The Crown Tundra

The frozen south? 

Here we are, after almost an entire year of waiting, the last past of the Pokémon Sword and Shield experience has finally released with The Crown Tundra, a winter themed romp through the frozen southern wastes of England-like Galar. (Note: Southern England is usually the last place to freeze over, but I guess we'll chalk this one up to creative licence on The Pokémon Company's end) Now as far as we are we aware this spells the end of the journey, (saving the surprise announcement of a second season pass, which might happen given the precedent set by Smash Bros.) so there's really a lot for this finale to live up to and achieve. As of right now I've actually played through a decent amount of it, enough to give a fairly decent account of how I think the DLC fairs with its strength and weaknesses, and that's because I think mastering this content is going to take a fair few months to truly do right.

So let me start by saying that I think narratively, I really quite enjoyed what was going on with the Crown Tundra slightly more than what we saw in The Isle of Armor. Armor was a rather straight forward story with no frills that took us through the act of 'training' to be good enough to take guardianship over that DLC's legendary Pokémon, not bad by any stretch of the imagination but not earth shattering either. Whilst I can say the same for The Crown Tundra's go at DLC, I will say that the story Gamefreak showed off felt much more in line with the more interesting and elucidating post-game chapters that we've been getting out of Pokémon of late. I don't want to get into specifics because I think this particular narrative has some surprisingly funny twists to it, but I will say that we really do get in close contact with this region's legendary in a manner that surpasses even what we saw in the Sword and Shield base game. (Maybe I'll dedicate a future blog in talking about the whole story and what we can learn from it.)

The basic structure of The Crown Tundra's story leans on what was established and well-received from the Isle of Armor; open ended exploration. This time around you are paired with the doting father of a rebellious teen known as Peony, who devised a number of 'expeditions' in order to get closer with his daughter, only for her to abandon him and go Dynamax hunting. We are left behind to play surrogate child in the father-daughter bonding time, meaning that the 'expeditions' into discovering the truth behind the various legendary Pokémon living in The Crown Tundra can commence with haste. Of this there are three branches of Pokémon Legendries that you can pursue in order to make up the basic plot of the DLC (with a fourth that's unrelated) and the player is free tackle them in whatever order they so desire, making for the freedom-angle in this plot.

I've said it before but let me reiterate; this really should be the direction that all Pokémon content begins to take in the future as it finally pushes this decades old franchise into the modern age just that little bit. The amount of out-dated design mechanics in Pokémon have been a distraction for too long, let the new wave take over! The new free-camera exploration spaces makes the world feel less segmented and thus the habitats more natural, and some of the legendaries introduced with The Crown Tundra really take advantage of this new space. I don't want to spoil too much but there are some roaming legendaries introduced with this new DLC that require you to explore much further than you might have expected from a Pokémon DLC. This is the sort of thing that should be encouraged in the future!

Not everything is sunshine and roses, however, and I feel that despite itself The Crown Tundra has slipped over in one crucial area; the engagement incentives. Don't get me wrong, exploring the Tundra is a reward all in of itself with the varied environments and Pokémon you can scout of all kinds, but there's no tangible in-game reward for coming back time and time again after the main story is completed. Once you've gathered all the legendaries and solved the mysteries there's a huge part of this gorgeous map that you'll just have no need to ever return to, and this sits in stark contrast to The Isle of Armor which seemed littered with such incentives. On Armor you had the daily max mushrooms which needed players to farm dens in order to spawn, alongside the collectible Ditto's and the Apricorn trees that you could then roll in the item converter to maybe get a super rare Pokéball. (Just got my first Safari Ball from it after 5 months, that's the sort of recurrent incentive I'm talking about.) Game Freak can learn from themselves there.

The real selling point of the DLC however, aside from the promise of new adventures, is the Dynamax Adventures that don't take up as much of the main story as I would have initially assumed. Essentially these are four-fight dungeons wherein the player is tasked with teaming up with a party and battling through three Dynamax Pokémon in order to get the chance of facing a legendary from the series at the end of it all. The twist comes in that none of your own Pokémon are allowed to be used in this battle, meaning you have to select from some randomly generated mons, and that you can only be knocked down three times across all four fights, (With HP and PP carrying over from each fight to the next) so working as a team is essential. The Adventure itself is rather straight-forward, with players deciding what route to take across a board of Pokémon wherein all you can see are faint shadows and Typing to help inform your path. It's actually a really fun and exciting way to push your Pokémon skills just that little bit further (although I'd argue 'Restricted battling' from Armor is much more challenging) and it's made all the sweeter from the fact that legendaries aren't shiny-locked in this adventure, if that's the sort of thing you look out for in Pokémon.

All I really was missing from the DLC, and again I haven't finished it all so I may be a little premature here, is the explanation behind the legendaries. Yeah, I know it's a nerdy point; but why exactly are there so many legendries showing up Galar when they are supposed to be one-of-a-kind? Previous games that have tried this sort of system have established some sort of 'parallel dimension' mumbo jumbo to explain it all away, but it seems that The Crown Tundra couldn't even be bothered to do that. There's some slight shade thrown towards a Cosmog that is found in the area, which would make sense given it's ability to open ultra-wormholes, but where did that Cosmog come from to begin with? But that's just nerd-talk at this point and for the most part I'd consider The Crown Tundra to be a decent send off for the Sword and Shield world, a piece of content that is just about worth the inexpensive asking price for what's on offer here. 

Sword and Shield has been an unexpectedly big part of my year and it's a little sad to see it's journey come to an end. Being a Brit, it was fun to explore this reimagination of my homeland and really get involved with the Pokémon community in ways that I simply haven't ever before. (I even check the Reddit often now, how positively bizarre!) I still think there's room for a little more should the company choose to tell it, but that's all their own prerogative, and I'm sure there's many more out there that just want them to take what they've learned in these DLCs and apply them to a new full game in the future. For my part I just want to say that I appreciate getting the chance to spend some much time in Galar and hope that future Pokémon adventures will only get better from here on in. Now without further ado I'm going to resume the desperate hunt for my shiny Rayquaza.