Pokémon Master Sword and Hylian Shield - Which box legendary is best? (LEAK-FREE ZONE FROM PAGE 7 ONWARDS)

My girlfriend called her rookidie, Poe. So naturally I called mine Alan. I took great pleasure second zero context pictures of a dynamaxed Alan to people over whatsapp.

The entire evolutionary line is just Alan to me now...

Superb mon though.

To my eternal shame, I thought Dameron before I thought Edgar Allen . . .

Balls Man wrote:

He's already defied type by selecting the least edgy starter

The middle evolution is extremely Jay. I have memes I need to share once Jay's seen it . . .

Fair point, had forgotten about that: was thinking more of the final stages. Final stage rabbit is definitely Not Jay.

But it looks like it plays for Jay's beloved England.

Balladeer wrote:

Keep us up to date Jay!  I'm sadly excited to see how the Jay Squad develops.

I'm just about to tackle the Fire Gym after spending much too long fannying about in the Wild Area.

Like Muss mentioned on Twitter (and on here too, I think), I've kept a rotating squad to avoid my party from getting too overlevelled so there's at least a modicum of difficulty in the game. Also, it'll help flesh out my Pokédex once I evolve some 'Mon.

So, here's my crew right now:

The Main Squad

Tod the Raboot
Viridios the Gloom
Brynden the Corvisquire
Lagann the Drilbur
Dug the Boltund
Magdaros the Drednaw

The Reserve Squad

Harley the Carkol
Simmons the Linoone
Damia the Skwovet
Saphira the Salandit
Iofur the Stufful
Malone the Dottler
Cykes the Hattena
Levi the Pawniard

Muss wrote:

Just look up the edgiest pokemon in the dex, that's the Jay squad

Balladeer wrote:

He's already defied type by selecting the least edgy starter, although Rookidee is at least a bit more Jay.

I mean, like Drunka mentioned, Raboot is a little edgy ninja footballer which I didn't expect for its middle evolution.

Carcoal is a top lad.

I love its big goofy eyes.

I cocked up naming it Harley (after Harley Davidson) as I thought it was going to turn into a motorbike as opposed to a car monster. A trip to the Name Rater might be in order!

Put it in the lead of your party and cook up a curry. Makes me smile every time.

I'll need to give that a try! I enjoyed Dottler flashing furiously after a successful batch of curry.

I ended up carrying my Carkoal and its evolution right to the endgame, after initially overlooking Rolycoly because it looked bobbins. Good fellas, they were.

Drunkalilly wrote:

JayMoyles wrote:

The Main Squad

Tod the Raboot

Hahaha, I immediately thought that Raboot looked like a Naruto character.

I've played loads of this over the last few days - I'm on my approach to the Champion's Cup finals now. I experienced my first crash trying to catch a Klang on Route 10, which sucked, but it's my first noticeable performance hiccup since starting the game, so that's alright.

I've tinkered with my team somewhat since that last update as I found juggling that size of a team to ramp up the difficulty much too quickly and my main squad were underlevelled for a spell. So, here's my crew now:

Tod the Cinderace
Viridios the Vileplume
Brynden the Corviknight
Kanji the Toxtricity
Lagann the Excadrill
Bergia the Froslass

I did have Cykes the Hatterene in my crew for a bit, but I found her to be a bit too squishy and routinely got KO'd by being too slow and taking massive hits. I'm happy enough with my team - I think I need something to sort out Fire types, but otherwise I reckon my team are good to go.

I'm waiting for the story beats to kick in - the game's really been focusing on the gym challenge which has been neat, but it seems overdue for some legendary Pokémon nonsense.

By the end of the week I'll be 300 hours into this.. All because I want a shiny and competitive team

Crikey. Hope you're enjoying all that time, Shanks...

That's a very fire-weak team unless you can set up Exca with some speed boosts! Could sub out Bergia for something like a Coalossal, a Barraskewda, or a Dracovish if you don't mind it looking ugly...

I was lucky not to have any crashes in my playthrough.

Oh boy, that's over double my play time!

I was going to get a Shiny but I just can't stomach it. There's not enough to do in the post game apart from raise a competitive team, and even that is a lot of effort. Have they made it easier than past games, absolutely, but I still don't find it particularly fun.

I think it's a bit of a shame that the Battle Tower is really your only proper simulation of competitive pokemon in the single player mode. I wish there was something more done to help bring players into that world. I was prepared to give it a bash before but I look at the amount of time involved and I just can't. I hate that once you beat the game you can't just pay a god damn breeder to help you give pokemon perfect IV's and natures and whatever. I must be Galar's wealthiest boy but I can't buy anything useful!

Side note, does anyone else think Pokémon would benefit from some sort of new game + mode?

Balladeer wrote:

That's a very fire-weak team unless you can set up Exca with some speed boosts!  Could sub out Bergia for something like a Coalossal, a Barraskewda, or a Dracovish if you don't mind it looking ugly...

Excadrill was doing not too badly at outspeeding the enemy team, but I've subbed out Bergia for a Barraskewda I had in the reserves anyways. I had a Froslass to deal with Dragon and Psychic types mainly, but Vileplume knows Moonblast which has been doing the job and Barraskewda apparently learns Crunch, so that'll do for Psychic types too. Failing that, Corviknight has U-Turn and Excadrill has X-Scissor, which both do the job too.

Muss wrote:

I was going to get a Shiny but I just can't stomach it. There's not enough to do in the post game apart from raise a competitive team, and even that is a lot of effort. Have they made it easier than past games, absolutely, but I still don't find it particularly fun.

I think it's a bit of a shame that the Battle Tower is really your only proper simulation of competitive pokemon in the single player mode. I wish there was something more done to help bring players into that world. I was prepared to give it a bash before but I look at the amount of time involved and I just can't. I hate that once you beat the game you can't just pay a god damn breeder to help you give pokemon perfect IV's and natures and whatever. I must be Galar's wealthiest boy but I can't buy anything useful!

Aye, I've never bothered with the breeding route either as it's much too bothersome. Much too time consuming, too!

Yeah as it's mostly hatching eggs at the moment I'm doing that and watching stuff on YouTube or elsewhere

I always thought that once you finish the game you should be offered perma-Repels, and the option to filter out all Pokémon you've already caught, so you don't have to battle with things like 1% capture chances. That's not such a big deal now (although you still have things like trying to find a Dreepy or an Eiscue/Stonjourner), but yep, I don't understand why you can't also really start to target EVs and IVs and things more efficiently at that stage. Also there should be an ability to convert Pokébucks into Battle Tower points, potentially at an exorbitant rate.

Muss wrote:

Side note, does anyone else think Pokémon would benefit from some sort of new game + mode?

I think one of them, maybe Black and White 2 or something, had this. Overall, I think a more robust post-game suits it better. For a New Game, the possibility of a compeltely different team of Pokemon, and extra challengers either in-game (set mode etc) or self-imposed (ie Nuzlocke) means there's plenty of spice.

I've gotten into pokedex filling- gonna get that full living dex this year- and I'm up for some battling, so I'm happy with minimal story content post-champion.

Oh yes, there are still lots of ways someone can construct a challenge run. I'm going to play through with only Rock types, or ghost, in my next attempt.

I just saw a specific opportunity in Galar. Obviously you go through the game as a child and it seems like the whole tournament is set up for children and, er, some gym leaders? Conceptually I think of the whole gym challenge as a deliberate, coming-of-age, event for all the youngsters - with the top prospects going up on tv. All the adults in the wild are actually graduates of the programme, and exist to make sure that any challenger who whites out is still safe. So therefore, there is some sort of adult league as well.

Which is where you could have something like a new game plus, littered with trainers who are as smart as the battle tower folks. A game mode that's less about catching, and more about refining a competitive move-set and breeding. I would really like to have some use for a lovable Pyukumuku, but I can't really be bothered to use one in the regular games because its so much easier to just use a pok that can punch things.

I don't know, maybe that's getting away a little bit too much from what the games are. Maybe just having a better post-game is all that's needed.

I definitely think players should have been rewarded with a G-Max item that they could use on one valid target. Its absurdly time consuming trying to get some of the G-Max pokemon in this game without resorting to naughty means. Anyone who accuses Gamefreak of being lazy with this game is being a knobber, but I legitimately think getting G-Max pokemon is significantly worse than throwing ultra ball after ultra ball at a 1hp paralysed legendary - At least you can keep going until you catch it in that case! - There's surely something better that Gamefreak could have done instead of making the process of getting one absurd.

Since I'm onto things I don't like about Sword/Shield, I'm disappointed at the lack of pokemon integrated into the overworld. I want to see more pokemon helping out with jobs and the like, instead of the whole thing being abstracted through pokecentre computers.

This is still a cracking game though and I'm excited to see where they take the series from here.

I got my G-Max Snorlax, so Im happy.

I've always been a big fan of seeing Pokemon being a part of the world - its why I love Snap, its why I love Detective Piachu, its why I can get some level of enjoyment from even the crappiest bits of the anime. Sun and Moon did it aa little of that, but im always up for more.

It would also be cool if wild pokemon could interact a little more in the overworld - like they do in camp, or like turf war in Monster Hunter World.

Sun and Moon anime I could not watch the dub, the voices were just bad,

But yeah still plodding along as still after my shiny Rookiedee, then make my comp team, then get at least one of all GMax Pokemon, then I think I might be finished, plus getting a shiny Gmax Lapras ain't bad

I beat this earlier in the week - I was surprised by the champion battle being somewhat tricky considering how I stomped the Champion Cup challenge with ease.

Now, onto the post game with two lads with the daftest hairdos I've seen in my life.

I really enjoyed the battle with Leon. I think he had me down to one or two Pokemon by the end, properly felt like he was the actual champion.

The final battle and the other big battle before it really proved to me that dynamaxing is shite though. One of the steel users 1 hit ko’d my dynamaxed Frosmoth, in the other Charizard pulled out a fucking grass move, and I just had to send ‘mon to their immediate graves. Absolute shiter.