4 Things You Should Know Before Starting Pokemon Sword & Shield

You Won’t Be Able to Transfer All of Your Old Pokemon

Sorry If this is the first time that you’re hearing this but the National Dex has been cut from Pokemon Sword and Shield, meaning that hundreds of Pokemon are not available in the game and they also cannot be transferred in from past Pokemon titles.

There’s only 400 Pokemon in Sword and Shield so if you were excited about transferring all of your old Pokemon over to the Galar region, you may need to rethink that.

It’s also worth mentioning that you won’t be able to transfer any Pokemon at all until sometime in 2020 when Pokemon Home launches.

It’s Not Really Open-World

The Wild Areas in Pokemon Sword and Shield have been heavily advertised by Game Freak and Nintendo as being these game-changing aspects of these two new mainline games but, while they are a neat inclusion, don’t offer much in terms of an open-world-like experience.

The routes are still the main path that you must follow in order to keep up with the story beats and get to the next city to face off against the gym leaders but if you wanted to take a break and explore a bit, these open areas can be quite fun.

You can go camping with your Pokemon and cook curry with them to increase their stats, you can partake in Raid battles with your friends to try and catch unique Pokemon, or you can just swim/bike around the fields.

Each Version Has Several Differences to Consider

Before you go to your local store and buy Pokemon Sword or Pokemon Shield, you should know what you’re getting yourself into first.

If this is your first Pokemon experience, then you should know that there are version-exclusives for both games, meaning that some Pokemon and other things are exclusive to Sword and some are exclusive to Shield.

We have an entire list of all of the Pokemon that are exclusive to both games and the gym leaders too so you can see for yourself which group of Pokemon piques your interest more.

Random Pokemon Encounters Are Optional (Kind Of)

Just like how it was in Pokemon Let’s Go Pikachu and Let’s Go Eevee, there will be Pokemon out and about in the field in Sword and Shield. You can just casually walk up to it to start a battle and they also don’t pop in and out randomly as they did in Let’s Go.

But, if you still miss random encounters for some reason, you’ll be able to spot exclamation points in the grass. By walking into these, you will be thrown into a random battle with a Pokemon and chances are that it’ll be a less common Pokemon or even a shiny Pokemon.

Sometimes when you’re running through the grass, the exclamation point might pop up in front of you, causing an unwanted battle to occur. This doesn’t happen too often but random battles are still kind of a thing in Sword and Shield so it’s good to mention it.

For more on Pokemon Sword and Shield, why not check out our ever-extensive Guide Wiki? It has tons of tips and tricks to help you on your Pokemon journey through the Galar region.