I Was Wrong About “Dexit”

Don’t Want To Catch Them All

It’s been quite some time since Pokemon Sword and Shield came out, so this has had some time to marinate in the back of my mind. With Pokemon Day on the horizon, I wanted to look back at the eighth generation specifically. 

The eighth generation of Pokemon games introduced an idea that was anathema to every mainline Pokemon game that came before: No national dex. 

No way, definitively, to catch them all.

To say this idea was unpopular would be an understatement. Imagine how capital G Gamers react to women on their games, now imagine that woman being Black. 

Just like that.

And as much as it pains me to admit this, my reaction to this news at the time was visceral. 

What exactly are you talking about GameFreak? What do you MEAN there’s no national dex? How am I supposed to catch them all if they aren’t all there to catch!? Etc.

One of my most popular YouTube videos on my now dorment channel was talking about this very thing.

My most scathing rebuke of the game in that video was “this is a 3DS game on the Switch.”

I was much more reserved in that video than I remembered feeling at the time. I became a reply guy for a while there. It was not great. I was unhappy and I’m still a little unhappy with those games although for completely different reasons.

Now that I’m older and like to pretend I am wiser, the idea of catching over a thousand Pokemon, FOREVER, is repulsive to me. 

I simply do not have the time, and honestly, nor the inclination to do that. Imagine having to do that just to get the shiny charm? One of the last real reasons to complete the PokeDex and if I had to catch a thousand plus EVERY TIME to do that without waiting for Pokemon Home to be enabled months later? Yeah right!

This is all ignoring how much the Pokemon Company and GameFreak have been really struggling to make games run well on the Switch. And this isn’t a Switch 1 only problem. I don’t really think the Switch 2 would have solved any of the problems Sword and Shield, Legends Arceus or Scarlet and Violet had. Imagine all of those problems on top of having to worry about over a thousand Pokemon.

My issue with “dexit” was something I wouldn’t reconcile with until the release of Legends Arceus.

At the time I was bone weary of ANOTHER, led by the nose down a long hallway, the tutorial is the game, Pokemon game. 

After dealing with it in both X and Y and Sun and Moon I was TIRED of the baby mode dog walking. Yes I know the game is for children, but kids are not stupid! Certainly not so dumb they can’t play a Pokemon game. 

The older games were for kids too, and they were much harder, no easily accessible guides, and those kids were just fine. 

Needless to say as an adult playing a children’s game, I understand that I would have to deal with SOME tutorializing, but Jesus tapdancing Christ there should be a limit.

Arceus was a breath of fresh air that really reinvigorated my love for the Pokemon franchise. 

While Scarlet and Violet didn’t hit all the highs of Legends, I still thoroughly enjoyed my time with the game and the subsequent DLC which I bought for the first time.

Scarlet and Violet had the same amount of Pokemon as Sword and Shield did initially, but those games could not be any more different from one another.

Scarlet and Violet were fun for one thing. For another, the game felt so alive it was easy to ignore how much it struggled to run. 

The post game too was also leagues above what we got in Sword and Shield. 

Area Zero STILL does not feel real.

Even after all this time I find myself booting up Scarlet and Violet to catch the odd shiny, or just vibe in Area Zero because it felt right being there. 

I cannot say the same for Sword and Shield. The DLC apparently made those games much better, but I wouldn’t know, as I didn’t want to spend an extra thirty dollars on a game I did not enjoy. 

Something that they added later on to the Sword and Shield DLC were Dynamax Adventures, which allowed you to chase legendary Pokemon with a high chance of them being shiny. While cool on paper, in practice, it seemed to be a huge slog solo, relying on layers of RNG to even come close to getting what you want.

All of that, and the games still were not as fun as I hoped they would have been, or could have been. A national dex would not have fixed the fundamental flaw Sword and Shield had with being as bland as milk water. 

It’s another Pokemon game, we get it. 

One that I played and finished the Dex mind, but also one that I put down as soon as I got done. Sword and Shield remains to this day my least played Pokemon game. I played that game for maybe 70 hours, in contrast to the over 200 in Scarlet and Violet, and 100+ of multiple playthroughs of Legends Arceus. 

If anything, a nation dex would have been to that game’s detriment in the long run. 

Overall, looking back, I am kinda glad there was no national dex. Not only would it have soured my experience with the game, I probably would not have bought the next Pokemon game, if it were simply going to be more of the same. 

No, the whole argument was founded on the basis of wanting to call GameFreak and the Pokemon Company lazy for not doing what fans think is easy. While something being difficult is a poor excuse to not do it, people should really stop to think about what it means to actually make things, and how long those things take to make. 

Even easy things can take years to be done. Next thing you know, people are complaining about going too long without a Pokemon game. Like the games themselves will fix whatever is going on in their lives. There was no winning, and I don’t really think more time in the oven would have helped the problems Sword and Shield had to begin with. 

My reaction to it now seems childish at best, gamer gate levels of rage baiting at worst, despite being in my mid-twenties at the time and “knowing better.” That’s growth for you. You might even call it evolution. Thanks for reading. 

Take care.