Topic: Pokemon Sword & Shield

Quick balls are amazing, too bad you can only buy them rather late.

Took the plunge - bought Sword yesterday. 4-5 hours in. Wandered around the Wild Area for awhile. I like it! The world (Galar?) is really cool, and I even did an online battle and got the snot kicked out of me lol

Little things like the League Cards are neat, and I'm a dirty rotten casual so I enjoy the exp share. I think a big part of why I fall out of Pokémon and lots of RPGs is the grinding and rotation of "party members" to keep everyone up to snuff, so exp share is cool (should still allow it to be turned off, for sure; maybe that'll be $15 DLC at some point lololol).

So yea, full head of steam right now, can't wait to keep playing! Finally pulled the trigger after talking to a friend last night who said it was just a really fun experience, so I said "heck, I know I'm interested, so let's just do it."

After the huge disappointment UltraSun was to me (to be honest it felt like a different game than pokemon on a lot of parts), I was really hoping that SwSh would be better. After reading the forums and some reviews, it seems like it became even worse

Quick question: does everybody have the Eevee, Pikachu and Pokemon Quest trainer card themes, or is it because I have save files for those games?

Just completed by my first gym 8.5 hours in. Imposing restrictions on my playthrough was definitely the right move. Using three similar leveled Pokemon that didn't have type-advantage moves, I quite literally snatched victory from the jaws of defeat: Milo's Eldegoss was one move away from killing my last surviving Pokemon, Meowth (the normal one, not the freakish, bearded one). Thankfully, my Pikachu's thunder wave from earlier in the battle saved the day, as the paralyzed Eldegoss wasn't able to attack me again before Meowth could bite it one last time. It was a tense, brilliant fight.

Is there a way to switch Pokemon into or our of your party after starting a gym challenge? It doesn't seem possible, which is actually good, as it feeds into the challenge.

I really like how gym battles in this game are bombastic affairs with unforms, audiences and ridiculous, kaiju-sized Pokemon transformations. It's way better than beating up some random people standing around in a gym. I also really like the gym challenge concept, as it skillfully integrates the 'trials' of Sun and Moon into the traditional gym structure of most previous games.

Yeah, I honestly hope they don't abandon the gym fights with crowds idea. It just feels so much more 'real' (not as in IRL real, but... hard to describe lol) than the previous gym ideas.

Also for the end-game having the lead up to the champion battle being a tournament was excellent. So much better than the Elite 4 idea of previous games. I really hope they keep this going forward. But it is GF, so you know...

Yes I feel like this tournament format feels much more natural, and it's not all that drastically different from the usual elite four format.

@Ralizah
Tips for beating gym leaders:
1. Make sure you have Pokemons with attack elemental are the Gym leader's weakness. Grass Pokemons weak against Fire (Bring Vulpix / Scorbunny), Water Pokemons weak against Thunder (Bring Pikachu / Yamper), Fire Pokemons weak against Water (Bring Sobble / Fish Pokemons), etc.
2. DON'T use Dynamax in the first Battle. Keep it until the last Pokemon then use the Dynamax wisely (You can use it for 3 turns)
3. Better give one of your Pokemon with Amulet Coin to double the money earned after Battle. Make sure that Pokemon should be at least present in the Battle.
4. Do NOT put your Pokemons versus other Pokemon with elemental attack = your Pokemon weakness. For example: Put Grass Pokemon against Fire Pokemon. First, your Grass attack will not effective against Fire Pokemons. Second, your Pokemons will take more damage from their elemental weakness.

Christ, it took around 20 different pokeballs (of various types: normal, great, premiere, net, etc.) to finally catch that stupid Wobbuffet I stumbled across on Route 5.

@Anti-Matter I appreciate the consideration, but this isn't my first rodeo.

Ok, the champion had a champion time and I saw the mouse cursor.

Saved my time and team for posterity:

I didn't have any super strict rules, but I did enjoy rotating my team a lot, and trying many new Pokemon was fun. I used like 20 so in total through the gym challenge, and I can say I grew attached to most of them.

In the end, my team was actually around the same levels as the champion, so it was an interesting match.

@Ralizah
LOL
I used Great Ball several times to catch Wobbuffet.

Is anyone willing to trade their Zacian for my Zamazenta and then swap it back afterwards? I just need it for a Pokedex entry. Thanks

Figured out how to cheat the watt and Den system in this game. Now I can actually get the Hidden Ability mons I want without grinding hours each day for several days on the same flat map. I’ve got about 100,000 watts now

@Anti-Matter Yeah. I had even more trouble with another mon just now, too. I'm starting to see why @Octane was complaining about the catch rates of Pokemon in this game.

@Ralizah There will be a point where it takes 20-30 Ultra Balls to catch one. But defeating the 8th gym gives you some kind of catch boost, because now I can catch even higher leveled Pokemon easily. Early and mid game it's kinda annoying.

@-Green- Really ? how?

Ok so this is weird.

When I started the game and after a few wild battles, I saw blipbug and noticed it had orange. And my brain immediately told me "weren't those parts blue?". And it was confusing back then but I got over it.

Now I see that its shiny form does have blue instead of orange, and I'm mortified by the idea that maybe the first one I saw was shiny and I just missed the sparkles.

🙃

Then again, I don't see its shiny form in my pokedex, so I'm hoping it was just a regular brain glitch.

@Eel : I assume you know that pressing left/right in the Pokédex switches between different forms (including sex differences, if any, and shinies). If you have in fact encountered a shiny (and saved), then it should appear in your Pokédex.

My condolences if you have in fact encountered it. Why would you have not have caught it anyway, being a new 'mon and all?

Well that's what I meant by the last bit. It's not on my pokedex. (Though it would've happened before I had a pokedex!).

So I'm more inclined to believe my brain simply likes making me suffer.

But for a while in the beginning I was just 100% sure blipbug had a blue bowtie.

Catch rates are fine as long as your pokemon isn't a lower level than the wild one. If it's even one level weaker you're going to have a hard time even with status conditions. Milo (?) said something about higher levels being "tricky" to catch but I've learned that he actually meant "don't bother wasting your balls".

I'm now in Wyndon and even after saving up as much as possible THE WHOLE GAME I can't afford more than one jacket. I was going to get a new outfit for the final challenge.