Pokemon Sword/Shield has been quite a divisive entry in the long-running monster-catching franchise. Some cite Gamefreak’s technical laziness as the reason why they stopped playing Pokemon games in general, while others say it’s just good honest fun. Whatever your stance is on the matter, the second half of the season pass will be upon us soon! Earlier this year we got The Isle of Armor expansion, and thanks to today’s Pokemon Crown Tundra update video, we now have the details on the next instalment! Let’s get into it.
Legendaries Are Back (Alright)
One of the expansion’s biggest features is that you’ll be able to capture each and every legendary that has been available in the main games. I find it funny that they specify “in the main series” to instantly kill my Dark Lugia from Pokemon XD dreams, but oh well. We’ve had a bunch of legendaries show up in past entries before, Pokemon Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire come to mind, but what’s interesting this time around is the method of how you’ll be capturing these legendaries. This is where the new mode being introduced into the game comes in.
Suicune will be joining us via Dynamax Adventures!
Adventure To The Dynamax
A new feature being introduced is what Gamefreak calls Dynamax Adventures. Instead of just getting a peek from above at a pokemon’s den, this time we’ll be heading into the depths of these dens and exploring them. You won’t be doing this alone, though. You’ll pair up with three NPCs for this, choosing from a pre-arranged selection of pokemon for them to help you with. It isn’t mentioned, but we can probably assume we’ll be able to do these adventures in online multiplayer.
This mode appears to work in the following way: your adventure team chooses a direction inside of the cave, only being able to discern the silhouette and typing of the pokemon waiting in the next room. After you defeat (and capture, if you so desire) them, you keep progressing until you reach the final boss of the adventure. This is probably going to be a gigantamax version of a pokemon with good IVs, and sometimes even one of the past games’ legendaries.
The diverging paths will lead you to different Dynamax enemies!
Galarian Prom Tournament
The next feature being introduced is the Galarian Star Tournament. In this mode, you’ll engage in, and I quote, “red hot battles” against trainers from both versions of the game, including expansions. You’ll have to choose a partner to fight with you, and the trailer specifies that there will be special interactions depending on the characters chosen. The examples they chose are Nessa and Milo chatting, Leon and Hop bantering and Piers and Marnie being cute siblings.
This was it for the Crown Tundra related news, but there were still a couple of small announcements worth mentioning. To celebrate the release of the Pokemon Crown Tundra expansion, Gamefreak will be gifting promotional Pikachus with Ash caps from the different seasons. The first one of these, the original cap Pikachu, is obtained with the code P1KACHUGET. Pokemon Go and Pokemon Home will finally be linked, allowing you to transfer creatures from your mobile game to Sword/Shield, and earn a promotional gigantamax Melmetal. And to wrap the whole Pokemon Crown Tundra update video up, we get a music video from the Japanese band Bump Of Chicken.
