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You may be wondering, “what happened to being polite or not fighting fire with fire”? I was being polite months ago because I hadn’t played Pokémon Sword or Shield yet. I thought, “if I haven’t played the game, then my opinions defending it aren’t valid. Plus, people are still digesting it at the moment, as it’s so new.” So when I got my copy of Pokémon Sword, I felt liberated – not only could my opinions be backed up by personal experience, but I could find out why people made the complaints I’ve read.
And let me tell you: I loved the game, but not to the point I would blindly defend it. In fact, I had problems, too. The latest Pokémon games are far from perfect.
As I played, even I felt that the game wasn’t “complete,” despite the amount of time I placed in it. I did feel sad that I couldn’t bring all my pokémon to Galar – even though I had never transferred across systems before. I also thought the trees were cruddy, and the Y-Comm wasn’t the best means of internet communication in the series. I missed the GTS. Overall, I did have fun, but I felt like there could have been more that Gamefreak would’ve put in if they had more development time.
When Gamefreak revealed that they were willing to put in the extra work of coding in 200+ pokémon that weren’t originally in SwSh, I felt massive relief. That, combined with the fact that you wouldn’t need to buy the DLC to gain access to those pokémon, appeared to stoke the flames that were lit with the announcement of the Dex cut. To me, it seemed like there was little reason to hate Gamefreak now. Yeah, the entire Dex wasn’t back, but who’s to say that they won’t continue to code in the rest of the pokémon for next year? I thought people would finally let go of their anger…until I heard complaints that “why not just make a third version? This stuff should’ve been in the base game to begin with!” from people who still couldn’t let their grudges go.
I’m fighting these kinds of people again because:
1. I’m still seeing people spread misinformation about Gamefreak and the games’ development.
2. While a lot of players have already moved on from the loss of the National Dex, the DLC revealed the possibility that it can return in parts.
3. The hundreds of hours worth of post-game content (i.e. the Battle Tower, the Curry Dex, the Galar Dex, Raids, etc.) still make the games worthwhile, even though they FEEL incomplete.
4. Constructive criticism is a dying art in this fandom. Everything’s centered around feelings and opinions instead of actual fact. And in today’s case, DLC is a more efficient way for new content to be introduced to published games.