Bright and early this morning at 6am PT, Pokémon held a 15 minute Direct telling us a lot the major information regarding the upcoming Pokémon Sword and Pokemon Shield games!
They showed us new Pokémon, a place called the Wild Area, the new Dynamax battle system, the gym battles in this region, characters, and some info about the legendary Pokémon!
We also got a release date for these two games: November 15, 2019.
Pokémon is sticking to its usual November release date this year, but this game seems to be breaking from a lot of the traditional Pokémon molds as this game will be the first new generation Pokémon game on the Switch.
The Direct opened with a sizzle reel previewing all of the upcoming features they would go on later to discuss in the Direct, but the biggest reveal from the first two minutes of the announcement is that there is a new song! It has lyrics and it seems like it’s the same song that will be in the anime when that debuts alongside the new games. However, usually Pokémon games done have songs with lyrics in them because the 3DS didn’t have the power to do so. When I heard lyrics on the screen, I knew that this Pokémon game would be different because this generation of games may actually have a full theme song, including in the game itself!
New Pokémon!
After introducing the members of Game Freak and the sizzle reel, we were introduced to five new Pokémon!
The first was Wooloo, the sheep Pokémon! This Pokémon looks like one that shows up early in the game and is the equivalent of Rattata or Sentret, but its relationship with humans in the Gala region seems interesting. Its defining characteristic is its fur, which people use to craft items that they sell.
So will Wooloo fur be a trading item in this game? Or will it be a type of currency you can use in small towns to get items like Pokéballs?
Either way this Pokémon looks like a B level Mareep, but I have been needing a new sheep Pokémon for a while. I’m glad we finally got another one.
Next up, Gossifleur, the Flowering Type Pokémon!
It favors clean air and the countryside! Its evolution, Eldegoss, is a cotton related Pokémon just like Wooloo.
So is cotton a big deal in this game? Cotton played a major role in British trade during the reign of the British Empire so maybe the use of cotton is a callback to an agrarian British society and a reference to a major crop of theirs. There appeared to be factories in the previous Pokémon Sword and Shield Direct so those could be cotton factories. If they are, that would make sense because that creates the relationship between the countryside towns and the major metropolitan areas in the Gala region.
Drednaw was the next Pokémon revealed during the Direct and this one looks like a late game Pokémon! The reason I believe that is two-fold. One, they described the Pokémon as difficult to tame. Secondly, it looks scary!
Only the scary and intimidating Pokémon are able to be caught late in the game
The final Pokémon revealed besides the legendaries, was the Raven Pokémon: Corviknight!
This one looks like a cool black knight bird in a suit of armor! It looks awesome and may be my new favorite Pokémon revealed in the trailer. All I can hope for is that it has some Edgar Allen Poe related move like depression or rhyme words with bleak. It also knows fly according to the Game Freak creators.
The Wild Area
This was the biggest news of the trailer to me because this area has the potential to completely change the dynamic of Pokémon games and looks like the Breath of the Wild version of Pokémon we’ve all been wanting for this Gen.
This area has different Pokémon depending on which days you adventure here and what type of weather there is.
Notice how the Pokémon are all visible in the wild too!
This area is completely separate from routes and stretches between cities in the game. It has open areas “as far as the eye can see” and allows you to venture anywhere! You aren’t constrained by pathways or bridges. You can shift the camera angle and you can do a variety of activities from catching Pokémon, to fishing, to picking berries.
This area looks truly incredible and revolutionary if it ends up being what I hope it is. I hope that this area is connected to the main game world and it isn’t some area you have to load into like Dream World in Black/White or Safari Zone in other games. There were all types of Pokémon from every generation and there were also a variety of different environments – from snow to sand, to water to forest. It looks like these areas all have unique characteristics and as a result, unique Pokémon and items to find in them. I really hope this is all just part of the main game and its connected to the rest of our adventure without a loading screen. If not, I’ll be disappointed.
According to the Direct, you will have the ability to team up with friends which makes me even more suspicious that this area is a separate independent area from the main game. If not, then that means our friends could enter our games and vice versa which would allow for some amazing moments like in Let’s Go, when you could have friends help you catch tough Pokémon and win hard battles. Maybe Game Freak is adapting that and making it more immersive. I certainly hope so!
Dynamax and Dynamax Raids!
In The Wild Area, you can team up with friends via co-op locally or via the internet to battle in Dynamax Raid Battles! These Raid locations appear in certain areas of the Galar region and you will have to team up with four other real players to battle a Dynamax Raid boss.
So what are Dynamax Pokémon? They are the biggest Pokémon you have literally ever seen in your entire life!
Dynamax is a feature that can be used once per battle to enlarge and power up one of your Pokémon for three turns! These three turns power up all of your other Pokémon moves in turn and it looks like they make them as powerful as Z-Moves from the Alolan Region. It looks like any Pokémon can be enlarged and powered up too! They only showed off smaller Pokémon for this feature, but I can’t wait to see what they do for a Pokémon like Snorlax or Ho-Oh who are already huge to begin with!
It looks like every gym leader has a Dynamax Pokémon which will be like their totem Pokémon from Alola as well. They still weren’t clear how you make your Pokémon become Dynamax Pokémon, but they did show off how you can catch them.
This is where the raids and teamwork come in handy. You and three other friends will have to battle a Dynamax Raid Boss via a portal that is found in locations scattered throughout the Galar Region. These battles look similar to the Pokémon Go! raid bosses that we have to battle already. In these battles though, only one member from each team gets to make one of their own Pokémon a Dynamax Pokémon to battle the boss. So if you want to beat the raid boss, you’ll need lots of coordination, or just incredibly overpowered Pokémon that are at higher levels than the boss.
They didn’t go into too much detail about the raids themselves besides the team up aspect and Dynamax aspect. They didn’t discuss level scaling in them or if certain colors indicate harder raids. Also will we know which type of Dynamax Pokémon is in the portal we are about to enter or is it random each time? Will there kind of be a set up like this so that we can properly prepare ahead of time?
Gym Battles
All of the gym battles in this region take place in soccer stadium sized arenas and you battle a gym leader in front of thousands of fans.
It’s basically like playing eight away games as you battle your way to the Elite Four and Champion (assuming all of that other stuff is the same).
In gym battles, both you and the gym leader will use Dynamax Pokémon which will in turn increase the crowd’s excitement. I couldn’t tell if when they said that it was a figure of speech or that there is an actual crowd factor that can swing the momentum of battle. I personally would think that’s cool. Like maybe if you have more fans on your side you have a higher chance of critical hits or surviving K.O.s. It would certainly add a new element to battle that we’d have to consider.
People
We met as many new characters as we did Pokémon – five!
First up was Leon, the Champion of the Galar Region!
The first thing I thought when I saw him was how good his character model looked. Look at this screenshot with him and Charizard!
Look at the shading and expression on his face! It also looks like you meet this guy early on in the game as you see him in a small town surrounded by adoring fans. It would make sense he’s a celebrity because he’s the equivalent of the best soccer player in the Galar region. All of his matches are broadcasted and he has a cool cape!
The next person you meet is Hop, his little brother!
He is your rival in this game! And they actually called him a rival! Not some friendly name or your buddy! He’s your actual rival. Pokémon avoided calling the person competing with you your rival for a few generations in a row and finally got back to it in Let’s Go and I am glad they are just sticking with that title for this game too! Also I think Scorbunny is Hop’s favorite Pokémon. Get it?
We then met the Pokémon Professor of this region: Magnolia.
Named after another tree, she studies the Dynamax phenomenon in the Galar region and it looks like she has a close relationship with the Champion. There are multiple shots of them together. There’s this one which looks early on in the game and then there’s this other one of them talking together
I have a theory that they’re related but Pokémon isn’t telling us that just yet!
Sonia is Magnolia’s assistant and her granddaughter!
We didn’t learn to much about her, but I think she will be much more active in helping your character along in their journey than Magnolia will be.
Finally, we meet Milo!
He's a grass type Gym Leader who has a Dynamax Eldegoss!
It looks like he’ll be one of the first Gym Leaders you battle on your way to become Champion of the Galar Region!
The Legendary Pokémon
We finally got names and designs for two of the legendary Pokémon in this game.
There’s the sword Pokémon: Zacian
and the shield Pokémon: Zamazenta!
It seems like they are rivals but also guardians of the region. At the end of the trailer it looks like they are both preparing to battle some other legendary force together! What that force is, we don’t know! Perhaps it will be a Rayquaza type legendary Pokémon! It will then sort of resemble the dynamic of the three legendaries in Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald, or even X/Y when they introduced Zygarde in concert with Yveltal and Xerneas.
Release Date
The Direct ended with the release date for both games: November 15, 2019. They also announced that you can buy a dual pack of these games where they come together! Finally Pokémon!!
Other Details and Tidbits
Each of the characters in the raid battles had unique outfits on which confirms that the ability to buy clothes and customize your outfit is back!
The environments also look very filled out and aren’t as empty as the ones in Let’s Go were. The Wild Areas have tons of nature, the gyms are filled with thousands of NPCs, and the indoor or the house we saw had pictures hanging on the wall!
While some of the Pokémon battle animations looked the same (like Crunch and Bite), the camera work and the amount happening in each scene is way more than the 3DS could ever handle and way more than we have ever seen happen at once in a Pokémon game.
Lastly, the music has a distinctly British/Scottish/Irish sound to it. I heard bagpipes and flutes which reminded me of old Irish songs which further confirms that this region is based on the UK, if that wasn’t obvious already.
Questions I Still Have
What is the Magnolia and Leon relationship? Is there one at all?
What else is in the Wild Area? Is its connected to the game? How does it fit into the lore and the world? Where is it on the Galar Region map?
Is there voice acting in this game? We didn’t hear any characters speak or have dialogue bubbles, but there were lyrics and actual vocal sounds in the theme song which leads me to believe Game Freak is hinting at voice acting being in this game.
Are there still 8 badges and the traditional elite four? I think the answer to that question is yes, but I just want confirmation.
Also, are there going to be side quests in this game? Sun/Moon touched on them briefly, but I think, like Breath of the Wild (which had over 50 side quests), Pokémon could really expand this time of this game by creating cool side quests that build the lore of this world.
Final Thoughts
This Direct did a good job of making more excited for this game and it answered a lot of the fundamental questions I had going into like: who are the main characters? What unique battle mechanic will be in this one? Is the world more open?
However it still leaves me with more questions. I doubt we’ll learn anything else major during E3 because the bulk of that presentation will be dedicated to Nindies, Animal Crossing, and Metroid Prime 3 (plus other surprises), so this may be the last bit of major news on Pokémon for a while! Whenever we get news though, I’ll be sure to be up to date here with recaps and analysis regarding Pokémon Sword and Shield!
**images and video taken from the Nintendo Direct