A new trailer has dropped for the upcoming Pokémon Sword & Shield on the Nintendo Switch, and it is all about celebrating the long history of the Pokémon series. Sword & Shield is already stuffed with both Pokémon nostalgia and new content alike, with the game including bizarre gigantamax forms for five of the game’s classic Pokémon and a new creature called Galarian Ponyta, which has been well-received by fans.
It hasn’t all been good news leading up to the game’s November 15th release date, however. Recently, Pokémon Sword & Shield developers removed the National Dex from the game’s canon, meaning some of the Pokémon previously featured in the series no longer existed. This information was received, quite understandably, rather poorly by fans of the long-running series, as one of Pokémon’s strongest elements has always been the fact it was consistently adding new characters, never losing them. Although developer Game Freak has stated cut Pokémon could return in upcoming titles, some players are still worried their favorite creatures won’t be available in the upcoming game.
Perhaps to help assuage some of those fears, Nintendo has released a new trailer for Pokémon Sword & Shield which is nothing if not a celebration of all the games which came before. The video, embedded below, shows off both classic versions of beloved Pokémon characters and also the retro systems on which those first games first appeared, such as the original Nintendo Gameboy, the Gameboy Advance, and the DS.
At the end of the video, which features multiple different animation styles from across all generations of Pokémon, all of the old character designs morph into their new Sword & Shield versions. Every Nintendo device, from the Gameboy color to the 3DS, also changes, this time to a Nintendo Switch. With the video’s tagline stating “Whether you started your journey on Gameboy, Nintendo Switch, or anything in between, a new era of Pokémon awaits for everyone,” it’s clear Nintendo wants new players to not be turned off by the series’ massive backlog of characters while still trying to remain faithful to those who have stuck with the Pokémon games for so long.
While players still don’t know which Pokémon will be making an appearance in Sword & Shield, it’s likely most of the fan favorite creatures and the most powerful legendary Pokémon will make the cut. Although the loss of the National Dex is disappointing to some, Game Freak hopes that, by removing some of the less well-known characters and cutting some of the extraneous fat from the series, gamers will be more invested and form better relationships with the Pokémon they meet in Sword and Shield. With only a few weeks until the game’s release, players will soon see just who Pokémon Sword & Shield deemed important enough to include. At least Ash finally got his trophy.
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Source: YouTube
