Pokémon Sword and Shield: The Snowy Lands of the Crown - Review

    Pokémon Sword and Shield: The Snowy Lands of the Crown - Review

    Pokémon Sword and Shield have had the bitter demerit of splitting the Pokémon fanbase in half. After a good but divisive main title and a DLC - The Lonely Isle of Armor - which proved below expectations, Game Freak had to bow it all with one last content, the Snowy Lands of the Crown, trying to convince even the most disheartened of their attachment to the series.

    With Le Terre Snowevate della Corona the curtain falls on the eighth generation. We braved the snow storms created by the developers by exploring a new part of Galar, these are our impressions.



    La Landa Corona and its inhabitants

    The Crown Snowlands were looming on the horizon as the highlight of this Expansion Pass, and time has proved the predictions right. The second DLC takes us to the Crown Rift, and proves richer and more exploratory than the Lonely Isle of Armor, which we had completed with a bitter taste. The problems regarding the level scaling remain, although it is clear that the content is calibrated on a higher difficulty level making the Snowy Lands of the Crown the true post game of Pokémon Sword and Shield.

    Unfortunately, in this post game with a winter flavor you have to remove the coaches from the equation: if the previous adventure on the island was interspersed with some battles, in fact, here the coaches are not present, paradoxically being eclipsed by the Lonely Island of Armor. It is left to the wild Pokémon to give life to the frozen wastes where an ancient legend has almost been forgotten.

    Pokémon Sword and Shield: The Snowy Lands of the Crown - Review

    Freezedale, the main town home to much of the plot events, is also the last weak human stronghold in a place where Pokémon reign supreme. From here it will be possible to embark on the exploration of a map that appears much larger than the first part of the Expansion Pass and more reasoned, with levels that often make us lose our sense of direction, often leading us to open the game menu to give a look at the map. Several times, in fact, we thought that a mini map on one side of the screen would not have failed on this occasion, a sign of how Game Freak has been able to camouflage these wild lands better than it had done before.



    Between bare trees and caves that are perhaps more labyrinthine but empty, it must be said that the details are still quite scarce for a hardware like the Nintendo Switch that has accustomed us to many other feats, which seems to use a good part of its computational strength in loading the creatures on the screen. At the time Digital Foundry dubbed the resolution in these areas as 576p, and it seems that there are still difficulties in this sense, which also transpires in a certain awkwardness of the animations, sometimes guilty of breaking the seriousness of some scenes shown.

    Pokémon Sword and Shield: The Snowy Lands of the Crown - Review

    As also shown in the main game this unfortunately is the current quality of Pokémon on the Nintendo flagship. Despite this there is a different air in this part of Galar: it will be a newfound focus on the legendaries, which puts Calyrex at the center of the narrative, who chooses the player as his helper in an intriguing first time in the Pokémon portable adventures, or the fact that the DLC really pushes to capture them all by rewarding the player with a fourth adventure dedicated to the Ultra Beasts, which appeared in Pokémon Sun and Moon.

    The King of Plenty and other stories

    The main legend is that of Calyrex, a legendary Pokémon that according to scarce memories made the fields flourish with a simple gesture, despite the harsh climate. Calyrex is not the only story that winds its way, and that makes the Crown Rift land ideal for any self-respecting adventurer. Translated: it will be enough to present the ticket at the Brassbury station to take off and be chased by new Pokémon such as Jynx or Beartic, along with others who have passed the repechage from the past generations.


    Pokémon Sword and Shield: The Snowy Lands of the Crown - Review

    After a brief introduction with a new character, Peony, our avatar will find himself fully dressed with the task of discovering all the mysteries offered that the Crown Land offers. The history of Calyrex, now forgotten by most of the population, will be the driving force for the other two, which contextualize how well known Pokémon such as the Regi and the first generation legendary birds can. In fact, it is known that in the Snowy Lands of the Crown there are temples where third generation golems doze, and also that there is a colossal tree with red fruits where the regional forms of Articuno, Zapdos and Moltres usually go.


    Calyrex's is a simple but enjoyable quest and an excuse to explore the Crown Land, allowing you to bring to mind a past where legendaries were part of the written and oral tradition of a people.

    Pokémon Sword and Shield: The Snowy Lands of the Crown - Review

    The three Regi, on the other hand, warm up the seat to two new golems making their debut in Pokémon Sword and Shield, Dragonfly and Regieleki, and await us in the temples at the end of puzzles that are frankly too simple to be considered such. They are perhaps the weak point of the package, and the reason lies in the fact that they are not very contextualized: we do not know why they are in Galar, and the way in which a confrontation is reached is rather anti-climatic. In fact, it is necessary to activate all the circles inside the only room that forms the temple in a completely random order to awaken the legendaries and battle them until they enter a Poké Ball. Regidrago and Regieleki are only available after capturing the siblings, and it is an aut aut of the game: you can only choose the Dragon or Electric Pokémon, which have different statistics. In short, the times when young trainers could learn Braille through the instruction manual of Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire, find an underwater cave and decipher the message that led to the Regi are not repeated in The Snowy Lands of the Crown.


    Finally, space for legendary birds of Galar, who after a nice cutscene will run away with their wings raised in three different places in the region. Finding them and capturing them as in the past, in there Suicune, Raikou and Entei of the second generation, is actually one of the funniest components of the DLC, useful for re-exploring some areas of the Galar and seeing wandering legendary Pokémon flying in the overworld to their rules before understand their patterns and lock them in a Poké ball.


    Dynamax Adventures and other challenges

    The Snowy Lands of the Crown also bring with them a renewed multiplayer in the form of Dynamax Adventures. They are the reason why Nia, Peony's daughter, breaks free from her father's embrace and allows us to obtain the information necessary to embark on the journey, but not only. The simplest way to describe Dynamax Adventures is by one Pokémon Dynamax boss rush at the end of which there is often a legendary Pokémon obviously in giant format, with a 100% chance of catching. This also means that it will be possible to indulge in the most suitable ball depending on the creature encountered without fear of it going to waste.

    Pokémon Sword and Shield: The Snowy Lands of the Crown - Review

    For plot reasons we will have to try this new Dynamax Raid mode in a big way, accessible from the beginning of the DLC: here, unlike normal raids, it will no longer be possible to use your Pokémon, so Zacian is to be left in the box in favor of rental Pokémon; the same thing will do the CPU or companions found online. After passing all the Pokémon Dynamax, we will arrive at the legendary ending. In case of defeat the expedition will be failed, but in case of victory you can choose which creature to bring with you and you will finally be rewarded with the Rocks max, with which to buy items. It will therefore be essential to look for a Pokémon that is super effective or resistant against the final boss, to have more chances to bring it to zero and overcome the feat.

    The basic idea is good and satisfying, we would have only liked a more flexible and punitive management in matchmaking, with the possibility of continuing even after the abandonment of loved ones met online.

    Pokémon Sword and Shield: The Snowy Lands of the Crown - Review

    Those who are hungry for Pokémon battles, on the other hand, will have to return to Goalwick where Dandel has set up a new challenge called the Tournament of the Galar Stars. It is a multi-fight elimination tournament (paired with the CPU) where all known faces of Galar and expansions meet their creatures up to level 80, but will only be available by completing by going all the way into the Crown Rift .

    In conclusion, The Snowcapped Lands of the Crown go to balance the selling price of the Pokémon Sword and Shield Expansion Pass, counterbalancing the previous additional content by replacing the tedious Diglett quest with breadcrumbs with a "legendary" flavor and additional Pokémon including fossils and Ice-type (which we remember being the rarest of all), adding a component that lengthens the experience, despite the fact that the main story runs out within a few hours.

    Pokémon Sword and Shield: The Snowy Lands of the Crown - Review

    The Snowcapped Lands of the Crown proved to be a timid step forward for the series and a definite step up from The Lonely Isle of Armor. It constitutes the real post game of Pokémon Sword and Shield thanks to the emphasis on legendaries, some justified better than others, and to the Dynamax Adventures, renewed multiplayer focused on raids. Despite the lack of graphic details, under the pretext of the legends of which the Landa Corona is overflowing, there is the desire to explore the ravines of this frozen wild land, and reach the sea at the antipodes. The eighth generation in this way bids its farewell, with its ups and downs, new and missing Pokémon, its atolls and tundras.

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