTRODUCE THR AURA POKEMON LUCARIO??

This is some high level wishful thinking, but Pokemon Go started it by giving shadow pokemon physically red eyes alongside the shadowy aura

*EDIT* AND I MEAN, ISNT CYRUS'S WHOLE PERSONALITY AND THING THAT HE WAS AN ANGRY EMOTIONLESS VOID, HIS HEART CLOSED OFF TO OTHERS KINDA LIKE A SHADOW POKEMON.

SO MANY THINGS IN GEN 4 WOULD WORK SO WELL WITH A SHADOW POKEMON PLOT ITS NOT EVEN FUNNY

[nautiscarader]

Pokémon Sword and Shield, Dexit, and why something good may be sometimes bad.

For the last month or so I have played SwSh extensively, finally being able to play it in a decent way. In mid-april yuzu, a phenomenal Switch emulator finally  fixed the Sword/Shield softlock issue, (ironically with a single line of code, without which the title would be playable on day 1-ish), and then at the start of May a multi-core support was added, which gave on my machine stable 30 fps.

And having played the game extensively, I can say this... it’s a pretty good game! And that is a bit unfortunate. I was gonna write a review, but I have to first gather my thoughts about the most controversial part of these games, so it doesn’t clutter it too much.    

It is impossible to talk about SwSh without addressing its biggest controversy: limited Pokédex, called by fans “Dexit”, which never happened in the main line of games before. When it was announced, we raged, and some people mocked us, calling us “entitled”, for feeling we deserve something we deserve. Again, there were actual people out there thinking you are not entitled to something you own.... yeah.  

Here is, once again, why those counter-arguments were bullshit. Or maybe bullshite, since it’s British.

Pokémon is a franchise for kids. Yes, we may be old pricks, caring about IVs and EVs, but these are games for children. As a very sporadic gamer, I have been observing the gaming industry from distance with rising worries, as it has been slowly poisoned by corporate greed for at least a decade and a half if not longer: microtransactions, bullshit cut-content DLCs, broken early access, draconic DRMs, etc.

Most of the above problems can be consolidated into two issues: whether you own the game and its content you’ve paid for, and whether you need to pay a second time for something that is already yours. 

And the collective rage of Pokémon fans was born from the simple fact that this trend has finally reached one of the most popular children franchises ever, and it is dangerous. 

Sword and Shield was not the first case of it, though; Pokébank forced you to pay ransom to transfer your Pokémon from your game into another of your games. But, at the very least it was also a Battle Point mine, so I begrudgingly gave it a pass. 

And then the news hit that Switch will follow Microsoft’s and Sony’s asinine model of online play, forcing you to pay for the privilege of connecting to the internet you are already paying for. 

And I can already hear people saying “Oh, bUt iT’s OnLy X pEr mOntT!”. yeah, but that X > 0. The notion that you HAVE to pay for something you already had is a dangerous one, and the fact that it now exists in a family console that is Switch is blood-boiling. And if you still think you need to pay to maintain servers and whatnot: make the game more expensive. But you will have to pay for it once.

And then, in the Pokémon E3 demo, we got the disastrous information that not all Pokémon will be available in the game (and what’s worse, that it was already planned but dropped in gen 7). Pokemon Home would be a Bank 2.0, and will point-blank refuse to transfer non-Galar Pokémon up, holding them hostage indefinitely. This was strike 2, a metal-gear-like alarm if I have ever heard one. 

The Pokémon we have trained, even if they are just strings of data, ethically belong to us. The fact that some of them would be treated as worse was disgusting. And again, I can already hear “Hurr, durr, the updates add more of them and are free!”. But again, it’s the idea that is dangerous. The idea that to suddenly lose, temporarily or not, something that was yours is now normalised. Can you see the problem? 

And as for the updates that will coincide with the DLC coming in around 24h - who knows if they were going to be free? You can try to gamefreaksplain to me all you want, but we do not know if it wasn’t our rage that pushed that decision forward. 

And besides, the updates only prove dexit was a BS move to begin with - the games could have handled more Pokémon, animations, moves, etc., so that was a lie designed to lure you into the DLCs.

Oh, and speaking of DLCs themselves - again, it’s impossible to say for sure if they really made it in the two months since release (trailers for DLCs dropped in January), or if it was a case of cut content... 

Oh, who am I kidding, it IS cut content, plain and simple. Again, it’s the concept of selling you one thing in pieces, slowly seeping into children’s mind that is the problem here.

Because Sword and Shield is a fun, cool, addicting game, and sadly it will lure many people into buying it, giving in to the cancer that destroys the gaming industry. I feel the pain of gamers, even though as I said, I only play occasionally.   

And... paradoxically the solution to all of the above problems is given in every Pokémon game ever by the first NPC you meet:

Because it is technology, a fan-made, counter-culture one that allows me to play it the way I want. 

Pokebank? I stopped paying for it the moment I installed Homebrew on my 3Ds, which allowed me to backup and edits saves and transfer pokémon for free, as I should have been able to. If I had Switch, I’d install it there in a heart-beat there. But I don’t have to own it, since as I said, yuzu got me covered. As for the cut Pokémon, modders have already fixed that, since, spoilers, animations from 3ds games can be utilised on Switch, which says a lot of about them (though those mods will be obsolete with the patches, thank Arceus). But I still use BSoD’s texture pack which fixes incredibly low-res ones of the vanilla game (those trees still give me nightmares).  

And it is thanks to fans that this game, and many others have been changed or fixed, and are better, whether the companies that created them wanted it, or not. 

And you know - that is incredible. 

[askmerriauthor]

Hearing people getting all butthurt at Nintendo and talking about boycotting the new Pokemon Sword/Shield game because of the Pokedex has got me rolling my eyes like mad.  Talk below, for spoiler’s sake:

Right off the bat, I should make it clear that anyone is fully entitled to decry a product or a company for their own reasons.  If not having the full National Dex available is a lynch pin issue for you then go right ahead and vote with your wallet.  More power to you.  That being said: I get the distinct feeling y’all are being really damn hasty.  Is 50% of the Pokemon in the National Dex not being available in the game a big deal?  Sure, but I don’t think for a moment that’s the end of it right there.

New Region, Who Dis? To begin with, this is a brand new game on a new system in a brand new region with brand new Pokemon, for a brand new audience.  This game is being hyped directly at the “Pokemon Go/Pokemon Let’s Go Pikachu!/Eevee!” fans picked up in these recent years.  Younger or just inexperienced fans who didn’t necessarily play all the older games and thus have no strong attachments to the older generations of Pokemon the rest of us grew up with, at least not in the same manner.  “Pokemon Go” is only up to, what, Gen 4 at the latest?  “Pokemon Sword/Shield”’s new cast of critters would end up completely overshadowed by the vast crowd of older generation Pokemon and not even be able to star in their own debut title if everyone was there.  Why would the designers want to cut the legs out from underneath themselves in that way?

Online Distribution “Pokemon Sword/Shield” is going to make pretty heavy use of the Switch’s online functionality and Nintendo’s subscription service access.  Sure, Grandpa Nintendo is slow on figuring out how all this newfangled internet stuff works, but it’s not like Pokemon has been offline in ages now.  Pokemon has been using online connectivity to enhance and improve the games for a long time now.  X/Y/ORAS had Poke Miles and the Global Link system where you could sync your game, hop online to the official website, and use your accrued Poke Miles (gained by walking in-game or trading Pokemon from other global regions) to get useful items for your inventory.  Not to mention all the Online Events Pokemon have been running for ages now.  There was an entire year where they distributed a Legendary (or potentially several) each month.   Check Serebii’s event section - it’s loaded with huge list of all sorts of distribution events that occurred all the damn time all over the world; online events, local download events, special locations, themed downloads, and so forth.  Do y’all really think Nintendo isn’t going to make use of their well-established history of offering Pokemon for download or the Switch’s capacity for patching in large amounts of game content after launch?

Who’s There and Who’s Not Taking the prior two points into consideration, look at the supposed leaked PokeDex and check which Pokemon are present and which didn’t make the cut.  Pokemon highlighted in green are present in SwSH, while the ones highlighted in white are not.  Does anything seem odd about the ratio to you?

It is quite safe to note that the Starters, the Legendaries, and the Mythics of each generation are not Pokemon that Nintendo would ignore.  Yet all of them, with the specific exceptions of the Charmander line and Mew, somehow didn’t make the cut?  A lot of the Pokemon who did make the cut are popular enough and well-liked by the fans, plus there’s a handful of really iconic critters.  Though there’s some questionable choices to get priority.  Fan-favorite Lucario is there, of course, but Zoroark isn’t?  I love Maractus, but I’m genuinely surprised to see it on the roster over Metagross, Lopunny, Scyther, Absol, or Dragonite?  Baby Pokemon like Mime Jr. and Pichu are present, but Elekid isn’t?  The entire iconic Nido line is out?  The Charmander line gets to be in the game because of the Galarian Champion but no other starter is allowed?  Mew is the one-and-only Legendary/Mythical Pokemon present of the entire PokeDex just for funsies?

I mean, come on.  To me, the ratio absolutely reeks of Nintendo holding certain really popular or thematically redundant Pokemon off to the side for later addition to the game.  Remember the poster for the upcoming season of the anime that coincides with and promotes the SwSh games?  Why would it highlight a bunch of Pokemon that weren’t going to be included in the games?  I bet dollars to donuts Nintendo is going to add all these Pokemon into SwSh over time in coordination with their relevancy in the anime.  Ash appears to be starting all over back in his hometown and will be traveling with new companions to all of the previously covered regions again.  I mean, for goodness’ sake, we see both main characters RIDING ON LUGIA’S BACK in the trailer and y’all think because Lugia isn’t currently in SwSh means it won’t ever be there?  Why would Nintendo pass on the chance to capitalize on a built-in marketing campaign that would let them hype both the game and anime, and thus all associated merchandise, off one another?

Yeah, we’re not getting the National Dex in SwSH right off the bat.  But between the Switch’s ability to patch in larger content updates after launch, the “Pokemon Home” service being opened to allow for all Pokemon to be gathered there, and the upcoming anime?  It sure looks to me like we’re going to get the National Dex sooner or later and people shouting from the rooftops that we don’t have it right out the gate need to chill out.