With Pokémon Sword and Shield on their way, the fans are getting all kinds of excited. Imagine how happy we were when a new trailer dropped!
Well, until a controversial Corgi butt wiggle ruined everything.
If you look at the 21 second mark in the above video, you’ll see Yamper (an electric Pokémon. Cute, right? Well, that’s not what people are annoyed about. It’s the move the Pokémon does with its little butt. It’s supposed to be a ‘Tail Whip’, but it’s more of a half*ssed shake.
Bear in mind that Game Freak said it couldn’t add to the National Pokedex for Sword and Shield because the developers needed to focus on the higher quality animations for the Pokemon actually appearing on the Nintendo Switch.
Pokemon Sword and Shield producer Junichi Masuda literally said this to USGamer during an interview at E3 2019.
So what’s with the weird butt shake?!
r/Pokemon: *complains about Yamper’s tail whip animation in the new trailer*
— Matt•Maz (@DarkMattzter) 9 July 2019
Pokemon Twitter: https://t.co/tPhWNRUhHd
Oh good, they reused Hau's animation for an NPC in #pokemon Sw/Sh and Yamper just rotates its model when using Tail Whip. High quality animations guys! How can people keep defending this game? It's like with the Sonic series where 'not that bad' is becoming the norm.
— Achi (@PascalK_) 10 July 2019
Honestly like as ridiculous as it is I almost admire Game Freak for talking about how they're cutting the National Dex to have better animations and then showing a clip of Yamper doing tail whip by just having its model rotated on the z-axis, like that's audacity I can respect
— Theoretically Very Hot (@panzyboy) 8 July 2019
We’ll just have to see what the game looks like in the end.
Pokémon Sword and Shield are two of the most highly-anticipated games headed to the Nintendo Switch, and we now know more than ever about them thanks to a Nintendo Direct! Here’s everything we know about Pokémon Sword and Shield so far.
The Galar Region
The new Pokémon games will be set in a brand-new region known as Galar. It’s believed to be based loosely on the United Kingdom and is home to various towns and the Wild Area.
The Wild Area seems to be where you’ll be catching the most pocket monsters and thanks to the in-game weather changes you’ll be able to find different creatures at different times in the cycle.
Along with the usual places you’d expect to find in a Pokémon game, Galar also has some very interesting places to explore, including snow-capped mountains and evergreen forests.
New Pokémon
A new generation of Pokémon will be introduced in Pokémon Sword and Shield, and we’ve only met a handful of them so far.
In the game’s reveal announcement earlier this year we met our three new starters: Grookey, Sobble and Scorbunny.
In the most-recent Nintendo Direct we were also introduced to Corviknight (a steel and flying type Pokémon who can transport you around the map), Gossifleur the Flowering Pokémon, Eldegoss the Cotton Bloom Pokémon (and evolution of Gossifleur) and Drednaw, the Bite Pokémon.
The show-stealing critter here was, of course, Wooloo. Wooloo is a sheep with wool used by merchants to create items, and she’s already stolen the hearts of the internet.
Characters
Of course you can’t have a new game without new characters, and Sword and Shield have already introduced us to a few of them.
Professor Magnolia is the new Oak, and she’s also the first older female professor to be your aide. Hooray for equality! Professor Magnolia also has a granddaughter named Sonia.
Leon is the game’s champion, and the rival this time around is his younger brother, Hop.
We also got to see Milo, the game’s grass gym leader.
Gameplay and Dynamax
Pokémon Sword and Shield will be the first games in the series to have a rotating third-person camera as opposed to a fixed one. It’s a nice touch that definitely makes the world look more dynamic and a lot more like a traditional open-world game.
Just like Pokémon: Let’s Go, Pikachu! and Let’s Go, Eevee! there’ll be different sizes of critters to add to your collection. Traditional random encounters still exist.
The Pokédex this time around is a Rotom, and is a part of your Rotom Phone. It has the ability to insert itself into other types of tech for extra features, like making your bike go faster.
If, like me, you’ve been out of the Poke-loop since Gen One, then Mega evolutions are still a new concept. However, Pokémon Sword and Shield have just blown Mega evolutions out of the water with Dynamax.
Dynamax seems to make your Pokémon really, really big. Like crazy big. You can use Dynamax once in a regular training battle and it’ll last for three turns before your pocket monster shrinks back down to its normal size.
It looks insanely fun and weird, and it’s definitely one of the most exciting new features in the games.
In the video, a large Poké Ball is used to catch a Dynamax Gyarados, but it’s not clear whether that’s a new item or just something invoked during Dynamax battles.
Release Date
It’s what we’ve all been waiting for: a release date. Nintendo has officially confirmed that Pokémon Sword and Shield will be released on the Nintendo Switch Nov. 15.
What do you think about the new Pokémon games?
Featured Image Credit: Nintendo