Thar be spoilers below!
I’ve been playing a lot of Pokémon Sword this week, and
though I had wanted to build up a team of Eeveelutions before I finished the
game (I spent hours running around Route 4 waiting for them to spawn, to no avail),
I went ahead and fought the final gym leader, Raihan, and continued on to the
Championship finals.
Some story things happen over the course of that, the
culmination of “Who were the Sword and Shield who saved Galar from the Darkest
Day?” story that Sonia has been researching. Honestly, the story for Pokémon
Sword has been… not great? A lot of stuff seems to be going on in the background,
and you, as a character aren’t really doing anything important. The few times
the game pauses to deliver exposition feels really clunky. I didn’t expect the
story to be that great or anything, but it feels nonsensical at times and you
end up feeling like “what was the point of any of that” after certain plot
points. You certainly get the sense that Dynamax energy is BAD, but it’s cool,
so who cares? Ignore Rose trying to collect Wishing Stars. It’s FINE.
So, turns out, Rose is evil (or at least struck with noble
madness) and releases the Darkest Day on Galar—GASP I AM SO SURPRISED—to save
it… a thousand years from now. His assistant is bonkers. I feel like the game
is trying to say something about corporations and advertising and abuse of
power, but it doesn’t really come across very well. But whatever.
I play through this weird tangle of events, from Championship
Gym Battles to Rose Tower, to battling a never before mentioned Pokémon—Eternatus—that
will destroy everything if it’s not contained, but then Zacian and Zamazenta
(the respective Sword and Shield Pokémon) come to my aid after me and Hop find
some rusty old sword and shield, I catch Eternatus, the Darkest Day is over, everything
is fine, and now this super powerful living source of Dynamax energy is in my
party, so that’s cool. Zacian and Zamazenta boop off to somewhere else, and I’m
left extremely disappointed that I was not able to catch Zacian, the entire
reason I am playing this game. I fight Leon, the reigning Champion of Galar,
and win (though, it was an admittedly tough battle).
Credits roll. I’m bummed.
Oh well, it’s not yet bedtime, so I’ll go back and play some
more to try to catch some Eevees, for funsies.
As the game boots up again, the intro bit is a little
different and shows you an image of the shrine where you and Hop find the rusty
sword and shield, and where Zacian and Zamazenta have been sleeping since, I presume,
the previous Darkest Day. That’s interesting, I think. So I go there, thinking,
Oh, sweet! I’ll be able to catch Zacian now, cool cool cool.
AND THAT’S WHEN THINGS GET WEIRD.
So, Hop is hanging out at the shrine too, and you do battle,
because that’s what friends do in Galar, apparently. Then Sonia shows up and
asks if we came to return the sword and shield to their resting places. Sure!
Of course that’s why we’re here! So, we put the things back. At first,
nothing happens, and ONCE AGAIN, I am extremely bummed that Zacian doesn’t pop
up for me to capture.
BUT THEN.
Enter Sordward and Shielbert. (I SHIT YOU NOT, THOSE ARE
THEIR REAL NAMES)
These dudes show up and claim the sword and shield. Hop and
I battle each of them to take the sword and shield back. I win, Hop loses. The
weirdos run off.
Then Pokémon start Dynamaxing randomly, and these guys are
behind it, and I haven’t played much beyond the first couple of Dynamax battles
that they create, but I have NO IDEA where the story is going now. I’m assuming
I will get to catch Zacian at the end of it because Professor Magnolia gave me
a Master Ball, and we all know what those are for.
So.
Things got weird, but I’m having a hell of a time following
this complete bait and switch of what the story was before and what it is now.
I’m actually interested in the gameplay and the story now, because WHAT THE
FUCK, and I’m looking forward to playing through the weirdness.
In the meantime, I returned to Route 4. I had already caught
a Sylveon and Espeon at a spawn point in the Wild Area, but only one of the Eeveelutions
spawns there a day, and I didn’t want to wait a week or more to get them all. So
back to Route 4 I went. And apparently, the time to catch Eevee is after 7:00pm
on a Wednesday, because I caught SIX. CUE THE EEVEELUTIONS!
I now have a party comprised completely of Eeveelutions:
Vaporeon (my forever fave), Jolteon, Flareon, Umbreon, Espeon, and Leafeon, for
a nice rounded party of most of the different types. Sylveon and Glaceon and Eevee
are relegated to storage, unfortunately.
At this point, they’re all level 15 or so, so of course, I
have to level them all up to roughly Level 70 before I can continue the main
quest of tracking down Sordward and Sheilbert. As of last night, I had most of
them up to at least Level 40, with Vaporeon a little ahead, and Espeon nearly
to Level 70, since I captured a high level version of it on the far side of the
Lake of Outrage. I’ve been running around fighting Dynamax Pokémon to get Exp.
Candies and catching other high level Pokémon in order to level up the rest of
my party.
I’m really looking forward to where the game goes next, and
I’m actually interested in purchasing the DLC now. I was a little eh on it
before.
Anyway, that’s what I’ve been up to this week, and what I’ll
probably be up to this weekend. And of course, I still need to complete my Pokédex,
so there is that too.
Gotta catch ‘em all!
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