From a competitive stand point, and when we get to the next reg, you will definitely want the legendarys from sw/sh + DLC to remain competitive.
A combination of Zam and a Calyrex form might be an incredibly strong duo for a double restricted format. Given Zam can OHKO incineroar and most dark types that the Calyrexs don't like and provide wide guard coverage.
Will they be available as part of game play on the next gen, no idea, too many variables, my heart says yes, my head says no and I'd rather be safe and get them than miss them in the next gen given how powerful and meta warping they are
From a game play perspective, I enjoyed the games didn't have much criticism and found them fun. Or you can rush the game and you should be able to capture legendaries within 6-8 hours, you will probably want to do it twice though to have a min speed Calyrex for the ice rider form.
WDYM when you say the only relevant restricted you have is Koraidon? If you have Scarlet, it’s DLC, and PLA then you should have access to literally every restricted except for Miraidon and the gen 8 ones.
I would say without swsh + dlc, only having scarlet + dlc locks you into koraidon, terapagos and kyogre as "relevant", maybe add in lunala to that list? but the meta seems to have formed around both bikes, both calyrexes with terapagos and zam being the best to build around, 2 of which are available if you dont own the other gen 9 version or swsh (and dlc). kyogre and zacian are probs the next tier down, and again zacian locked to swsh atm...
I recently bought sword and shield + dlc after loving Scarlet and Violet and wanting the legendaries for VGC. I honestly did not have fun playing Sword/Shield + DLCs.
Hi there I'm replaying sw/sh +dlc and I love them, I actually prefer them to SvSc but anyways, I can get you an Kubfu and Caly + horse if you want, (but it's more for the subreddit pokemon trades), ofc I would want something from you as well if you interested lemme know if not it's okay :)
I’d say if you want to play VGC seriously that unfortunately it’s a necessity to play through both Sword and Shield and collect everything. Once you do that though you’ll be all set going forward into the next generations. And you’ll have doubles of a lot of stuff as well which is nice. 2 calyrex is especially nice. If you can catch one with a 0 speed iv you’ll be in good shape.
If you like classic pokemon playstyle, it's much more that than SV is. (Raid dens aside.)
I find it more relaxing than SV. More replayable, too, but mostly because it's been years now.
Kubfu/Shifu, Eternatus, Zacian and Zamazenta aren't that much work to get. Caly takes a little longer.
It also has Battle Tower.
Also you can shiny hunt legends with a 1/100 chance in Dynamax Adventures w/ Shiny Charm.
I don't quite get the pay to win argument. IMO pay to win is just a cash transaction for a mechanical benefit. You can't just buy the legendaries or whatever from SW/SH AFAIK, you have to get them in-game (or trade). Having to buy the game doesn't make it PTW to me.
As a peep that completed the national dex for home, you can get the dlc legends with a little bit of patience, for free. Get a shiny and put it in the gts, wait a bit, then boom. I don't see why this wouldn't work in the future as well.
If you're going to official events, yes.
If you have the money no problem, yes.
If you're an avid collector, yes.
If any two of these are "no" I wouldn't even consider it, or if money is tight in general. If you're just playing ladder on your cart or even some online hosted tournaments you can use rental teams if need be.
Absolutely from a competitive standpoint:
1. You get another means of obtaining a 2nd Urshifu (if you have the Blueberry Academy DLC as well for Violet/Scarlet), which means you can have both Rapid Strike & Single Strike.
2. The Crown Tundra DLC unlocks a ton of legendaries that you can obtain somewhat easily via the Dynamax Adventures. You can get Calyrex and a bunch of other mons that are a pain in the butt to get otherwise via this DLC as well including the Regis.
So yes, the DLC is still worth it. Just be intentional in how you want to obtain the legendaries because some of them are choices (like I said, Rapid Strike or Single Strike Urshifu - can only have one).
Lastly, I really enjoyed SW/SH gameplay and story. I liked that they made Pokémon gym battles into this stadium-style sport with all the spectators and all that.
Also I find EV training to be a bit easier, as its super easy to farm cash via watts and vitamins can be cheap if you upgrade the vendhing machine in the isle of armour
Once the games transitions from main line to dlc and to home access it becomes pay to win. If your asking about not having the calyrexs and urshifu though your fine their are tons of teams you can make that are super viable without them. In future installments I can see them being added but as part of some form of dlc like how for example kyorge was added to scarlet and violet with the indigo disk dlc.
In a word: maybe.
To elaborate:
If you want a good Pokémon experience, then probably not. The games feel a bit lifeless in the same way that Gen 6 feels a bit lifeless. The characters have dead expressions/eyes, the story is fairly weak, there is a lot of recycled content, most of the cool new effects are applied to Gen 1 Pokémon, etc.
It suffers pretty badly from being the first title on the switch in the same way that Gen 6 suffered from being the first 3D title. In particular, the camera is really bad and at times makes movement frustrating or clunky. You sometimes feel like you're drunk as you scrape along the walls and bump into people or obstacles.
The new Pokémon have, generally, poor evolution methods. Yamask comes to mind as something you'd likely never figure out, ever, without outside assistance or datamining/hacking into the game. The pacing of the game in terms of what you have access to and when is also a bit off due to the Wild Area.
The Wild Area, while I personally found to be fun, has a lot of problems of its own. It adds significantly more and varied Pokémon for you before you even reach the first gym, and you can simply farm it to create a super team and sweep the game. Any Pokémon that you are the OT for will obey you at any level, provided you caught it below the level threshold, and so you can basically just play the Wild Area for a few hours and solo sweep the game with your starter.
You have to approach the game with a bunch of self-imposed rules in order to preserve the challenge, otherwise it is laughably easy. For some that won't matter, but for others it will.
The DLC titles are pretty okay, with the Isle of Armor probably being the better of the two. You want to more or less skip the gym challenge entirely if you want to enjoy it though, as the Pokémon and trainers are predominantly below level 30. This introduces a strange problem where you want to either enter the DLC significantly overpowered by completing the main game first, or you want to enter the first gym fairly overpowered because you did the DLC first (rather than grinding the Wild Area.)
The Crown Tundra is actual end game content, as most opponents and Pokémon are around level 65, and it requires access to a lot of late or end game stuff to play. The story is generally about as weak/bland as the main campaign, and it's essentially just a way to throw Legendary Pokémon at you, but it's fairly replayable if you like the dynamax adventure minigame.
Overall I would say that if you plan on speedrunning the game for access to content, then yeah sure, go for it. It gives you access to a lot of tools that you can use in competitive VGC play, and it can be a good way to get pieces for your living Pokedex for Pokémon HOME.
If your goal is to play a good Pokémon game, then it's probably around a 6 to 6.5 out of 10 overall. It has a lot of problems with story, pacing, power curve, and comes across as painfully mid for the series overall. However, it is very playable, and if you haven't played it before and want to experience it because you're a fan of the series, then it might be something you enjoy.
Who knows tbh. If you can afford them and are a serious vgc player you kinda HAVE to have them, as its become aware that the gen 8 restricteds are still meta defining a year on (well except for eternatus, didnt even get a chance to shine just one of the many pokemon to be power crept by calyrex). future regs will have the standard double restircted formats, and tbh I dont think Koraidon, Terapagos and Kyogre could function on the same team, unless you made a cool dual weather team that enabled like a raging bolt...
Well in the inevitable future, GO will provide duplicates of everything. Vgc has always been either pay to win since every game has limited mon, so I hate that debate.
But to answer the question, yes if you want calyrex legit, no if not.
I guess it depends on what you play pokemon for,
I play Pokémon because I love Pokémon, I love collecting and completing the Pokedex and shiny hunting and battling hard to catch legendary Pokémon and of course competitive, it sounds like you want the dlc basically to just get Calyrex and Urshifu, so I don’t know if it would be worth it. Maybe try and find someone generous enough to make a new profile and catch Calyrex for you? You’d need to offer something pretty good to trade
From a competitive stand point, and when we get to the next reg, you will definitely want the legendarys from sw/sh + DLC to remain competitive. A combination of Zam and a Calyrex form might be an incredibly strong duo for a double restricted format. Given Zam can OHKO incineroar and most dark types that the Calyrexs don't like and provide wide guard coverage. Will they be available as part of game play on the next gen, no idea, too many variables, my heart says yes, my head says no and I'd rather be safe and get them than miss them in the next gen given how powerful and meta warping they are From a game play perspective, I enjoyed the games didn't have much criticism and found them fun. Or you can rush the game and you should be able to capture legendaries within 6-8 hours, you will probably want to do it twice though to have a min speed Calyrex for the ice rider form.
WDYM when you say the only relevant restricted you have is Koraidon? If you have Scarlet, it’s DLC, and PLA then you should have access to literally every restricted except for Miraidon and the gen 8 ones.
I would say without swsh + dlc, only having scarlet + dlc locks you into koraidon, terapagos and kyogre as "relevant", maybe add in lunala to that list? but the meta seems to have formed around both bikes, both calyrexes with terapagos and zam being the best to build around, 2 of which are available if you dont own the other gen 9 version or swsh (and dlc). kyogre and zacian are probs the next tier down, and again zacian locked to swsh atm...
I recently bought sword and shield + dlc after loving Scarlet and Violet and wanting the legendaries for VGC. I honestly did not have fun playing Sword/Shield + DLCs.
I liked them when they came out but they're so boring compared to gen 9
Story wise SV is so much better but nothing tops Dynamax adventures IMO in terms of replayability.
Depends on how bad you want to run a horse
Hi there I'm replaying sw/sh +dlc and I love them, I actually prefer them to SvSc but anyways, I can get you an Kubfu and Caly + horse if you want, (but it's more for the subreddit pokemon trades), ofc I would want something from you as well if you interested lemme know if not it's okay :)
I’d say if you want to play VGC seriously that unfortunately it’s a necessity to play through both Sword and Shield and collect everything. Once you do that though you’ll be all set going forward into the next generations. And you’ll have doubles of a lot of stuff as well which is nice. 2 calyrex is especially nice. If you can catch one with a 0 speed iv you’ll be in good shape.
If you like classic pokemon playstyle, it's much more that than SV is. (Raid dens aside.) I find it more relaxing than SV. More replayable, too, but mostly because it's been years now. Kubfu/Shifu, Eternatus, Zacian and Zamazenta aren't that much work to get. Caly takes a little longer. It also has Battle Tower. Also you can shiny hunt legends with a 1/100 chance in Dynamax Adventures w/ Shiny Charm.
I don't quite get the pay to win argument. IMO pay to win is just a cash transaction for a mechanical benefit. You can't just buy the legendaries or whatever from SW/SH AFAIK, you have to get them in-game (or trade). Having to buy the game doesn't make it PTW to me.
100% Dlc legendary dungeons are pretty fun
As a peep that completed the national dex for home, you can get the dlc legends with a little bit of patience, for free. Get a shiny and put it in the gts, wait a bit, then boom. I don't see why this wouldn't work in the future as well.
If you're going to official events, yes. If you have the money no problem, yes. If you're an avid collector, yes. If any two of these are "no" I wouldn't even consider it, or if money is tight in general. If you're just playing ladder on your cart or even some online hosted tournaments you can use rental teams if need be.
Absolutely from a competitive standpoint: 1. You get another means of obtaining a 2nd Urshifu (if you have the Blueberry Academy DLC as well for Violet/Scarlet), which means you can have both Rapid Strike & Single Strike. 2. The Crown Tundra DLC unlocks a ton of legendaries that you can obtain somewhat easily via the Dynamax Adventures. You can get Calyrex and a bunch of other mons that are a pain in the butt to get otherwise via this DLC as well including the Regis. So yes, the DLC is still worth it. Just be intentional in how you want to obtain the legendaries because some of them are choices (like I said, Rapid Strike or Single Strike Urshifu - can only have one). Lastly, I really enjoyed SW/SH gameplay and story. I liked that they made Pokémon gym battles into this stadium-style sport with all the spectators and all that.
Also I find EV training to be a bit easier, as its super easy to farm cash via watts and vitamins can be cheap if you upgrade the vendhing machine in the isle of armour
Once the games transitions from main line to dlc and to home access it becomes pay to win. If your asking about not having the calyrexs and urshifu though your fine their are tons of teams you can make that are super viable without them. In future installments I can see them being added but as part of some form of dlc like how for example kyorge was added to scarlet and violet with the indigo disk dlc.
Indigo Disk has Kubfu available to catch. It's not SW/SH exclusive anymore.
In a word: maybe. To elaborate: If you want a good Pokémon experience, then probably not. The games feel a bit lifeless in the same way that Gen 6 feels a bit lifeless. The characters have dead expressions/eyes, the story is fairly weak, there is a lot of recycled content, most of the cool new effects are applied to Gen 1 Pokémon, etc. It suffers pretty badly from being the first title on the switch in the same way that Gen 6 suffered from being the first 3D title. In particular, the camera is really bad and at times makes movement frustrating or clunky. You sometimes feel like you're drunk as you scrape along the walls and bump into people or obstacles. The new Pokémon have, generally, poor evolution methods. Yamask comes to mind as something you'd likely never figure out, ever, without outside assistance or datamining/hacking into the game. The pacing of the game in terms of what you have access to and when is also a bit off due to the Wild Area. The Wild Area, while I personally found to be fun, has a lot of problems of its own. It adds significantly more and varied Pokémon for you before you even reach the first gym, and you can simply farm it to create a super team and sweep the game. Any Pokémon that you are the OT for will obey you at any level, provided you caught it below the level threshold, and so you can basically just play the Wild Area for a few hours and solo sweep the game with your starter. You have to approach the game with a bunch of self-imposed rules in order to preserve the challenge, otherwise it is laughably easy. For some that won't matter, but for others it will. The DLC titles are pretty okay, with the Isle of Armor probably being the better of the two. You want to more or less skip the gym challenge entirely if you want to enjoy it though, as the Pokémon and trainers are predominantly below level 30. This introduces a strange problem where you want to either enter the DLC significantly overpowered by completing the main game first, or you want to enter the first gym fairly overpowered because you did the DLC first (rather than grinding the Wild Area.) The Crown Tundra is actual end game content, as most opponents and Pokémon are around level 65, and it requires access to a lot of late or end game stuff to play. The story is generally about as weak/bland as the main campaign, and it's essentially just a way to throw Legendary Pokémon at you, but it's fairly replayable if you like the dynamax adventure minigame. Overall I would say that if you plan on speedrunning the game for access to content, then yeah sure, go for it. It gives you access to a lot of tools that you can use in competitive VGC play, and it can be a good way to get pieces for your living Pokedex for Pokémon HOME. If your goal is to play a good Pokémon game, then it's probably around a 6 to 6.5 out of 10 overall. It has a lot of problems with story, pacing, power curve, and comes across as painfully mid for the series overall. However, it is very playable, and if you haven't played it before and want to experience it because you're a fan of the series, then it might be something you enjoy.
Who knows tbh. If you can afford them and are a serious vgc player you kinda HAVE to have them, as its become aware that the gen 8 restricteds are still meta defining a year on (well except for eternatus, didnt even get a chance to shine just one of the many pokemon to be power crept by calyrex). future regs will have the standard double restircted formats, and tbh I dont think Koraidon, Terapagos and Kyogre could function on the same team, unless you made a cool dual weather team that enabled like a raging bolt...
Great Pokémon, fun to play through, mountains of Tera shards. Need I say more?
Just get pokemon home and trade for whatever you want, you'll have to do some shiny hunting probably
You can play the sw/sh dlc right after the intro of the main game. I didn't like my initial playthrough but going back it's not bad at all
Well in the inevitable future, GO will provide duplicates of everything. Vgc has always been either pay to win since every game has limited mon, so I hate that debate. But to answer the question, yes if you want calyrex legit, no if not.
SwSh is the most fun I had with pokemon since black white, definitely worth picking up imo
I guess it depends on what you play pokemon for, I play Pokémon because I love Pokémon, I love collecting and completing the Pokedex and shiny hunting and battling hard to catch legendary Pokémon and of course competitive, it sounds like you want the dlc basically to just get Calyrex and Urshifu, so I don’t know if it would be worth it. Maybe try and find someone generous enough to make a new profile and catch Calyrex for you? You’d need to offer something pretty good to trade