Written Review
Hello and this is my review on the Crown Tundra DLC for Pokémon Sword and Shield.
After finishing the Isle of Armour DLC I wanted to see what improvements they had made in the Crown Tundra so dived straight in. Like the Isle of Armour the story is fairly short, but it is longer. It starts of with you getting the Pokdex and then heading outside the train station and meeting 2 new charactes, there you battle one. Afterwards you head into the Max Lair area and this is basically an introduction to the way Dynamax Advetures work. Once done you go on a journey to do several discorvery tours. In this you are tasked with finding several legenday Pokmon, old ones that have retured, Galar versions of previous ones and there’s also new ones. once finishing these little adventures you complete the story stuff. It’s a fun task, kind of like a treasure hunt, but the treasure is legenday Pokémon.
The area of the Crown Tubdra is a more expanded Wild Area, even more so than Isle of Armour. It’s also isn’t just a snowy or icy area, there are caves and greener places, there’s even a cemetery. The areas are generally large and from the looks of things, Sword and Shields wilds areas are the basis for going to a more open world. What I mean is You have the Wild area, then Isle of armour that’s expands the idea and adds new enviroments and then crown Tundra comes along to expand and refine it a little more. It seems to be a build up to the next gen where that may be a lot less routes and more open spaces, though I’m clearly speculating here, it does seem likely, more so when you consider Pokemon Legends Arceus.
There’s not much I can say about the music, it’s all well composed as it always is with Pokemon, same with the soud effects. The only thing I can really say about the games performance in anyway is that I didn’t experience much if any slowdown, while minimal in the Isle of armour I don’t remember experiencing it here.
The Dynamax Adventures are different to what I thought they would be in here. I assumed you choose your pokemon to venture through the max cave and battle some pokemon until you reach the end and fight a legendary. I was only half right, while you battle you’re way through a cave, if more like a map where you pick your path, I remember seeing this in the original showcase of the DLC, what I didn’t realise was you don’t use your own pokemon, you actually rent them from the Raid Lair lady when you enter.
You can choose between 4 Pokemon that ytou would like to take in, then the 3 parters who accompany you, be them AI or actual players pick from the other 3, when you beat a Pokmon you can either stick with the rental or swap it for the beaten pokemon, but, only if you catch it. It’s a clever way to do it as you have to look at the typing of the pokemon and work out whether to stick or twist so to speak. Once you get all the way through and beat the Legendary at the end, you can catch it, once you do you have to decide which one of the pokemon you keep, and the pokemon you keep could be shiney, but you’ll only know after you have chosen it.
The main criticism for me is the lack of trainer battles, you have such a minimal amount of them it’s a bit of a shame. You have a load of added pokemon and no trainers to battle and test your mettel. There was a lack of trainer battles in Isle of Armour, but as it was only the first DLC I didn’t mind too much, as it was a nice change of pace, but I also assumed it wouldn’t be the same in the Crown Tundra, technically I was right, there’s less trainer battles in the Crown Tundra so it wasn’t the same.
Overall though I enjoyed it, again it’s seems like a building block of what they want to do with Gen 9, it’s a toe in the water of expanding the game world and a preview of what’s to come in the future, and I’m interested in finding out.