So now we got a haunted tea pot and a crane that shoots it's lunch at you.

They made the player character just a bit more customizable this time, letting you pick outer ware and some more hair styles.

And Pokemon pelagio/ amie have been replaced with the camping mechanic from Final Fantasy 15 complete with cooking. So long as you like curry. Also camping counts kinda like the secret base function from gen 3.

Edit: also, while it wasn't introduced the fish in the Crane pokemon's mouth looks like a new addition as well.

More edits: apparently Cramorant is not any kind of crane at all but a cormorant. Never heard of those until today, so there's that.

 

Video for those interested.

New Pokemon are a ghost teapot/tea and a confused blue Pelipper that automatically counters if it's attacked after using Surf or Dive. They exist, I guess.

But FINALLY, customization is back and it's looking great. I'm still not sold on this game, but thank god the clothing selection looks better than Sun/Moon.

 

Camping is a hard step down from secret bases. I am further disappoint.

 

Polteageist is a thing and none of you debbie downers are going to stop me sipping ethereal tea in my Ralts Lauren gear.

 

I'll be honest, I wanna try the Gulp Missile thing at least once. My only problem with the camping thing is that Ignis won't tell me about his new recipe.

 

Behold... Sirfetch'd!

 

Smugbird's introduction trailer for those curious.

 

Clearly the most powerful Pokemon in the game. After all, the legendaries only have a sword or a shield. This one has both.

 

Such power and grace in that monobrow.

So THIS is why the games are named Sword and Shield. Makes much more sense than that very funny joke of pretending to have gay wolves as the mascots.

 

So according to Serebii, there's gonna be 18 different gyms, with some of them being major league and some of them being minor. Also exp share is no longer an item but a built in feature. I hope that that can be turned off.

 

Nevermind on the 18 gyms thing, apparently just a misunderstanding and it's just different gyms for different versions. No really cool shit for us. The 18 gyms thing is apparently just a lore thing, and not something that we get to play with.

 

Shame. Could have been nice to see some innovation introduced. Back to the ... well, not drawing board at this point. Wastebasket I suppose?

In other news, Ponyta has a new form for Galar.

 

Why is my brand new cotton-candy unicorn a psychic-type? :/

I was looking forward to Fairy/Flying Pegasus Rapidash. Psychic/Flying is just... eh.

 

So today's news was all gen one pandering. Pikachu, Eevee, Charizard, Butterfree, and Meowth all have gigantamax forms.

 

Fat Pikachu is back.

 

And here's Meowth

 

So am I the only one that finds the Gigantamax attacks very uninspired? They make these whole new Dynamax models but then just don't do anything with them. Whenever they attack it looks like they move even less then the pokémon usually do normally. The Charizard model is pretty cool though, have to give them that.

Above all, I'm salty we won't get a Mega Butterfree to compliment Mega Beedrill now.
Also can't wrap my head around psychic Galarian Ponyta. Everything about it screams Fairy. Here's to hoping we get a Galarian Growlithe/Arcanine, they've gotten so little love over the years and Arcanine is my favorite 'mon.

edit: Gigantamax instead of Dynamax

 

Yeah the whole Psychic Ponyta thing is strange to our eyes but the eastern mind works differently clearly. That's what I've always put weird typings down to.

 

Gigantafree reporting for duty

 

So far there hasn't been anything impressive that wasn't mentioned by the original leaker, and the game's a month away. I'm suspecting this is basically going to be it - maybe 5-6 more pokemon and new evolutions.

Yup, game's still a hard pass for me.