Things I have Kinda Missed in Pokemon Shield

Turns out, there is a lot more in Pokemon Shield, aside from battling. And, honestly, I have ignored most of it. Things like trading and camping and stuff like that. It seems like I am missing quite a lot. And there are definitely some fun things to discuss.

Take Camping for example. Pretty much wherever you are, you can set up your tent, take a break and spend some time with your Pokemon. Not only can your Pokemon get some fresh air, but you can also play with them, either by waggling a toy or playing fetch with a ball. You can whistle at Pokemon to get their attention, so they come over and play. Your Pokemon will play with each other as well.

I’ll be a tad honest though. Playing with your Pokemon is cute, but watching them awkwardly spin on the spot instead of turning and walking seems a bit weird. They also clearly didn’t bother with extra animations for playing. So waggling a stick at a Rhydon and having it play with you, it just stabs you in the face with its horn.

But then there is curry. Aside from watching Pokemon wander about and fetch balls, you can, for some reason, make curry. There is an entire curry dex to be unlocked! But why curry? Then again, there’s that cute elephant Pokemon that is based on more imperialistic Britain than modern Britain. Still, I think the best meal would be some sort of kebab or sandwich.

Still, the fact that a ten year old knows how to make an edible curry is pretty impressive. The fact that all six Pokemon in my party happen to like curry too is just extra weird.

All that being said, I would have liked even more features on camping. At the very least, let us sleep in the tent and give us more toys for our Pokemon.

While camping is one of the bigger things I missed during my adventures, there are also entire raids that I have been ignoring. Dynamax raids are scattered over the large wild areas. Took me a while to figure out that I can fight some of these raids. However, whoever designed these raids is a git, because the friendly NPCs are kinda trash. And by trash, I mean completely random. While some NPCs bring super effective types, there is no guarantee that they’ll use moves correctly.

However, these raids are kinda lame. You don’t have a timer, the raid ends after a certain number of turns, and then there are the bullshit invulnerability shields that pop up. So far, I have only managed to beat one Dynamax raid, for a Linoone.

What else have I missed? Well, apparently there are a ton of interesting places in Hammerlocke, like someone who puts ribbons on Pokemon, but I have no idea where to find them.

Some places though have absolutely nothing in them. Spikemuth, a town with a gym in it, has literally nothing aside from a pokecenter. I get that the city is locked down, but still. It would be nice to join Team Yell and their cheering.

That being said, I do want to battle people again. Most of the routes are littered with trainers of various sorts. It’s not just Team Yell blocking these paths, but NPCs are all over the place. Seems like they are more spread out than would be necessary.

There is one other thing I have missed though, and that is the plot. The whole Dynamax research feels like a side note, outside of doing the gym challenge. There is a plot buried somewhere around here, but I only really see it just after I have beaten a gym. Which is kinda annoying. Seems like there is no time for action, you need to get the gym challenge done before you can do anything else.

Which is weird because the plot is kinda… I don’t want to say ‘interesting’ but there is definitely something there. Shame that it’s buried under the main goal of the gym challenge…