Looks like there may be a couple small audio glitches and editing blips throughout which I can only apologise for, we had the death of a pet yesterday which meant I wasn't really in the right frame of mind when finishing this up Anyway, Palette Swap are also on Bluesky: bsky.app/profile/paletteswapmag.bsky.social And sorry to any confusion caused with the Patreon. Again, as I say, things will be explained in a post soon. For now, here's where you can support me: www.patreon.com/nocturnalfudj
Imo the worst part is that Eternutis can't even eternamax. It's ENTIRE BOSS FIGHT MECHANIC is useles besides showing up in ONE MOVE, and that move loses it's animation and use opon moving on to scarlet and violet😤😤😤😤
Turning Hop into a sports journalist/announcer is such an economical change to the story, it’s really brilliant. It doesn’t even really need a whole lot of recontextualizing, it just slots nicely into his character. Hop is infamous for providing commentary throughout your fights with him. His incessant chattering in the middle of battle makes a lot more sense with the rewrite you proposed. This change turns an otherwise annoying character trait into something that contributes to the conclusion of his character arc. The rival trainer to Pokemon professor/assistant pipeline works, but it’s something that’s been done before in the series: Gary Oak from the anime, Cheren/Bianca in BW. Providing a little bit of originality and expanding the world is always a good thing.
Also, Hop’s whole story is how he is interested in battling but is horrible at battling. (Although in postgame it is shown he can be decent but will never reach the heights of Champion or people that could be champion.). People like that who are otherwise interested in the scene would turn to reporting. Heck, he could still be a reporter and scientist, with him using his time as a reporter to have anecdotal evidence for Pokémon battling against each other, and both could be concurrent - that is, like Professor Kukui, he would be a battle Professor, but in Hop’s case it would be in the context of Pokémon battling for sport, akin to researchers on overall human health and researchers on fitness and sports fitness and training.
The rigged matches part actually lines up with base game. Mustard in the DLC used to be Champion but resigned after learning he would be fighting in fixed matches so it’s really not out of the question
@@jdelacruz14791 True. Peony also resigned because his relationship with Rose was already rather rocky even before Rose became the Chairman of the Pokemon League.
Say what you will about alola (i liked it) but at least when something happened in the story, you SAW it. Imagine if you got held up talking to wicke at the aether foundation, and then when you went up, Hau said "woah dude, you just missed it, a weird looking Pokémon came out of an ultra wormhole, and I had to beat it up!
people without uk bias almost unilaterally prefer alola to any other 3d era game as well as believe sword and shield are by far the worst 3d era game. the only competing is between sv and xy for the number 2-3 slots.
@@BeIlG I mean, I did like Sun/Moon best out of those four, but I also did enjoy Sword/Shield more than I did Scarlet/Violet Though from what I've seen, that seems to be a pretty unpopular opinion, true
gunna be honest my only regret with watching this video is the vast gulf of discontent and disappointment i now feel about the ACTUAL swsh storyline LOL i couldnt have told you then or now what the plot was supposed to actually be. it was so muddy i finished the game and was like well.. i guess im done? what? but this. man. this rewrite is so well worked and balanced that i cant imagine a world where this WASNT the actual story now. the twist with the scripted loss against nessa especially- could you IMAGINE that happening ingame??? FANTASTIC work. please make like 50 roms i swear to god
Here's how I'd add some time sensitivity to Chairman Rose's scheme: Eternatus didn't crash into the Galar region but instead is still inside a comet that flies close to the planet every few hundred years. Last time it passed by it triggered the darkest day. Now in the present the comet is approaching again and this time Rose wants to drag it down and have Leon capture the Pokémon inside and use it as a living nuclear reactor. Rose tower is in fact a tractor beam kind of thingy designed to yank the comet out of the sky when it gets close enough, and the Eternatus comet will be at its closest to the planet on the day of the title fight and it'll be outside the tower's range by the time Leon is done with the championship. THAT'S why Rose can't wait for even a single day for Leon to help him out.
I kind of forgot this rewrite was for the purpose of making roses theme fit, so by God, when I got to the new fight you wrote the music really blew me away. Such a better implementation. Bravo on the rewrite
"How do I make rose's battle theme feel more potent? I know, he's on the verge of losing everything and is desperate to blow everyone up for it mwahahahahaha!"
I think the worst part about the Sw/Sh story is that the very existence of Regileki makes a plothole. " Its entire body is made up of a single organ that generates electrical energy. Regieleki is capable of creating all Galar’s electricity." 😐
Phenomenal rewrite. When Leon was first shown on social media, many people felt he might be a fraud, so I like how you felt your story naturally gravitated towards this direction. And when I made the connection, that Leon’s whole position as the “ruler/victor/what have you” was actually a fraud, and thus called back to the concept of historical revisionism and your quote about victors getting to write history, I really was just “😮” for a moment, lol. Great job. Just some meta stuff right there. In the end, it wasn’t even Leon’s choice, the instrumentalization of his by Rose (the actual “ruling class”) just hurt him in the end. I also liked how Piers, Marnie and Team Yell were enhanced by adding the anti-capitalist, English punk aspect to them, and how the fellow Gym Leaders were portrayed perhaps not as perpetrators, but definitely as beneficiaries of the system Rose hat put into place, and they were not keen on giving up their position until shown undeniable evidence of Rose’s deceit. We truly live in a society.
I also love how it adds way more depth to Leon after he is finally beaten by the player. In the original, he appears to be super depressed by the player beating him. While this is understandable since he’s undefeated before this, it’s not very relatable. In the rewrite, this depression fits a lot better as he struggles with self-doubt. Since he’s based his personality on being undefeated, he probably is wondering who he is if that was all a lie. It also makes a lot of sense to take over the Rose/battle tower, as helps him strive to get stronger and prove himself.
@@CyberDrewanthere is no depth added though lol. And how is in not relatable to lose at something you’ve never lost ate In the rewrite he should have that depression before the battle, not after it. In the rewrite he would be doubting himself the entire time and the entire battle since everything he’s known about himself is a lie. It doesn’t make sense that he’s depressed after the loss. It makes more sense that he’s depressed before the loss and that affects him in the actual battle It also doesn’t make sense for him to take over rose tower as his entire career has been a lie. He would challenge it, not fake it over as taking it over makes no sense with his entire career being fake. Hell it makes more sense for him to start all over from scratch
@@mechashadowunova(New York), Orre (Arizona) , and aloha(Hawaii) are all really based off of parts of the USA and predate sword and shield, also how would an aristocrat villlan fit the usa?
1:20:10 Oh, that's such a great line. It makes Garbador being her ace a double entente At first you assume it's because she's secretly a terrible, vile person underneath her beautiful, elegant exterior. But not only is the original lore about her coming from lowly beginnings preserved, it recontextualizes Garbador's significance.
You've got a real knack for character dialogue and motivation! If you're up for it (and the bank account gets low enough), I'd love to see your take on designing a Pokemon storyline from the ground up. What would you do if you had all the tools, instead of rebuilding a foundation from something else? You've mentioned before how you don't really enjoy returning to the Pokemon well again and again, but I hope an exercise like this is creatively stimulating enough that you can wring some joy out of it! Thank you for sharing!
I'd make Leon the champion for 6 years instead of 4 for 2 reasons. 1. It is implied that multiple gym leaders took the gym challenge the same year as Leon or more recently. Raihan is a rival to Leon, who was traveling along side Sonia, who was really good friends with Nessa, who sees herself having a rivalry with Milo. Gordie is described as an upcomer who people believe might become champion one day, which leads me to think he's younger than the others. You could not convince me Allister isn't a new gym leader with how young he looks and how shy he is. Bea kind of just seems younger than the first group, I'd put her around Gordie but that's just a vibe. Piers, filling a similar role to Leon as an older brother to one of your rivals, I just lumped him in with Leon's group, but I could see him being a few years older. Maybe he was a gym leader for a year before Leon became champion. All that is to say I don't think everyone should have become a gym leader immediatly after their own run. Maybe Raihan became one the following year, followed by Nessa 2 years later, and Milo the year after that, with 2 years to go before your run, just to feel more stretched out. 4 just feels more compressed. 2. If Leon has been champion for 6 years then that means Leon defended his title 4 times between him winning and you taking his sponsership. (Spoiler for the video) that's 4 champion level trainers that got cheated. I could see Leon reching out to each of them wanting to set things right. Once you win against the gym leaders again you fight this makeshift Elite 4 before you fight Leon. Edit: Just came up with this idea. Have one of these trainers be Volkner from Sinnoh. Gen 8 would later have the Diamond and Pearl remakes so you could get some synergy going. There also is no electric specialist in Galar. For story reasons his whole deal is wanting a challenge and talks about taking on the Sinnoh Elite 4, he hears the Galar league is exceptionally strong and takes it on. When Volkner faces Raihan before Leon, Rose rigs the match so the Galar 8th gym leader gets a decisive victory over the Sinnoh 8th gym leader.
@@BabyGirlTiny I think the implication is that they get invited back and not all the gym leaders partake. You end up fighting them as 4 new to you trainers who all are 'champion level' to be a sort of elite 4.
Mustard and Peony should be two of them, and if I were to pick two more known characters as a sort of "elite 4", it would be Raihan and Piers, and we could retcon it so that Piers is the one who couldn't Dynamax his pokemon
Yeah, I guess I could’ve been more clear on that. We don’t even know who they specifically lost to because we lost to Nessa. Maybe one lost to Raihan, or Piers, or some gym leader who has since retired/moved. It’s easy to recreate our tournament bracket because it’s only been maybe a few weeks, but the other 4, not so much. I think it could go either way when it comes to the other trainers. Leon faces the first trainer and the winner battles the second and then the third etc… or you fight the guy from the year before you, and then the next, until you fight Leon. Either Leon is the strongest of 5 and fights you at the end where he now knows that he would still have been champion this whole time… or you’re the strongest of 5 and battle Leon who still isn’t sure about his title. I think the second option make’s enough sense to justify itself for the benefit of more boss battles.
@@jdelacruz14791 I really like this post-game elite 4 lineup although I think I'd change 1 thing. The stuff with Piers makes perfect sense and he'd easily be able to move on to the elite 4 since he's got Marnie to succeed him as gym leader. But I feel like taking both the 7th and 8th gym leaders is kinda boring so I'd say Raihan stays as the 8th gym leader because he wants the title of champion for himself, not to be part of his old rivals new possee. I'd say instead that it's Oleana that takes the position. Seeking redemption for her participation in Rose's crimes she wants to take a new path and better herself as a trainer. She was already a really good trainer in the first place being a late game boss. Plus it means she gets a new job.
I think the part about dynamax not working is a cool idea, but way too obvious of a rig. Maybe it could be a plot point that refusing to dynamax is seen as a power play meant to inflate the fighters ego. So when someone doesn't dynamax, it's seen as a taunt rather than a stupid decision. Then when the fighter inevitably loses, and claims that dynamax wasn't working, people will just assume he's lying to cover his embarrassing loss. That way it wouldn't be as suspicious as it is now
It could make sense. As it is something that some pokémon trainer who is just so confident to their and their pokémons ability to win the match could do just to show everyone how awesome trainer they are and how strong pokémon team they got.
Wow, I actually did this in my second plaaythrough XD. I played a bug monotype team and refused to dynamax (mostly so the game was actually challenging) which kinda came together to form a strong underdog narrative. The small, underestimated bugs can be the strongest with enough effort etc.
I was thinking either this or add some established simple way to feasibly fumble a daynamax in lore. something that would be easy enough to slip up and do on an off game, but something a skilled battler should usually be able to avoid without a second thought. maybe you have to throw the ball a very specific way or do something to the band/with the arm the band is on, otherwise it doesn't work
That, or just remove the part about being made unable to Dynamax altogether? I feel like after the first couple times challengers claimed they didn’t do it on purpose, people would start getting suspicious of the legitimacy of the matches pretty quick. Maybe rather than handicapping one contestant, Rose could actually be empowering the favored winner. So in the scripted battle with Nessa, her GMax Drednaw just has absurdly high HP, and a damage boost. Still accomplishes the same goal
1:39:19 ok but for real though. Imagining an entire army of trainers holding off a monster like Eternatus while you run for help is such a cool scene to imagine. Why cant we have awesome moments in Pokemon?
I'd program it so that there's a "time limit" to getting to the Legendaries - if you take too long beating the Gigantamaxed rampage, Eternamax manages to win - but of course, your ally in the raid battle might have a move or two to help guarantee a victory if you need it, so you can't get soft-locked out
Regarding the DLC, this rewrite definitely fits given what info we have on Peony-he was a former Gym Leader and the Champion of Galar once, but left the League not long after Rose became the Chairman. As his brother, I have no doubt that Peony would know Rose’s nature best and either chose to or was forced to leave due to corruption. Perhaps if he spoke out he would have been regarded as a bitter brother jealous of Rose, mirroring the player here in their darkest hour, or maybe he just felt the whole thing would be toxic and jumped ship to focus on his family? Come to think of it, Master Mustard in the Isle of Armour was a former champion too and contemporary to early Opal, held his title for 18 years before he left for similar reasons, the then-chairman trying to get a match rigged in his favour. Seems the League has a long history of corruption but given Leon was a pupil of Mustard’s once and is a good guy, maybe the cycle can finally be broken.
Excellent video! As one of those weirdos that like reading fanfiction and thinks way too deep about video game stories to find the smallest crumbs in-canon and real life equivalents to pull from, this was right up my alley. A couple of fun-facts you might not be aware about, there are some secret Trainer Cards you can get in-game that reveal some backstory to the characters. For example, Oleana grew up dirty poor before getting a job in Macro Cosmos and being noticed by Rose, so her Garbodor as a Trubbish was her first Mon, and probably the only one she could afford to keep because it ate garbage, which made it cheap. Also Rose's brother is absurdly funny, and really did not like his brother. How much he disliked him? He was the Champion before Leon, and he resigned the micro-instant Rose became chairman. That's how much he didn't want to have nothing to do with Rose. Also, and I'm not joking, he's basically confirmed to be the father of Penny from SV, the small girl with red and blue hair. And the founder of Paldea's own evil team. Domestic terrorism runs in the family.
The “theme” of Galar was descendants/ history / but mostly legacy You beat the unbeatable champion and it’s legacy Hop was trying to reach Leon legacy Marine and Bede continued the legacy of their respective gym leaders Rose was trying to make a legacy last forever Sonia continued the previous professor legacy But even so SWSH doesn’t use this theme very well
yet you catched the theme, how Galar and its people have this inherited will from its past, Hop and Gloria became the new Sword and Shield wielders, the old energy is replaced by a new one, the tradition itself is a passing of the torch the pokemon league is a big celebration, I get that he wanted a more dark approach, but I would loved if he keep the original theme from Sword and Shield
hell its biggest use of this theme was in the post game villains who were descendants of the legendary heroes but were rich layabouts who were more ridiculous rather than compelling or interesting and whose evil scheme just ends with everyone just getitng forgiven carte blanche (yes this last bit is msotly about Sonia's random ass assistant who betrayed her and then just sorta turns good for no reason when really she should've been fired because she betrayed her boss' trust to suck up to some rich snobs)
"Just because its written for children, doesn't mean it should be written worse, it just means it should be written differently. Everyone deserves to be exposed to stories written by people who care." Fucking go off! Absolutely despise the attitude that childrens media is/should be inherently inferior/made with less thought. No! If anything, it deserves more thought- because your story might be the first time that kid ever encounters a story about that theme, and it has so much more potential to shape the way they see that issue going forward. Great attitude to have ❤
You gotta love Sword and Shield for having the exact opposite plot as the UK - Chairman Rose actually wants to make renewable energy! The UK government could never
That was one of my big frustrations with the games-that you could read it as mocking climate "alarmists" the same way Black & White villainized Animal Rights activism.
@@GSBarlevI wouldn’t give them enough credit to think of it as mocking. It feels like all the effort went into the excellent league challenge and then they threw a story together. Eternarus? Fuck it energy crisis Pokémon get big. Yeah but how is the fella sorting that a villain? Errr, it’s in a thousand years and it’s basically a disaster. But we’ve not got time to animate all of the Pokémon rampaging? Make the champion sort it all out off screen. Everyone liked the gym leaders helping in BW, they’ll love that.
@@GSBarlev BW2 did have the thing with the team splitting into two, with the good ones following N. Honestly it’s a reach but the whole plot kinda reminded me of stalin taking over the communism craze, however well intentioned it may have started, like animal farm. (iirc, it’s been awhile since I learned about it)
@@GSBarlev Except PETA, the organisation that Plasma (og) was based on, are genuinely evil. With SwSh, it really does seem like a silly caricature, but the "evil" Plasma Grunts are pretty accurate depictions of those PETA nutjobs that would take animal companions from homeless people.
Cool rewrite, I especially like that you gave Marnie and Piers' story more teeth. I like the characters and always wished they didn't feel so pointless to the game. I also appreciate that you understand the realities of game dev and that the story is the way that it is because the devs had to meet an unfair deadline.
I’m glad you went into explaining the theme of your story. On Bulbapedia, the pages for each generation lists thematic motifs for each region (Hoenn is relationships in nature, Sinnoh is myths and legends, Kalos is beauty and harmony, etc.). Meanwhile, the Gen 8 page doesn’t have a section like that. With a story like this to help contextualize how we should think about Galar, it could.
For all that X and Y has the next most stupidest story after Sword/Shield, at least the bluntness of all plot points means that their resolution of beauty as a theme means beauty is about enjoying life, like how you and your five friends enjoy time together and Pokémon in different ways, as opposed to Lysander who either wants eternal unchanging beauty or death to ugly things, which are anti-life.
I guess if there's something there could be done with Peony is for him to meet Oleana and make her feel like she, for once, belongs somewhere. And for some fun contrast to Rose, it could be implied that he was a really competent player, close to champion levels even, that decided to focus on his family first and foremost instead of becoming the best
You mentioned in the Raihan section about teams saying things about character when moving Duraludon off of his team. A cool idea to replace it would be Blastoise IMO. Since it's his old team it represents his rivalry with Leon and shows that Leon was at a disadvantage when it came to starters (like classic pokemon games) it's subtle but reinforces their rivalry and Leon's skill
This is now cannon for me. I will accept no arguments or alternatives. This is so much better than what we got. I want to see someone make a comic or write a story or something that follows this version of the game. It would be so cool. This was an amazing video, and I think you should be in charge of writing the story of the next Pokemon game.
I personally felt like Bede was missing something. I, too, liked him (I typically do like snarky assholes like him), but it felt like he was left in only a slightly better position from the beginning. he was constantly looking for approval from rose, and then he gets rejected and picked up by opal, who then reforms him to be... himself but without the coat? it didn't feel much like he changed at all, even though he was supposed to have. he learned nothing really, and hasn't really changed. I felt like we didn't get enough time with him to observe the transformation, had it even happened. i know he was a bit of a bitch, but i really never felt that he was doing it just to be an ass. it felt like some unidentified rage at something. therefore: I think bede could work perfectly for a coming out story. all that needs to change is that rose wants him to wear that giant coat, and that he's actually his adopted dad (if he isn't. i actually cannot remember). bede insults the player a lot, so I propose he just focuses on their clothing for insults. make opal's infatuation with pink stem from appreciation AND the sense of freedom she gets from it, and then add a couple encounters after he meets opal. one where his coat is still on, and one where it's unbuttoned, but still on. then, his final battle, without even saying anything, describes his ability to be himself outwardly.
The main problem with Bede for me is how Sword & Shield has him written in the story. Before the final battle against him in the main story begins, he tells announces to everyone that he will retire from being a Pokemon Trainer upon defeat. But just when they do such a good job on his overall character growth, his individuality gets half-assed at the last second by having the *audience* tell Bede not to give up Pokemon Training but to start from scratch. That's not good writing, in my opinion.
The DLC could work with this with just about zero changes, save for the fact that you can head to the DLC areas whenever you want, and there's certain times in this storyline where it'd be pretty weird to just wander off to an island and fight giant bees for a while. Peonea's relationship with Rose is briefly half-touched on in one line of dialogue, and in general the DLCs are a lot better put together than the main game, and are in need of a lot less fixing.
Fun fact: There actually is a small plot involving rigged championship matches in Sword and Shield! Mustard, the master of the dojo in The Isle of Armor DLC pack, is actually a former champion who stepped down after the league chairman at the time asked him to win a rigged match. However this is only revealed in his second league card and the game doesn't bother exploring this plot point further.
I love this rewrite! My only addition would be with Oleanna's character. On her trainer card it reveals that Garbodor was her first pokemon that she befriended while in poverty. I liked this bit of story because when you first fight her it seems like Garbodor represents her toxic attitude beneath her elegant facade, but it's actually her showing loyalty to her roots and best friend despite how much her life has changed. I think this bit of lore could be wedged nicely into your Potswick scene, and it would strengthen her reasoning for helping you in the latter half of the game.
Absolutely fantastic video. Well-thought-out rewrites like this are solid gold to me, and I hope to match your level of competence. I tried my hand with a total re-write of X and Y a few years back, and it went well at first, but once I was past the halfway point the lack of direction left it with nowhere to go. You handled Team Yell and Macro Cosmos both immaculately, as well as Leon and Sonia. Especially if I've successfully bought in to Leon being lovable and having a heart of gold, the final battle against him would be genuinely emotional, knowing how much the loss I'm trying to inflict on him would hurt him. And then the wrap-up where his brother supports him and reminds him of how he held back eternatus...mwah. I might have cried. I do worry for Hop a little. To me, he's one of the best written Pokémon rivals - top 5 for sure, and I understand that a lot of people don't think highly of him. He's fighting an uphill battle against the bad first impression he makes dragging you through the mandatory tutorial and reusing animations from Hau. His biggest strength is how his team conveys his arc extremely well - once Bede crushes his confidence, Hop repeatedly re-shuffles his team to try and find something that beats you - even trying out Cramorant and Pincurchin, while benching his partner Wooloo for a time. I feel like the decisions he makes in the final act of your re-write detract from Hop's story by both shifting the focus away from him and making him feel even more like a loser. Then again, there's only so much space in a narrative to flesh out characters in a satisfying way - if Hop had to make small sacrifices so that Rose and Team Yell could shine, so be it. The other point of concern is the scripted loss in the Champion's Cup. Forced losses are always volatile things to handle, given how awful they make the player feel. Done well, that awfulness can be harnessed for catharsis later - but I feel like the key to a forced loss is if the player can reasonably believe their character would lose. In basically every successful example I can think of, the player character is weaker than their opponent at that point in the story, whether because they're strictly outmatched or the playing field is somehow uneven, like in this case. You don't mind the mechanical violation that is your starter being too scared of the Houndoom at the beginning of S/V, even if you were a psychopath who grinded up a team that could reasonably defeat it, because at that point in the story you're still just a new trainer at the very start of their journey. It's different here, because Dynamax isn't a be-all end-all. There are plenty of strategies a player could use to defeat a Dynamaxed opponent without using the mechanic themselves by the lategame - and if they're highly competent and/or a little overleveled and/or stocked up on items, you could beat Nessa's Drednaw without breaking a sweat. More importantly, by this point in the narrative, you've gone on a long journey and conquered everything in your path so far - so the player character is expected to be strong, able to overcome even the adversity of being unable to Dynamax in a tough fight. Imagine sweeping Nessa with, I don't know, Sleep Powder Quiver Dance Tanga Berry Lilligant, or something. You don't plan on Dynamaxing, knowing that you'll eviscerate Drednaw with Giga Drain anyways - but the game suddenly forces you to, just to show you that you can't. Then, for six consecutive turns, you're locked out of performing any actions as your healthy team is OHKOd by moves they're obviously capable of living. Of course, not every player would put on such a dominant display, but this is a Pokémon game - a lot of players will have to sit there and watch fainting animations for minutes. I don't think the reaction here would be gut-wrenching indignation at the unfairness of the rigged match - because the player can see exactly how the match was rigged, and knew that by all accounts they should have won anyways based on both their mechanical knowledge and the considerable power the narrative insists that the player character has. And that could be an interesting story in its own right, perhaps. Instead, players who have that experience will just be a little bewildered and frustrated by the obvious railroading. "What?" All of that being said. The forced loss against Nessa is an important plot point for your superior retelling of SWSH. Unlike the Hop characterization thing, I'm more inclined to call this one a flaw, but I also don't see how the story you built could exist without it. And I really enjoyed your story. -And maybe the fact that I never finish any of my amateur writing projects is because I detect flaws in them and deny them their existence rather than let something good be told in spite of its flaws.- And really, the whole deal is a limitation of the game this story necessarily exists in, not the story itself. I wonder if, ideally, it would work better as a cutscene than a playable event? Anyways, thank you for the incredible video.
I have thought on what could replace the force loss against NASA, it could still have the dynamac thing but if you beat her without it something could like happen to your Dynamics band at the end of the battle right before you go to shake hands with her causing it to break and need to get repaired which would force you to back out. And then it be revealed that Rose tried to stop you from dying to Maxine but since I didn't marry he got pissed and used to turn just to break your band or something since it's tied to eternimax energy and then the story goes on from there but with only Anna explaining that he broke her bands instead of blocked to your dynamax.
Hi! Game Design major here, I’d like to say first of all that as a story, this version is a drastic improvement in my opinion, but I do have one major point of issue from a design perspective. While it’s certainly an improvement from a story progression standpoint, the forced loss against Nessa is probably a step too far. There’s a concept in game design called metrics, which basically covers the logic of internal consistency and interactions within a system, and you need to be careful if you plan on messing with them. Preventing the player from dynamaxing is all well and good, and something you could probably get away with, but forcing the opponents dreadnaw to stay up on one hp regardless of the players actions could create serious issues. Part of the reason people play games is to have agency over story progression, and players tend to get very frustrated when they lose that. Additionally, this change would make nuzlocking the game impossible due to the scripted loss. If you want to keep this version of the story, then I would suggest figuring out a way to create a branching narrative based on whether or not you lose during the tournament. I’m not a narrative designer though, so I’ll have to leave that up to you.
I want to propose a potential alternative to the new nessa scripted fight based on what you’re saying. first, I agree with what you’re saying. I think a “scripted loss” is an excellent cinematic moment, but it works a lot less in video games since the player isn’t supposed to lose. however, I also get that the point is to showcase eternatus (rose) actively rigging matches. since I think that this is important to the cohesion of the new story (giving the player character personal stake and hinting at the bigger mystery), I think it could still work by making the scripted loss even more scripted (weirdly enough) by breaking out of the traditional battle mechanics. say, by making it so nessa’s gigantamax is so huge or strong or whatever (something that’s because of eternatus’s meddling) that your pokemon are too scared or can’t get close or are otherwise unable to fight ie. something that doesn’t occur in normal battles. it’d still need to be obvious to the player (and nessa) that this was due to some kind of rigging and not just your pokemon being wimps, but it doesn’t need to be a real battle - more of an interactive cutscene (not unlike the original encounter with the hero pokemon iirc). that way, you still “lose,” but none of your pokemon are required to faint, maintaining the ability to nuzlocke and not making players feel quite so out of control. maybe the player character remarks at the start of the nessa fight or something to prompt the gamer into the idea that this fight won’t be normal to make sure they don’t feel helpless.
This has got to be the best rewrite of this games story I've seen. I absolutely adore this and I'm so very upset that this ISN'T the story we got for this game. I always felt like Sword and Shield had some untapped potential for what it could've been and you literally brought that potential to life with your rewrite! And for the record, I loved listening to your thought process at the beginning of the video where you point out the issues you had and why you want to change certain things, it made it super easy to follow along and understand why you made the changes you did. Fantastic video!
i kept going :O and gasping whenever you revealed the big story beats you came up with- i would KILL to play swsh with your story, it was super engaging and honestly would probably be one of the best games in the series if this is the direction they took
rose seems so much more EVIL and more of a threat in your take on the story- honestly its great to have a villain who's just evil and greedy for the sake of it! he's just a rich asshole here and thats AWESOME! keep up the good work, i definitely want to see more of your writing
59:00 I want people to understand this is actually even more fitting than it seems! The Circester baths are clearly inspired by the Roman baths in the City of Bath here in the UK. One thing I didn't know until visiting recently is that the second level and the statues of emperors found there are actually a Victorian addition, centuries after the Roman-built bathhouse had already fallen into ruin and been buried. There's even supposition that the statues of emperors have striking resemblance to the town council members of Bath at the time these statues were commissioned. The idea of Sordward and Shielbert making an excuse about a more recent mayor's interference not only works for the story, it's also a genius reflection of the real-world history involved. Plus considering Brits don't have a great history with artifacts (that's what the jumbled fossils are based on), I think it's also a fun way to keep that motif going!
One of my hypothetical Pokémon projects includes a full remake of SwSh, so I'll keep this video in mind if I ever decide to actually sit down and make it. Great job!
I just realized that Hop is vague about Zacian/Zamazenta's appearance in the originals because they didn't want to imply the existence of non-Pokémon animals
i'll never understand how they decide when to not reference non pokemon animals sometimes (like with hop) and when to just straight up name drop real animals like with iron moth in scarlet and violet or with the subspecies names for a ton of pokemon in the pokedex (like meowth being the scratch cat pokemon)
you said you wanted to make rose a character worth having an epic battle theme, and brother, when you started playing his song at the climax i lost my shit. so damn cool! i feel like your rewrite fleshes out galar soooo much and would probably make the game longer than it was. P.S, if you ever find the time, the DLC is actually quite fun! especially the crown tundra. if nothing else, you should play it so you can go hang out with penny's dad and brag about it when you go back to paldea X3
I think SV was actually such a good example of storytelling. Arven's dog plotline actually made me cry and Nemona is the best rival pokemon has ever given us.
I really wish the games did a better job at hinting toward Sonias backstory. Both the anime and the manga have the implication the Sonia was actually a better trainer than Leon when they were kids, but because she was the professors granddaughter audiences thought that there might be some kind of conflict of interest and the only reason she was winning all of her battles was because the leaders were going easy on her. Eventually the stress and baseless allegations got to her and she withdrew from the competition after Ballonlea. None of this is conveyed in the games except for the fact that Sonia was at the Ballonlea gym one time and didn't have much confidence, which you can learn by reading the report on the table after completing the gym challenge but before fighting Opal.
About the DLC: Peony being Rose’s brother in the original DLC was neat, but I feel like they didn’t go far enough with it. There’s actually some lore that Peony used to be the league champion; however, once Rose became chairman, Peony resigned as champion, presumably due to issues with Rose. This lore could slide in perfectly with your rewrite: once Rose becomes chair, have him approach Peony with their plan to rig matches, thinking he’s doing Peony, his brother, a favor. However, Peony is appalled and disgusted by the plan, and storms off, resigning from being champion. Peony could never turn in his own brother, but he removed himself from Galar’s League and stayed as far away from Wyndon as he could get. Peony could express some regret on not helping take Rose down sooner, but could still be happy that it meant he had the time to spend with his daughter. Anyway, Excellent rewrite! I could tell you put a lot of effort into the writing and the result was just fantastic!
In regards to theme, I've always read sword/sheild as being about "Passing on the torch" and the various reactions people have about it. Hop/Marnie/Sonia are worried about not being able to fill the shoes of their older brothers with different choices being made, either gaining confidence in their ability and acceptibg the torch with Marnie/Sonia or Hop realising that succeding his brother just isn't for him and taking his own path. Bede has a torch forced upon him. And Rose is worried that the torch he has isn't in a stable enough state to pass on, granted yeah still kot a great justification for his actions. Granted though your idea of revisionism could play really well together with that! Exploring the responsibilities people have to the upcoming generations to be honest with their history and avoid history repeating and being less susceptible to propaganda.
This story rewrite is actually so good that I had some happy tears when you were talking about Leon's final battle.. it literally all wrapped up so well
Leon now has tons of potential for dealing with his actually legitimate imposter syndrome in the post game and proving to himself that he's still a badass outside of rigged matches. I like that idea.
Very enjoyable concept, 100% vast improvement on the story. The only complaint I have is that you didn't suggest an alternative Gigantamax Pokemon for Raihan to use. There's only one other dragon type that can Gigantamax, being Flapple/Appletun, which is used by Milo during rematches. I imagine it'd involve promoting Sandaconda to the ace and Gigantamaxing it, since he already has one and as far as I can recall nobody ever actually used Gigantamax Sandaconda. Guess I solved my own complaint, so no notes, great stuff.
I vaguely remember that they partially fixed roses character in the anime by having his reasoning be that his father died working in a coal mine, wanting to stop any other child from experiencing that pain, his impatience coming from his reasoning that if you wait even a day too many people will die
Love the new motivation for Rose, and the Spikemuth storyline is amazing! Few questions/notes: 1. You mention the game opens back up after failing to convince your mom and Hop to help you challenge Rose, but then what sort of narrative prompting will lead the player to revisit all of the gym leaders to ask them for help and eventually find Piers? I think the easiest path here would just be for members of Team Yell or Piers himself to come to you. Maybe Oleana was originally from Spikemuth when she was that down-on-her-luck League admin, and goes to Piers hanging her head in shame first, then they both show up at your house. B. Eternatus should still be catchable at the end of the Eternamax battle, having it turn back into the egg is too unsatisfying as a player! Even if it’s not the final story boss anymore, leaving a single slot of the Pokédex unfillable would be maddening. Triangle: Why do none of the 10+ people in the room try to stop or restrain Rose when he is clearly building a bomb in front of them? I’d just have him already rig everything to explode before he comes up to the roof, but you still have to block him from getting to the button of doom. I know it’s a relatively small detail, but the mental image of him actively fiddling with wires while expositing, surrounded by people who are all in agreement that he’s bad news, irks me. Episode IV: A New Hope: Gameplay wise, I think you should still be fighting Hop in the true championship tournament. I generally see where you’re going with the reporter/sports commentator angle, and that can still come up here, but having your final battle be comparatively ages ago at Victory Road won’t leave him as a particularly memorable rival compared to others, especially after how late he comes in for the Eternatus fight in this version. I expect corrections on my desk in the morning! /lh
I have a neat alternate idea for salvaging Rose's Energy Crisis motivation and inability to wait even a single day! Have it hinge on an event that has a narrow time window that can't wait, specifically a comet passing by like Hailey's comet. Eternatus fell to earth from a meteor in the distant past, but in this slightly modified version that meteor passes back around once every hundred years or so. And you can tell when its about to pass by because it gives off Wishing Stars and insane amounts of Galar Particles. This comet's approach is what causes the rogue dynamax phenomenon in the story. Thus Rose's plan is to collect as many Wishing Stars as he can in order to wake Eternatus up in time for the comet to pass by because he knows from studying it while dormant that it can siphon Galar Particles from the atmosphere to fuel itself. He theorizes then that if they can wake Eternatus up before the comet comes and subdue it, they can use its power to siphon a massive amount of Galar Particles from the comet on its swing by, which is what it did in the original Darkest Day, and then siphon that energy back out of Eternatus over time like a battery, staving off Galar's looming Energy Crisis in 10 years. However the time of arrival happens to coincide with the day of the championship match this swing by. Late enough in the night that Leon, partially from confidence in his own skill as the "Unbeatable Champion", believes that they can have the match and still have time to subdue Eternatus after and catch the window they need.. But Rose isn't willing to chance any possibility that they might miss their only opportunity because they weren't fully prepared ahead of time. When Leon refuses to postpone his match to go subdue Eternatus well ahead of time Rose decides to force Leon's hand by awakening Eternatus anyway and letting it rampage, counting on Leon's character to abandon the match and go capture it whether he likes it or not. Things proceed as normal from there, going to the Weald, fighting Rose, and fighting Eternatus except this time the Eternamax form isn't just a random Stage 2 but rather the result of the Comet swinging by just as the Player is fighting base Eternatus due to the time that passed running around. Eternatus absorbs energy from the Comet just like Rose theorized it would and enters its Eternamax form. Then things proceed as normal from there. This means that Rose's plan ultimately succeeded, but ONLY because of the players actions essentially salvaging it from the brink of failure, realizing that his plan and judgement almost doomed Galar right then and there he quietly accepts judgement for his crimes and allows himself to be arrested without contest. (this also explains why Eternatus can't Eternamax after you catch it, it no longer has the Comet to draw the required power from as it already passed out of range.)
I'm not a creative writing major, but I think I can help explain themes. I can definitely understand how it can be difficult to really get a handle on it, and I wouldn't say I'm an expert. Most stories don't have enough to say to bother reading into. Anyway, when you're telling a story, you want to have something to say more than the events that are happening, some perceived truth of the human experience that you can walk away with. Themes are the soul of a story. When you're trying to capture a theme, it should be the wind behind the sails. It's not something you need to see directly, but it guides the course of everything. The themes of a story are either things that define how that world works for the story, or how the characters believe it should. Sometimes themes are a question for the audience, like Pokemon B&W asking if it's right to make Pokemon fight each other for sport (Though B&W is too cowardly to take the question seriously and explore what that would actually mean for the world of Pokemon, which is probably for the best). You did this pretty well with the main theme of the rewrite being that "Victory is written by the victors". The player sees how the history of the country isn't what they've been led to believe, and experienced firsthand how the truth was manipulated to serve the interests of others.
When I tell you ive watched this video like 3 times and each time I am just bLOWN AWAY from your rewite and am absolutely invested for the entirety of the video!!! An incredible rewrite that I oh so wish was canon 😩🙏
From the moment they advertised Leon as being this unbeatable champion, I hoped they were going to do some kind of plot point around match fixing so I'm glad you covered that
people have mentioned oleana's backstory, so i'll instead say that leaving that stuff as backstory is completely fine. having a beautiful woman with a bunch of beautiful pokemon and an 'ugly' ace serving as the lieutenant to the main villain is good storytelling in and of itself. it doesn't need explaining or examination.
I just watched all of this video and was thoroughly immersed throughout, amazing. I’ve always struggled with themes in the little story writing I’ve done, and I just love how appropriate the theme of history turned out to be, as a fellow Brit. I loved how it improved Rose’s character, and adding Swordward and Shielbert into the main story was surprising to me at first, but it seems so obvious now with the way it was integrated. Also, making Oleana more sympathetic was a good idea, and I actually felt bad for her when she was explaining that Rose fired her and now she was back to the poverty she’d been in before he’d taken her under his manipulative wing. Speaking of feeling bad for characters, I felt actually terrible for Leon. I’ve seen plenty of fan interpretations of Rose controlling his life, whether he’s aware of it or not, but I think I prefer this interpretation where he’s so blind that he only realises his legacy was a lie when its said right to him so carelessly. I was also thinking his reaction to losing to you could represent his illusion of himself shattering, but like, in a good way? Like, it’s a reminder for him that he’s just a pokemon trainer like everyone else. I LOVE IT. I also love what you did with Team Yell. I wasn’t so sure at first about making Marnie and Piers colder towards you, but I love how you build up their trust, and the residents of the shunned town Rose wants everyone to forget about become your closest allies towards the climax (speaking of the climax, I even felt bad for Eternatus, because I wondered if it was suffering being chained up like that, with Rose essentially torturing it to siphon its energy). Also, the way you fleshed out Spikemuth was really interesting, and I just LOVE how the Gym is integrated into the main storyline, with Piers being made a more sympathetic character, so you trust him over Rose - leading up to the ironic decision to work with the “evil team” to take him down. This should be so much more well-known in general, enough to become considered an AU so that more content could potentially be made based on it. I’m just imagining a novelised version of this, with all of Sw/Sh retold exactly like this… I need it. I’d read every page.
I mean, considering his entire career is a lie, no he’s not a trainer like everyone else. He’s a phony who isn’t as good as he thinks he is. He’s a fake who thought he was a. Good trainer, but it turns out he’s not really that good at all and he’s only where he is due to a fluke
Literally a few seconds before the Dark gym rewrite I asked how a British game with punks and a bunch of powerfull people didn't even tried to touch the anarchy and skinhead culture.
@20:38 - Actually I _DID_ just have two pretty solid ideas for why Rose would suddenly be so anxious about the whole Eternatus thing: First is going with the anime alteration that it's only 10 years away, and second is the idea that he's actually screwed up and given it too many wishing stars too quickly and it's going to awaken a _lot_ sooner than anticipated. Thus, he is trying (and failing) to save face while also getting Leon to put off the championship so Leon and his pokemon, ostensibly still fresh and ready, can face off against Eternatus in prime condition and not only save the company but also his reputation. But when he realizes how much he's just screwed up, he's REALLY hoping to get Leon to just do the thing, hence why he decides to play the villain when Eternatus starts waking up during the tournament and pretends it's all part of his plan. It's likely so the blame can fall squarely on him as a person and not on his company. He likely challenges you because he's hoping to test whether or not you're good enough to join Leon in facing Eternatus. As for the red light scenes, they were likely intended to exist and you were likely meant to take part in them, but that was likely changed when they decided on the dynamax battles in the wild areas.
As someone who decently enjoyed what Sword/Shield tried to do with its story, I completely agree that most of it had no legs to stand on, no enough meat to bite into, or (like the Rose Tower section) simply had no reason happening. I do like the ideas presented in the video, especially about how the gym leaders are more actively involved in the story. I like the adjustment to Rose's motivation, I like the stronger integration of Oleana, I like the approach you have with Leon as a character (though I vastly prefer the whole "being put on a pedestal is one of the most dehumanizing and stressful things" vibe Leon has in official material, though it's more explored in the anime and Pokémon Masters than in Sword/Shield), and I DEFINITELY enjoy the way you made Marnie, Piers, and Sonia feel important to the story instead of just being… agonizingly there. I do kinda wish there was a bit more for Hop leading to the adjusted role you gave him at the end, but it's fine; I'm just a bit sad at losing the only rival to actively change up his team for story reasons (which we didn't actually get until Kieran in the Scarlet/Violet DLCs). I even really like how you implemented Sordward and Shielbert into the main story convincingly (though I still do not like how they look, my main complaint about them in the Sworld/Shield post-credits story was that they felt utterly pointless). I have one huge complaint here: the scripted loss. Though I understand what you were going for here (with the whole "Dynamax isn't working!" aspect), but the way it was written into the battle doesn't work for me for a few reasons. Reason 1: People who do not use the gimmicks. I don't like using the gimmicks for various reasons. I only used Mega Evolution once in X/Y (during the tutorial battle, and only after I learned that it was basically impossible to win that Lucario vs Lucario battle without it), and I've only Terrastalized in Scarlet/Violet when playing solo in the raid dens (since those are incredibly annoying otherwise) and during the final battles of the main story and the Blueberry Academy DLC (because I got swept up in the moment). I did NOT use Dynamax because I did not enjoy the concept of the gimmick-plus it let me pretend that my Pokémon were taking on kaijus in a fistfight and winning. Someone who did not Dynamax for the entire game suddenly being forced to Dynamax only to be told that it didn't work would be immediately taken out of the game, especially if the result was that the Pokémon fainted as a result. This game already HAS a scripted loss well before this, and that was against the illusory box legendary; yet that feels a lot better to play out because of the mystery behind this creature you cannot seem to touch. Having a seemingly normal battle just yanked out from your hands because of an action you're forced to feels bad, ESPECIALLY when it's an action that you purposefully CHOSE to avoid doing and built your playstyle around not doing it. Reason 2: Challenge runners. I'm not a nuzlocke player, but being forced to lose Pokémon for the sake of plot sucks for challenge runs like Nuzlockes. But even without self-imposed permadeath rules, this prevents people from playing with freedom because of how it hijacks control from the player in a way that doesn't feel natural. For scripted wins, that's a bit more acceptable; for scripted LOSSES, there needs to be a finesse that wasn't shown here. Reason 3: Dynamax rules. Dynamax works for three turns before wearing off. Unless the game is suddenly enforcing 3v3 rules, Dynamax will not last long enough to defeat a player's entire team of 6, especially if the player is tactical, overleveled, or flush with restorative items. Once the number of rounds reaches 3 and the opponent is STILL Gigantimaxed, then the scene loses whatever credibility it still had. At that point, the game is breaking its own rules to force a result, which just feels gross. So far, there are 3 instances of characters cheating against the player, and all three are treated as obstacles to be adapted to and defeated. This is not that. Legitimately, the closest to a scripted loss that Pokémon has done in the main games (other than the illusory Zacian/Zamagenta) is the final battle in the Scarlet/Violet main story. That is how you give an "unwinnable situation" to a player without it feeling awful. You don't have that opportunity here. Unless there is some way to showcase WHY your normal Pokémon can't beat a Gigantimax Pokémon (like the shields from raid battles blocking damage from non-Dynamax Pokémon being a part of the gym challenges in general), players will struggle to buy into this scene. And that's a shame, because the NARRATIVE setup for the scene is really good here. Getting away from the scripted loss, I think 4 years is too short a time. I saw a commenter (@jasonmaggard6674) mention changing the timeline to 6 years, and I think that would be pretty good timeframe. Not only would it allow for a chance to better establish the range of connections between the gym leaders, it would allow for a stronger timeline for Mustard and Peony-both former Champions-to factor into things. Plus, as jasonmaggard6674 mentioned in their comment, it would have given Leon 4 opportunities to defend his title after winning.
So the timeline could be that Peony won against Mustard. Then one year later, Leon won legitimately against Peony (who left because of Rose becoming Pokémon Chairman shortly afterwards); Eternatus broke out of the egg a year after that (not in time to fix Leon's first Champion defense, but SHORTLY afterwards, so Leon could still have another legitimate win under his belt, specifically against Raihan); then the next year could be a win against Piers, who doesn't Dynamax anyway (thus giving Rose an alabi here); then the next 3 years are fully fixed with the power of Eternatus. People could justify that other trainers were trying to be like Piers because Piers was the closest to beating Leon without Dynamaxing, and that was the most exciting battle anyone had seen in a long time (and this would make sense for Piers, since he would have been the gym leader who battled without Dynamaxing for the longest time), so whispers of tampering would not have gone past the claims of "They tried to show off and are just sore losers after they couldn't deliver". Honestly, with all of that, the DLCs fit in pretty well! The only thing left to address would be Sordward and Shielbert post-credits, which would need to be DRASTICALLY rewritten. Maybe, instead of pretending to be the decedents of heroes (since that was their whole deal during the main story of this rewrite), they are causing calamities so they can regain their popularity like "See? We ARE real heroes! Love us again!!!" And then when the player characters uncover their involvements with overclocking Power Spots just so Dynamax Pokémon will go wild, they become so utterly livid that they attack the player character. But here comes Reporter Hop, revealing the true colors of the dastardly Sordward and Shielbert, this time on tape! Now THEY get put in jail! Maybe Oleana is made Chairman, or maybe Peony is, or maybe Honey (Mustard's wife) could be. Who knows. Leon still goes on to create the Battle Tower as a way to help Galar shine, but maybe he also just wants to make sure his battles are all real, win or lose. One more thing: Sonia deserves to be a trainer. Sure, she is not the most competitive person by a long shot, but she (like Bianca in Gen 5) started out as a legitimate rival. In fact, in the actual lore, Sonia was the only one to truly defeat Leon-it was early on in their journeys, but it happened. That means Sonia should still retain SOME battle knowledge. Being able to battle Sonia would be an amazing post-credits bonus deal. I also wish the Isle of Armor DLC better incorporated Leon's history with Mustard and the dojo-that is canonically where Leon got his Charizard, considering how the player only had Squirtle and Bulbasaur to choose between.
In defence of Piers wanting to "cause a ruckus" at Rose Tower, i think he does have a reason to want to do that. Rose basically started punishing him for not conforming to what Rose wanted him to do, so he isnt too fond of the guy (same, dude) and might just want to cause trouble for Rose the same way that Rose has caused problems for Piers. If someone caused my hometown to go to ruin, then id want to cause as many problems for them as possible too
I thought of something else to give Oleana's character some more depth through enviromental storytelling: Every other time she fights you, her Ace Pokémon is a Lopunny with a max power Frustration (I think that this would work better because of what we know from her base game's ace being a Garbodor; maybe Chariman Rose *forced her* to use that Lopunny to maintain that "Beauty" archetype she has). And after you lose the championship fight against Nessa, Oleana goes to see you at your house and she challenges you again for one last combat so she can make up her mind. *But this time* she does have her Ace Garbodor in her team.
This was *so good.* As impressive as the parts you invented were your choices of original elements to keep, accentuate and recontextualize. You told me yesterday that, as a fan of the Sordward + Shieldbert storyline, I would be happy with this, and *you were right.*
I really liked this rewrite, but one thing I have to criticize is the implementation of sections where you are required to win or lose. I honestly think having the player unable to do anything but Dynamax while their Pokemon get taken out. You yourself left this out in the Eternatus battle, because limiting the player's ability for forced losses is really dumb and one of the things I really disliked about Sword & Sheild. I personally like the idea of just not showing the Dynamax button at first, then showing it at Nessa's final Pokemon, before revealing it's not an option. You could then beat Nessa and move on, but never get the Dynamax option back, while the opposing trainer Pokemon gain steeply in levels to where they'll be after the Rose plotline is over, until the player loses. (I don't really have a good idea for how you would force the player to lose if they somehow manage to make it to Raihan, so let's go with the original idea of removing the player's attacks.) This would allow the player to not only actually play the game, but make the loss feel genuine and not have the classic Sword and Sheild feel of "things happen because the plot needs them to". Secondly, this plot struggles to take into account how the player could lose to certain trainers. I have this problem with the original game (and most other Pokemon games tbh), where you have to do the ultimate battle to decide who is champion, but if you fail, no sweat, Leon is ready to hand the title over to you because you won a once-in-a-lifetime battle after six tries. I think the easiest way to prevent this would to be to simply have a retry screen or something if you lose. You could also get a little more creative with this: maybe the player was just imagining a terrible battle, letting you somewhat seamlessly retry (it would be a bit silly after multiple losses, but it's better than having the ultimate villain wait for you to try again before enacting their plans).
I think energy can be the focus of the story in two ways - either Rose wants to seize the means of production himself and has made everyone a pawn in his scheme to get Eternatus OR the energy crisis is 10 years away, and Rose realizes that Galar Particles are finite and dynamaxing eats into this finite resource. So every dynamax battle eats more and more into this resource (giving urgency to halt the tournament)
Also so many people have commented throughout the series on how it seems like world-ending phenomena and massive criminal enterprises are tackled by you, a random character. This is why, because suspending disbelief a bit in this fantasy world is preferable to “and a qualified person fixed it offscreen”
This was such a sick listen on my way to work and it was actually really inspiring. I have a bit of nostalgia for SwSh since it came out during COVID time and it acted like a nice distraction from everything - that said though, this video made me realise what we COULD have had instead of what we did, I feel almost spoiled. There’s so much quality to it all and thought put into it too As someone who also studied in the creative field for a degree and hasn’t had the chance to put that time much use, I can say really hope you find your footing soon ❤️
Dynamaxing isn't necessary to win most battles, and forcing the player to not be able to and have a scripted loss would feel awful. Not just the "oh no, why can't I do this? Something must be going wrong!" feeling that I think you're trying to go for, but the "why the hell is the game forcing me to dynamax when I don't need to, and also force me to lose? This is so goddamn railroady!" I think a forced loss in this manner isn't acceptable, and your rewrite hinging on this loss is a big flaw. I loved everything else though!
I think Orbeetle would be the best fit for Rose. Orbeetle regularly uses manipulation to make others do its bidding, especially its GMAX form. Additionally Orbeetle starts out as a weak, Inconspicuous, caterpillar, kinda like how Rose started, and pretends to be.
I have never been more inspired to work on my Pokémon game as I have after watching this video. One day, I sware to u, I will make the British brothers proud and remake galar.
If this were the story, I might actually still be playing Pokemon today. Holy hell this is great! As someone who's working on game development myself, I know how difficult writing characters is, and you did a great job, I WISH I was this skilled at bringing it altogether!
19:20 „Rose spends the entire game being this relatively normal guy who just decides to be completely insane one day“ Wait a minute. A weird ass kind of energy-concerned CEO who does relatively normal CEO shit until he decides to go entirely bonkers one day? Where did I hear this before? HMMMMMMM. Did Rose recently purchase a social media network too by any chance?
25:07 before you said scarlet and violet, I was thinking sun and moon. There is a high level threat, that being the ultra beasts, but you the player don't deal with that, you deal with Lusamine. The final boss of the main story before the wrap up isn't the legendary pokemon the villain was trying to summon, it's your friend's cruel mother who won't back down from her obsession and must be dealt with. It just has that flaw of being in the ten million cutscenes game
Only issue with Raihan losing Duralidon, is as the dragon tamer he’d use Flapple/Appleton, which a) is possibly Milo’s and b) explains why he never beats Leon. But perhaps in this universe where the story makes sense, Haxorus must be a Gigantimax. (G Max Savage Cleave)
I really like the rewrites you did to finale. It seems actually cool and interesting now. I think it's probably the most you can do with Rose without entirely throwing him out.
You could potentially wrap up Oleana's story by having her eventually assist or flat-out replace Leon as the new Chairwoman, seeing as she likely already has a lot of second-hand experience and she was simply misguided and manipulated in this retelling. Maybe she could be the proper rags to riches story that Rose stomped on. ... Yes, she likely assisted in far too much shady business to not be locked up, but this is Pokemon. That, and your ending to her involvement already implied she was either pardoned or able to hide her prior actions.
This video is REALLY REALLY good man, you dont see much stuff like this for pokemon, especially not at this quality. Id love to see more like it out of you!
you have no idea just how perfectly timed this video was for me as someone who's been thinking way too hard about swsh recently and lamenting what it could've been. it somehow manages to be one of my favorite pokemon games despite literally everything about it because i enjoy the gym challenge being made into a huge sporting event THAT much (+ the gym leaders having actual personalities and some bearing on the "plot"). this rewrite is awesome and i love how it makes rose into a real threat deserving of his theme music in the end! i'm also a long video enjoyer so the length was perfect, i hope this gets the attention it deserves!!
I haven’t even played either of the Switch Pokemon games myself, yet I was enthralled by every minute of this video. I’m especially impressed with how well you rehabilitated Marnie and Team Yell. Marnie was such a nothing character before, but by adding just a little more friction to her personality and a proper backstory, she feels like a character you can actually root for. Team Yell actually feels like a clever subversion now instead of just a necessity by the status quo. And whereas before Marnie, Piers and Team Yell were punk in basically aesthetic alone, the idea that Team Yell consists of all the people who stuck around in Spikemuth even after Rose ruined it really makes them feel like a proper family, which is what punk is all about, after all. Finding the people who will accept you and stand by you even when The Man stomps all over you, and expressing your refusal to change the things that make you, you. Now, Team Yell look less like ridiculous fans and more like a loyal family backing up their champion. I’m also glad to see Oleana get some more attention. Even if she doesn’t get that many more appearances, her being such an integral part of the final trajectory of the plot feels much more fitting for a character that’s supposed to be so close to the main villain. And I gotta say, you really delivered on your promise to make Rose’s character fit his battle theme. The first time it played, I was honestly baffled that they chose that track for the character they made. But when it played at the end of the video, I got chills. I’d say your version of Rose is probably the most thoroughly evil antagonist Pokemon has ever had, and I like it.
i'm still actually really mad they made a region based off the uk, but reduced wales to a single city struggling with poverty, and turned scotland into this empty snowy desert. literally what was going through their heads.
Looks like there may be a couple small audio glitches and editing blips throughout which I can only apologise for, we had the death of a pet yesterday which meant I wasn't really in the right frame of mind when finishing this up
Anyway, Palette Swap are also on Bluesky:
bsky.app/profile/paletteswapmag.bsky.social
And sorry to any confusion caused with the Patreon. Again, as I say, things will be explained in a post soon. For now, here's where you can support me:
www.patreon.com/nocturnalfudj
sorry for your loss dude :(
I'm so sorry for your loss.
I'm so sorry about your pet, please take time for yourself ❤
So sorry for your loss
Imo the worst part is that Eternutis can't even eternamax. It's ENTIRE BOSS FIGHT MECHANIC is useles besides showing up in ONE MOVE, and that move loses it's animation and use opon moving on to scarlet and violet😤😤😤😤
Turning Hop into a sports journalist/announcer is such an economical change to the story, it’s really brilliant. It doesn’t even really need a whole lot of recontextualizing, it just slots nicely into his character.
Hop is infamous for providing commentary throughout your fights with him. His incessant chattering in the middle of battle makes a lot more sense with the rewrite you proposed. This change turns an otherwise annoying character trait into something that contributes to the conclusion of his character arc.
The rival trainer to Pokemon professor/assistant pipeline works, but it’s something that’s been done before in the series: Gary Oak from the anime, Cheren/Bianca in BW. Providing a little bit of originality and expanding the world is always a good thing.
Also, Hop’s whole story is how he is interested in battling but is horrible at battling. (Although in postgame it is shown he can be decent but will never reach the heights of Champion or people that could be champion.). People like that who are otherwise interested in the scene would turn to reporting. Heck, he could still be a reporter and scientist, with him using his time as a reporter to have anecdotal evidence for Pokémon battling against each other, and both could be concurrent - that is, like Professor Kukui, he would be a battle Professor, but in Hop’s case it would be in the context of Pokémon battling for sport, akin to researchers on overall human health and researchers on fitness and sports fitness and training.
He’s so deku-coded haha
@@iantaakalla8180 He could even become a trainer coach, helping young trainer hopefuls get better at battling
The rigged matches part actually lines up with base game. Mustard in the DLC used to be Champion but resigned after learning he would be fighting in fixed matches so it’s really not out of the question
The previous champion from Leon is actually Peony, and it makes sense that he would find out about Rose's plans since they're brothers
@@jdelacruz14791 True. Peony also resigned because his relationship with Rose was already rather rocky even before Rose became the Chairman of the Pokemon League.
Say what you will about alola (i liked it) but at least when something happened in the story, you SAW it. Imagine if you got held up talking to wicke at the aether foundation, and then when you went up, Hau said "woah dude, you just missed it, a weird looking Pokémon came out of an ultra wormhole, and I had to beat it up!
Oh my god I would combust
people without uk bias almost unilaterally prefer alola to any other 3d era game as well as believe sword and shield are by far the worst 3d era game. the only competing is between sv and xy for the number 2-3 slots.
@@BeIlGTRUE, gen 7 stays winning
@@BeIlG nah xy is PEAK. Number 2 is probably johto
@@BeIlG I mean, I did like Sun/Moon best out of those four, but I also did enjoy Sword/Shield more than I did Scarlet/Violet
Though from what I've seen, that seems to be a pretty unpopular opinion, true
gunna be honest my only regret with watching this video is the vast gulf of discontent and disappointment i now feel about the ACTUAL swsh storyline LOL i couldnt have told you then or now what the plot was supposed to actually be. it was so muddy i finished the game and was like well.. i guess im done? what? but this. man. this rewrite is so well worked and balanced that i cant imagine a world where this WASNT the actual story now. the twist with the scripted loss against nessa especially- could you IMAGINE that happening ingame??? FANTASTIC work. please make like 50 roms i swear to god
It's like someone took pokemon suns plot, shuffled a couple of things around, and didn't bother checking if things worked coherently
@@mcnierstenen9017the rewrite or original?
Here's how I'd add some time sensitivity to Chairman Rose's scheme:
Eternatus didn't crash into the Galar region but instead is still inside a comet that flies close to the planet every few hundred years. Last time it passed by it triggered the darkest day. Now in the present the comet is approaching again and this time Rose wants to drag it down and have Leon capture the Pokémon inside and use it as a living nuclear reactor. Rose tower is in fact a tractor beam kind of thingy designed to yank the comet out of the sky when it gets close enough, and the Eternatus comet will be at its closest to the planet on the day of the title fight and it'll be outside the tower's range by the time Leon is done with the championship.
THAT'S why Rose can't wait for even a single day for Leon to help him out.
Oh this is such a cool idea
And it ties into the concept of wishing stars
I love this idea! It just proves even further there are HUNDREDS of ways the story could have been reworked for the better.
Yeah, no way to reschedule the cosmos, am I right?
@@greenstarlover1Don’t worry, I know a couple of guys
I kind of forgot this rewrite was for the purpose of making roses theme fit, so by God, when I got to the new fight you wrote the music really blew me away. Such a better implementation. Bravo on the rewrite
"How do I make rose's battle theme feel more potent? I know, he's on the verge of losing everything and is desperate to blow everyone up for it mwahahahahaha!"
I think the worst part about the Sw/Sh story is that the very existence of Regileki makes a plothole.
" Its entire body is made up of a single organ that generates electrical energy. Regieleki is capable of creating all Galar’s electricity."
😐
well they wouldn't be able to contain it, even if they know it exists. not in an ethical manner, anyway.
Phenomenal rewrite. When Leon was first shown on social media, many people felt he might be a fraud, so I like how you felt your story naturally gravitated towards this direction. And when I made the connection, that Leon’s whole position as the “ruler/victor/what have you” was actually a fraud, and thus called back to the concept of historical revisionism and your quote about victors getting to write history, I really was just “😮” for a moment, lol. Great job. Just some meta stuff right there. In the end, it wasn’t even Leon’s choice, the instrumentalization of his by Rose (the actual “ruling class”) just hurt him in the end.
I also liked how Piers, Marnie and Team Yell were enhanced by adding the anti-capitalist, English punk aspect to them, and how the fellow Gym Leaders were portrayed perhaps not as perpetrators, but definitely as beneficiaries of the system Rose hat put into place, and they were not keen on giving up their position until shown undeniable evidence of Rose’s deceit. We truly live in a society.
We really do
I also love how it adds way more depth to Leon after he is finally beaten by the player. In the original, he appears to be super depressed by the player beating him. While this is understandable since he’s undefeated before this, it’s not very relatable.
In the rewrite, this depression fits a lot better as he struggles with self-doubt. Since he’s based his personality on being undefeated, he probably is wondering who he is if that was all a lie. It also makes a lot of sense to take over the Rose/battle tower, as helps him strive to get stronger and prove himself.
There was no natural gravitation as it added absolutely nothing to the story lol.
@@CyberDrewanthere is no depth added though lol. And how is in not relatable to lose at something you’ve never lost ate
In the rewrite he should have that depression before the battle, not after it. In the rewrite he would be doubting himself the entire time and the entire battle since everything he’s known about himself is a lie. It doesn’t make sense that he’s depressed after the loss. It makes more sense that he’s depressed before the loss and that affects him in the actual battle
It also doesn’t make sense for him to take over rose tower as his entire career has been a lie. He would challenge it, not fake it over as taking it over makes no sense with his entire career being fake. Hell it makes more sense for him to start all over from scratch
Honestly, this sounds way more anti-corporation than anti-capitalist to me... Yes, there is a difference, believe it or not...
Imagine setting a game in Britain and not making the villain an aristocrat.
I mean, a corporate chairman is a modern day version of an aristocrat
Imagine that they saved the Aristocrat villain for AMERICA
Especially when they did for Kalos
@casteddu6740 there is no difference really unless what's he's asking is a stereotype of one being top hatted Tumblr sexy men esc villain
@@mechashadowunova(New York), Orre (Arizona) , and aloha(Hawaii) are all really based off of parts of the USA and predate sword and shield, also how would an aristocrat villlan fit the usa?
1:20:10 Oh, that's such a great line. It makes Garbador being her ace a double entente
At first you assume it's because she's secretly a terrible, vile person underneath her beautiful, elegant exterior. But not only is the original lore about her coming from lowly beginnings preserved, it recontextualizes Garbador's significance.
You've got a real knack for character dialogue and motivation! If you're up for it (and the bank account gets low enough), I'd love to see your take on designing a Pokemon storyline from the ground up. What would you do if you had all the tools, instead of rebuilding a foundation from something else? You've mentioned before how you don't really enjoy returning to the Pokemon well again and again, but I hope an exercise like this is creatively stimulating enough that you can wring some joy out of it! Thank you for sharing!
Seconded! Criminal that you got no replies-here's my contribution to boosting ya comment!
Oohh yeah! Honestly, those videos/video series where youtubers make their own pokemon game/story are always really entertaining
Oooo I’d love that
I'd love a video (or broken into a series) on that!!
I'd make Leon the champion for 6 years instead of 4 for 2 reasons.
1. It is implied that multiple gym leaders took the gym challenge the same year as Leon or more recently. Raihan is a rival to Leon, who was traveling along side Sonia, who was really good friends with Nessa, who sees herself having a rivalry with Milo. Gordie is described as an upcomer who people believe might become champion one day, which leads me to think he's younger than the others. You could not convince me Allister isn't a new gym leader with how young he looks and how shy he is. Bea kind of just seems younger than the first group, I'd put her around Gordie but that's just a vibe. Piers, filling a similar role to Leon as an older brother to one of your rivals, I just lumped him in with Leon's group, but I could see him being a few years older. Maybe he was a gym leader for a year before Leon became champion. All that is to say I don't think everyone should have become a gym leader immediatly after their own run. Maybe Raihan became one the following year, followed by Nessa 2 years later, and Milo the year after that, with 2 years to go before your run, just to feel more stretched out. 4 just feels more compressed.
2. If Leon has been champion for 6 years then that means Leon defended his title 4 times between him winning and you taking his sponsership. (Spoiler for the video) that's 4 champion level trainers that got cheated. I could see Leon reching out to each of them wanting to set things right. Once you win against the gym leaders again you fight this makeshift Elite 4 before you fight Leon.
Edit: Just came up with this idea. Have one of these trainers be Volkner from Sinnoh. Gen 8 would later have the Diamond and Pearl remakes so you could get some synergy going. There also is no electric specialist in Galar. For story reasons his whole deal is wanting a challenge and talks about taking on the Sinnoh Elite 4, he hears the Galar league is exceptionally strong and takes it on. When Volkner faces Raihan before Leon, Rose rigs the match so the Galar 8th gym leader gets a decisive victory over the Sinnoh 8th gym leader.
It wouldn’t make sense to fight them as they were cheated by Leon, not you. They would have to fight Leon again, as they lost to Leon.
@@BabyGirlTiny I think the implication is that they get invited back and not all the gym leaders partake. You end up fighting them as 4 new to you trainers who all are 'champion level' to be a sort of elite 4.
Mustard and Peony should be two of them, and if I were to pick two more known characters as a sort of "elite 4", it would be Raihan and Piers, and we could retcon it so that Piers is the one who couldn't Dynamax his pokemon
Yeah, I guess I could’ve been more clear on that. We don’t even know who they specifically lost to because we lost to Nessa. Maybe one lost to Raihan, or Piers, or some gym leader who has since retired/moved. It’s easy to recreate our tournament bracket because it’s only been maybe a few weeks, but the other 4, not so much.
I think it could go either way when it comes to the other trainers. Leon faces the first trainer and the winner battles the second and then the third etc… or you fight the guy from the year before you, and then the next, until you fight Leon. Either Leon is the strongest of 5 and fights you at the end where he now knows that he would still have been champion this whole time… or you’re the strongest of 5 and battle Leon who still isn’t sure about his title. I think the second option make’s enough sense to justify itself for the benefit of more boss battles.
@@jdelacruz14791 I really like this post-game elite 4 lineup although I think I'd change 1 thing. The stuff with Piers makes perfect sense and he'd easily be able to move on to the elite 4 since he's got Marnie to succeed him as gym leader. But I feel like taking both the 7th and 8th gym leaders is kinda boring so I'd say Raihan stays as the 8th gym leader because he wants the title of champion for himself, not to be part of his old rivals new possee. I'd say instead that it's Oleana that takes the position. Seeking redemption for her participation in Rose's crimes she wants to take a new path and better herself as a trainer. She was already a really good trainer in the first place being a late game boss. Plus it means she gets a new job.
I think the part about dynamax not working is a cool idea, but way too obvious of a rig. Maybe it could be a plot point that refusing to dynamax is seen as a power play meant to inflate the fighters ego. So when someone doesn't dynamax, it's seen as a taunt rather than a stupid decision. Then when the fighter inevitably loses, and claims that dynamax wasn't working, people will just assume he's lying to cover his embarrassing loss. That way it wouldn't be as suspicious as it is now
It could make sense. As it is something that some pokémon trainer who is just so confident to their and their pokémons ability to win the match could do just to show everyone how awesome trainer they are and how strong pokémon team they got.
Wow, I actually did this in my second plaaythrough XD. I played a bug monotype team and refused to dynamax (mostly so the game was actually challenging) which kinda came together to form a strong underdog narrative. The small, underestimated bugs can be the strongest with enough effort etc.
I was thinking either this or add some established simple way to feasibly fumble a daynamax in lore. something that would be easy enough to slip up and do on an off game, but something a skilled battler should usually be able to avoid without a second thought. maybe you have to throw the ball a very specific way or do something to the band/with the arm the band is on, otherwise it doesn't work
This was my one complaint with the vid, but this makes it make sense
That, or just remove the part about being made unable to Dynamax altogether? I feel like after the first couple times challengers claimed they didn’t do it on purpose, people would start getting suspicious of the legitimacy of the matches pretty quick. Maybe rather than handicapping one contestant, Rose could actually be empowering the favored winner. So in the scripted battle with Nessa, her GMax Drednaw just has absurdly high HP, and a damage boost. Still accomplishes the same goal
1:39:19 ok but for real though. Imagining an entire army of trainers holding off a monster like Eternatus while you run for help is such a cool scene to imagine. Why cant we have awesome moments in Pokemon?
time constraints and programming issues, video game companies kinda put themselves on daggers with time constraints
I'd program it so that there's a "time limit" to getting to the Legendaries - if you take too long beating the Gigantamaxed rampage, Eternamax manages to win - but of course, your ally in the raid battle might have a move or two to help guarantee a victory if you need it, so you can't get soft-locked out
The problem is time constraints I’m glad they seem to be taking more time with Pokémon legends Z-A
"unfortunately i am still a pokemon fan." too real...
I find myself hating pokemon but still playing the older games
Luckily, we're in a true golden age of fan games. =)
@@mokarokas-1727 which mean the golden age of Nintendo lawyers
@@Chadfill8348 How so? They're stopping nothing.
@@mokarokas-1727 but they still get the paycheck
Regarding the DLC, this rewrite definitely fits given what info we have on Peony-he was a former Gym Leader and the Champion of Galar once, but left the League not long after Rose became the Chairman. As his brother, I have no doubt that Peony would know Rose’s nature best and either chose to or was forced to leave due to corruption. Perhaps if he spoke out he would have been regarded as a bitter brother jealous of Rose, mirroring the player here in their darkest hour, or maybe he just felt the whole thing would be toxic and jumped ship to focus on his family?
Come to think of it, Master Mustard in the Isle of Armour was a former champion too and contemporary to early Opal, held his title for 18 years before he left for similar reasons, the then-chairman trying to get a match rigged in his favour. Seems the League has a long history of corruption but given Leon was a pupil of Mustard’s once and is a good guy, maybe the cycle can finally be broken.
41:52 "Home of J.K. Rowling" Ok that got a chuckle out of me
Solid joke. 10/10 would clip to watch again.
I laughed for a full 10 minutes ngl
I did not hear it correctly at first so I didn't get the joke, but I was to invested in the rewrite go back. Looking at it again, that is hilarious.
yeah i was caught off gaurd by it and it was so funny
Excellent video! As one of those weirdos that like reading fanfiction and thinks way too deep about video game stories to find the smallest crumbs in-canon and real life equivalents to pull from, this was right up my alley.
A couple of fun-facts you might not be aware about, there are some secret Trainer Cards you can get in-game that reveal some backstory to the characters. For example, Oleana grew up dirty poor before getting a job in Macro Cosmos and being noticed by Rose, so her Garbodor as a Trubbish was her first Mon, and probably the only one she could afford to keep because it ate garbage, which made it cheap.
Also Rose's brother is absurdly funny, and really did not like his brother. How much he disliked him? He was the Champion before Leon, and he resigned the micro-instant Rose became chairman. That's how much he didn't want to have nothing to do with Rose.
Also, and I'm not joking, he's basically confirmed to be the father of Penny from SV, the small girl with red and blue hair. And the founder of Paldea's own evil team.
Domestic terrorism runs in the family.
Penny's father is HEAAAVILY implied to be Peony
The “theme” of Galar was descendants/ history / but mostly legacy
You beat the unbeatable champion and it’s legacy
Hop was trying to reach Leon legacy
Marine and Bede continued the legacy of their respective gym leaders
Rose was trying to make a legacy last forever
Sonia continued the previous professor legacy
But even so SWSH doesn’t use this theme very well
yet you catched the theme, how Galar and its people have this inherited will from its past, Hop and Gloria became the new Sword and Shield wielders, the old energy is replaced by a new one, the tradition itself is a passing of the torch the pokemon league is a big celebration, I get that he wanted a more dark approach, but I would loved if he keep the original theme from Sword and Shield
hell its biggest use of this theme was in the post game villains who were descendants of the legendary heroes but were rich layabouts who were more ridiculous rather than compelling or interesting and whose evil scheme just ends with everyone just getitng forgiven carte blanche (yes this last bit is msotly about Sonia's random ass assistant who betrayed her and then just sorta turns good for no reason when really she should've been fired because she betrayed her boss' trust to suck up to some rich snobs)
"Just because its written for children, doesn't mean it should be written worse, it just means it should be written differently. Everyone deserves to be exposed to stories written by people who care." Fucking go off! Absolutely despise the attitude that childrens media is/should be inherently inferior/made with less thought. No! If anything, it deserves more thought- because your story might be the first time that kid ever encounters a story about that theme, and it has so much more potential to shape the way they see that issue going forward. Great attitude to have ❤
You gotta love Sword and Shield for having the exact opposite plot as the UK - Chairman Rose actually wants to make renewable energy! The UK government could never
That was one of my big frustrations with the games-that you could read it as mocking climate "alarmists" the same way Black & White villainized Animal Rights activism.
@@GSBarlevI wouldn’t give them enough credit to think of it as mocking. It feels like all the effort went into the excellent league challenge and then they threw a story together. Eternarus? Fuck it energy crisis Pokémon get big. Yeah but how is the fella sorting that a villain? Errr, it’s in a thousand years and it’s basically a disaster. But we’ve not got time to animate all of the Pokémon rampaging? Make the champion sort it all out off screen. Everyone liked the gym leaders helping in BW, they’ll love that.
@@GSBarlev BW2 did have the thing with the team splitting into two, with the good ones following N. Honestly it’s a reach but the whole plot kinda reminded me of stalin taking over the communism craze, however well intentioned it may have started, like animal farm. (iirc, it’s been awhile since I learned about it)
@@GSBarlev Except PETA, the organisation that Plasma (og) was based on, are genuinely evil.
With SwSh, it really does seem like a silly caricature, but the "evil" Plasma Grunts are pretty accurate depictions of those PETA nutjobs that would take animal companions from homeless people.
🤣 🤣
Cool rewrite, I especially like that you gave Marnie and Piers' story more teeth. I like the characters and always wished they didn't feel so pointless to the game.
I also appreciate that you understand the realities of game dev and that the story is the way that it is because the devs had to meet an unfair deadline.
I’m glad you went into explaining the theme of your story. On Bulbapedia, the pages for each generation lists thematic motifs for each region (Hoenn is relationships in nature, Sinnoh is myths and legends, Kalos is beauty and harmony, etc.). Meanwhile, the Gen 8 page doesn’t have a section like that. With a story like this to help contextualize how we should think about Galar, it could.
For all that X and Y has the next most stupidest story after Sword/Shield, at least the bluntness of all plot points means that their resolution of beauty as a theme means beauty is about enjoying life, like how you and your five friends enjoy time together and Pokémon in different ways, as opposed to Lysander who either wants eternal unchanging beauty or death to ugly things, which are anti-life.
Kinda fitting that the region for one of the worst pokemon games is called galar which is the Irish word for disease
That’s actually hilarious given their history 💀💀💀💀
I knew it, Sword and Shield is actually IRA propaganda! That's why it's so bad! To make England seem bad!
WHAT 💀
I guess if there's something there could be done with Peony is for him to meet Oleana and make her feel like she, for once, belongs somewhere.
And for some fun contrast to Rose, it could be implied that he was a really competent player, close to champion levels even, that decided to focus on his family first and foremost instead of becoming the best
He was actually the champion but left after Rose became chairman! It would be interesting to see Peony talk with Leon!!!
You mentioned in the Raihan section about teams saying things about character when moving Duraludon off of his team. A cool idea to replace it would be Blastoise IMO. Since it's his old team it represents his rivalry with Leon and shows that Leon was at a disadvantage when it came to starters (like classic pokemon games) it's subtle but reinforces their rivalry and Leon's skill
This is now cannon for me. I will accept no arguments or alternatives. This is so much better than what we got. I want to see someone make a comic or write a story or something that follows this version of the game. It would be so cool. This was an amazing video, and I think you should be in charge of writing the story of the next Pokemon game.
I personally felt like Bede was missing something. I, too, liked him (I typically do like snarky assholes like him), but it felt like he was left in only a slightly better position from the beginning. he was constantly looking for approval from rose, and then he gets rejected and picked up by opal, who then reforms him to be... himself but without the coat? it didn't feel much like he changed at all, even though he was supposed to have. he learned nothing really, and hasn't really changed. I felt like we didn't get enough time with him to observe the transformation, had it even happened. i know he was a bit of a bitch, but i really never felt that he was doing it just to be an ass. it felt like some unidentified rage at something. therefore: I think bede could work perfectly for a coming out story. all that needs to change is that rose wants him to wear that giant coat, and that he's actually his adopted dad (if he isn't. i actually cannot remember). bede insults the player a lot, so I propose he just focuses on their clothing for insults. make opal's infatuation with pink stem from appreciation AND the sense of freedom she gets from it, and then add a couple encounters after he meets opal. one where his coat is still on, and one where it's unbuttoned, but still on. then, his final battle, without even saying anything, describes his ability to be himself outwardly.
bede got estrogen
The main problem with Bede for me is how Sword & Shield has him written in the story. Before the final battle against him in the main story begins, he tells announces to everyone that he will retire from being a Pokemon Trainer upon defeat. But just when they do such a good job on his overall character growth, his individuality gets half-assed at the last second by having the *audience* tell Bede not to give up Pokemon Training but to start from scratch. That's not good writing, in my opinion.
the fairy uniform looks a lot like a trans flag, so i'd really like this actually!
The DLC could work with this with just about zero changes, save for the fact that you can head to the DLC areas whenever you want, and there's certain times in this storyline where it'd be pretty weird to just wander off to an island and fight giant bees for a while. Peonea's relationship with Rose is briefly half-touched on in one line of dialogue, and in general the DLCs are a lot better put together than the main game, and are in need of a lot less fixing.
i like how the villain is tory austerity
The problem is always capitalism
@@RybackToTheFuturenot capitalism. Corporatism.
@@grandarkfang_1482 Corporatism is the inevitable end result of capitalism.
@@grandarkfang_1482 Imagine defending capitalism🤣🤣
true, but the whole 'mining family' backstory gives the same vibes as 'my father was a toolmaker'
Fun fact: There actually is a small plot involving rigged championship matches in Sword and Shield! Mustard, the master of the dojo in The Isle of Armor DLC pack, is actually a former champion who stepped down after the league chairman at the time asked him to win a rigged match. However this is only revealed in his second league card and the game doesn't bother exploring this plot point further.
I love this rewrite! My only addition would be with Oleanna's character. On her trainer card it reveals that Garbodor was her first pokemon that she befriended while in poverty. I liked this bit of story because when you first fight her it seems like Garbodor represents her toxic attitude beneath her elegant facade, but it's actually her showing loyalty to her roots and best friend despite how much her life has changed. I think this bit of lore could be wedged nicely into your Potswick scene, and it would strengthen her reasoning for helping you in the latter half of the game.
Absolutely fantastic video. Well-thought-out rewrites like this are solid gold to me, and I hope to match your level of competence.
I tried my hand with a total re-write of X and Y a few years back, and it went well at first, but once I was past the halfway point the lack of direction left it with nowhere to go.
You handled Team Yell and Macro Cosmos both immaculately, as well as Leon and Sonia. Especially if I've successfully bought in to Leon being lovable and having a heart of gold, the final battle against him would be genuinely emotional, knowing how much the loss I'm trying to inflict on him would hurt him. And then the wrap-up where his brother supports him and reminds him of how he held back eternatus...mwah. I might have cried.
I do worry for Hop a little. To me, he's one of the best written Pokémon rivals - top 5 for sure, and I understand that a lot of people don't think highly of him. He's fighting an uphill battle against the bad first impression he makes dragging you through the mandatory tutorial and reusing animations from Hau. His biggest strength is how his team conveys his arc extremely well - once Bede crushes his confidence, Hop repeatedly re-shuffles his team to try and find something that beats you - even trying out Cramorant and Pincurchin, while benching his partner Wooloo for a time.
I feel like the decisions he makes in the final act of your re-write detract from Hop's story by both shifting the focus away from him and making him feel even more like a loser. Then again, there's only so much space in a narrative to flesh out characters in a satisfying way - if Hop had to make small sacrifices so that Rose and Team Yell could shine, so be it.
The other point of concern is the scripted loss in the Champion's Cup. Forced losses are always volatile things to handle, given how awful they make the player feel. Done well, that awfulness can be harnessed for catharsis later - but I feel like the key to a forced loss is if the player can reasonably believe their character would lose.
In basically every successful example I can think of, the player character is weaker than their opponent at that point in the story, whether because they're strictly outmatched or the playing field is somehow uneven, like in this case. You don't mind the mechanical violation that is your starter being too scared of the Houndoom at the beginning of S/V, even if you were a psychopath who grinded up a team that could reasonably defeat it, because at that point in the story you're still just a new trainer at the very start of their journey.
It's different here, because Dynamax isn't a be-all end-all. There are plenty of strategies a player could use to defeat a Dynamaxed opponent without using the mechanic themselves by the lategame - and if they're highly competent and/or a little overleveled and/or stocked up on items, you could beat Nessa's Drednaw without breaking a sweat. More importantly, by this point in the narrative, you've gone on a long journey and conquered everything in your path so far - so the player character is expected to be strong, able to overcome even the adversity of being unable to Dynamax in a tough fight.
Imagine sweeping Nessa with, I don't know, Sleep Powder Quiver Dance Tanga Berry Lilligant, or something. You don't plan on Dynamaxing, knowing that you'll eviscerate Drednaw with Giga Drain anyways - but the game suddenly forces you to, just to show you that you can't. Then, for six consecutive turns, you're locked out of performing any actions as your healthy team is OHKOd by moves they're obviously capable of living. Of course, not every player would put on such a dominant display, but this is a Pokémon game - a lot of players will have to sit there and watch fainting animations for minutes.
I don't think the reaction here would be gut-wrenching indignation at the unfairness of the rigged match - because the player can see exactly how the match was rigged, and knew that by all accounts they should have won anyways based on both their mechanical knowledge and the considerable power the narrative insists that the player character has. And that could be an interesting story in its own right, perhaps.
Instead, players who have that experience will just be a little bewildered and frustrated by the obvious railroading.
"What?"
All of that being said. The forced loss against Nessa is an important plot point for your superior retelling of SWSH. Unlike the Hop characterization thing, I'm more inclined to call this one a flaw, but I also don't see how the story you built could exist without it. And I really enjoyed your story. -And maybe the fact that I never finish any of my amateur writing projects is because I detect flaws in them and deny them their existence rather than let something good be told in spite of its flaws.-
And really, the whole deal is a limitation of the game this story necessarily exists in, not the story itself. I wonder if, ideally, it would work better as a cutscene than a playable event?
Anyways, thank you for the incredible video.
Hop's character arc was the only good thing in SWSH...
Big agree, the forced loss isn't handled well enough in this video
I have thought on what could replace the force loss against NASA, it could still have the dynamac thing but if you beat her without it something could like happen to your Dynamics band at the end of the battle right before you go to shake hands with her causing it to break and need to get repaired which would force you to back out. And then it be revealed that Rose tried to stop you from dying to Maxine but since I didn't marry he got pissed and used to turn just to break your band or something since it's tied to eternimax energy and then the story goes on from there but with only Anna explaining that he broke her bands instead of blocked to your dynamax.
1 thing I'll give SWSH is that it has my favourite art style of any 3D Pokémon game
Hi! Game Design major here, I’d like to say first of all that as a story, this version is a drastic improvement in my opinion, but I do have one major point of issue from a design perspective. While it’s certainly an improvement from a story progression standpoint, the forced loss against Nessa is probably a step too far. There’s a concept in game design called metrics, which basically covers the logic of internal consistency and interactions within a system, and you need to be careful if you plan on messing with them. Preventing the player from dynamaxing is all well and good, and something you could probably get away with, but forcing the opponents dreadnaw to stay up on one hp regardless of the players actions could create serious issues. Part of the reason people play games is to have agency over story progression, and players tend to get very frustrated when they lose that. Additionally, this change would make nuzlocking the game impossible due to the scripted loss. If you want to keep this version of the story, then I would suggest figuring out a way to create a branching narrative based on whether or not you lose during the tournament. I’m not a narrative designer though, so I’ll have to leave that up to you.
I want to propose a potential alternative to the new nessa scripted fight based on what you’re saying. first, I agree with what you’re saying. I think a “scripted loss” is an excellent cinematic moment, but it works a lot less in video games since the player isn’t supposed to lose. however, I also get that the point is to showcase eternatus (rose) actively rigging matches. since I think that this is important to the cohesion of the new story (giving the player character personal stake and hinting at the bigger mystery), I think it could still work by making the scripted loss even more scripted (weirdly enough) by breaking out of the traditional battle mechanics. say, by making it so nessa’s gigantamax is so huge or strong or whatever (something that’s because of eternatus’s meddling) that your pokemon are too scared or can’t get close or are otherwise unable to fight ie. something that doesn’t occur in normal battles. it’d still need to be obvious to the player (and nessa) that this was due to some kind of rigging and not just your pokemon being wimps, but it doesn’t need to be a real battle - more of an interactive cutscene (not unlike the original encounter with the hero pokemon iirc). that way, you still “lose,” but none of your pokemon are required to faint, maintaining the ability to nuzlocke and not making players feel quite so out of control. maybe the player character remarks at the start of the nessa fight or something to prompt the gamer into the idea that this fight won’t be normal to make sure they don’t feel helpless.
This has got to be the best rewrite of this games story I've seen. I absolutely adore this and I'm so very upset that this ISN'T the story we got for this game. I always felt like Sword and Shield had some untapped potential for what it could've been and you literally brought that potential to life with your rewrite! And for the record, I loved listening to your thought process at the beginning of the video where you point out the issues you had and why you want to change certain things, it made it super easy to follow along and understand why you made the changes you did. Fantastic video!
i kept going :O and gasping whenever you revealed the big story beats you came up with- i would KILL to play swsh with your story, it was super engaging and honestly would probably be one of the best games in the series if this is the direction they took
rose seems so much more EVIL and more of a threat in your take on the story- honestly its great to have a villain who's just evil and greedy for the sake of it! he's just a rich asshole here and thats AWESOME! keep up the good work, i definitely want to see more of your writing
LOVE this channel, LOVE this rewrite!
59:00 I want people to understand this is actually even more fitting than it seems!
The Circester baths are clearly inspired by the Roman baths in the City of Bath here in the UK. One thing I didn't know until visiting recently is that the second level and the statues of emperors found there are actually a Victorian addition, centuries after the Roman-built bathhouse had already fallen into ruin and been buried. There's even supposition that the statues of emperors have striking resemblance to the town council members of Bath at the time these statues were commissioned.
The idea of Sordward and Shielbert making an excuse about a more recent mayor's interference not only works for the story, it's also a genius reflection of the real-world history involved. Plus considering Brits don't have a great history with artifacts (that's what the jumbled fossils are based on), I think it's also a fun way to keep that motif going!
One of my hypothetical Pokémon projects includes a full remake of SwSh, so I'll keep this video in mind if I ever decide to actually sit down and make it. Great job!
I just realized that Hop is vague about Zacian/Zamazenta's appearance in the originals because they didn't want to imply the existence of non-Pokémon animals
i'll never understand how they decide when to not reference non pokemon animals sometimes (like with hop) and when to just straight up name drop real animals like with iron moth in scarlet and violet or with the subspecies names for a ton of pokemon in the pokedex (like meowth being the scratch cat pokemon)
Probably couldve just compared it to another dog-like pokemon like Boltund.
you said you wanted to make rose a character worth having an epic battle theme, and brother, when you started playing his song at the climax i lost my shit. so damn cool! i feel like your rewrite fleshes out galar soooo much and would probably make the game longer than it was. P.S, if you ever find the time, the DLC is actually quite fun! especially the crown tundra. if nothing else, you should play it so you can go hang out with penny's dad and brag about it when you go back to paldea X3
I think SV was actually such a good example of storytelling. Arven's dog plotline actually made me cry and Nemona is the best rival pokemon has ever given us.
I really wish the games did a better job at hinting toward Sonias backstory. Both the anime and the manga have the implication the Sonia was actually a better trainer than Leon when they were kids, but because she was the professors granddaughter audiences thought that there might be some kind of conflict of interest and the only reason she was winning all of her battles was because the leaders were going easy on her. Eventually the stress and baseless allegations got to her and she withdrew from the competition after Ballonlea. None of this is conveyed in the games except for the fact that Sonia was at the Ballonlea gym one time and didn't have much confidence, which you can learn by reading the report on the table after completing the gym challenge but before fighting Opal.
This video has changed my life by getting me back into pokémon and has me writing my own entire fanmade pokémon region.
About the DLC: Peony being Rose’s brother in the original DLC was neat, but I feel like they didn’t go far enough with it. There’s actually some lore that Peony used to be the league champion; however, once Rose became chairman, Peony resigned as champion, presumably due to issues with Rose.
This lore could slide in perfectly with your rewrite: once Rose becomes chair, have him approach Peony with their plan to rig matches, thinking he’s doing Peony, his brother, a favor. However, Peony is appalled and disgusted by the plan, and storms off, resigning from being champion. Peony could never turn in his own brother, but he removed himself from Galar’s League and stayed as far away from Wyndon as he could get. Peony could express some regret on not helping take Rose down sooner, but could still be happy that it meant he had the time to spend with his daughter.
Anyway, Excellent rewrite! I could tell you put a lot of effort into the writing and the result was just fantastic!
In regards to theme, I've always read sword/sheild as being about "Passing on the torch" and the various reactions people have about it.
Hop/Marnie/Sonia are worried about not being able to fill the shoes of their older brothers with different choices being made, either gaining confidence in their ability and acceptibg the torch with Marnie/Sonia or Hop realising that succeding his brother just isn't for him and taking his own path.
Bede has a torch forced upon him.
And Rose is worried that the torch he has isn't in a stable enough state to pass on, granted yeah still kot a great justification for his actions.
Granted though your idea of revisionism could play really well together with that! Exploring the responsibilities people have to the upcoming generations to be honest with their history and avoid history repeating and being less susceptible to propaganda.
This story rewrite is actually so good that I had some happy tears when you were talking about Leon's final battle.. it literally all wrapped up so well
Leon now has tons of potential for dealing with his actually legitimate imposter syndrome in the post game and proving to himself that he's still a badass outside of rigged matches. I like that idea.
Very enjoyable concept, 100% vast improvement on the story. The only complaint I have is that you didn't suggest an alternative Gigantamax Pokemon for Raihan to use. There's only one other dragon type that can Gigantamax, being Flapple/Appletun, which is used by Milo during rematches. I imagine it'd involve promoting Sandaconda to the ace and Gigantamaxing it, since he already has one and as far as I can recall nobody ever actually used Gigantamax Sandaconda.
Guess I solved my own complaint, so no notes, great stuff.
ok but GMax Dragapult would be awesome! I'm imagining it like a bomber jet or aircraft carrier
I vaguely remember that they partially fixed roses character in the anime by having his reasoning be that his father died working in a coal mine, wanting to stop any other child from experiencing that pain, his impatience coming from his reasoning that if you wait even a day too many people will die
That is so much more interesting
The anime, the manga and even Masters do a lot to fix the issues with not just Rose, but pretty much every contentious character, period.
I re-played shield after I watched this and then I got mad because I forgot this wasn't the real story
They robbed us of a good story!!!
Love the new motivation for Rose, and the Spikemuth storyline is amazing! Few questions/notes:
1. You mention the game opens back up after failing to convince your mom and Hop to help you challenge Rose, but then what sort of narrative prompting will lead the player to revisit all of the gym leaders to ask them for help and eventually find Piers? I think the easiest path here would just be for members of Team Yell or Piers himself to come to you. Maybe Oleana was originally from Spikemuth when she was that down-on-her-luck League admin, and goes to Piers hanging her head in shame first, then they both show up at your house.
B. Eternatus should still be catchable at the end of the Eternamax battle, having it turn back into the egg is too unsatisfying as a player! Even if it’s not the final story boss anymore, leaving a single slot of the Pokédex unfillable would be maddening.
Triangle: Why do none of the 10+ people in the room try to stop or restrain Rose when he is clearly building a bomb in front of them? I’d just have him already rig everything to explode before he comes up to the roof, but you still have to block him from getting to the button of doom. I know it’s a relatively small detail, but the mental image of him actively fiddling with wires while expositing, surrounded by people who are all in agreement that he’s bad news, irks me.
Episode IV: A New Hope: Gameplay wise, I think you should still be fighting Hop in the true championship tournament. I generally see where you’re going with the reporter/sports commentator angle, and that can still come up here, but having your final battle be comparatively ages ago at Victory Road won’t leave him as a particularly memorable rival compared to others, especially after how late he comes in for the Eternatus fight in this version.
I expect corrections on my desk in the morning! /lh
I have a neat alternate idea for salvaging Rose's Energy Crisis motivation and inability to wait even a single day! Have it hinge on an event that has a narrow time window that can't wait, specifically a comet passing by like Hailey's comet. Eternatus fell to earth from a meteor in the distant past, but in this slightly modified version that meteor passes back around once every hundred years or so. And you can tell when its about to pass by because it gives off Wishing Stars and insane amounts of Galar Particles. This comet's approach is what causes the rogue dynamax phenomenon in the story.
Thus Rose's plan is to collect as many Wishing Stars as he can in order to wake Eternatus up in time for the comet to pass by because he knows from studying it while dormant that it can siphon Galar Particles from the atmosphere to fuel itself. He theorizes then that if they can wake Eternatus up before the comet comes and subdue it, they can use its power to siphon a massive amount of Galar Particles from the comet on its swing by, which is what it did in the original Darkest Day, and then siphon that energy back out of Eternatus over time like a battery, staving off Galar's looming Energy Crisis in 10 years.
However the time of arrival happens to coincide with the day of the championship match this swing by. Late enough in the night that Leon, partially from confidence in his own skill as the "Unbeatable Champion", believes that they can have the match and still have time to subdue Eternatus after and catch the window they need.. But Rose isn't willing to chance any possibility that they might miss their only opportunity because they weren't fully prepared ahead of time. When Leon refuses to postpone his match to go subdue Eternatus well ahead of time Rose decides to force Leon's hand by awakening Eternatus anyway and letting it rampage, counting on Leon's character to abandon the match and go capture it whether he likes it or not.
Things proceed as normal from there, going to the Weald, fighting Rose, and fighting Eternatus except this time the Eternamax form isn't just a random Stage 2 but rather the result of the Comet swinging by just as the Player is fighting base Eternatus due to the time that passed running around. Eternatus absorbs energy from the Comet just like Rose theorized it would and enters its Eternamax form. Then things proceed as normal from there.
This means that Rose's plan ultimately succeeded, but ONLY because of the players actions essentially salvaging it from the brink of failure, realizing that his plan and judgement almost doomed Galar right then and there he quietly accepts judgement for his crimes and allows himself to be arrested without contest. (this also explains why Eternatus can't Eternamax after you catch it, it no longer has the Comet to draw the required power from as it already passed out of range.)
I'm not a creative writing major, but I think I can help explain themes. I can definitely understand how it can be difficult to really get a handle on it, and I wouldn't say I'm an expert. Most stories don't have enough to say to bother reading into.
Anyway, when you're telling a story, you want to have something to say more than the events that are happening, some perceived truth of the human experience that you can walk away with. Themes are the soul of a story. When you're trying to capture a theme, it should be the wind behind the sails. It's not something you need to see directly, but it guides the course of everything. The themes of a story are either things that define how that world works for the story, or how the characters believe it should. Sometimes themes are a question for the audience, like Pokemon B&W asking if it's right to make Pokemon fight each other for sport (Though B&W is too cowardly to take the question seriously and explore what that would actually mean for the world of Pokemon, which is probably for the best).
You did this pretty well with the main theme of the rewrite being that "Victory is written by the victors". The player sees how the history of the country isn't what they've been led to believe, and experienced firsthand how the truth was manipulated to serve the interests of others.
When I tell you ive watched this video like 3 times and each time I am just bLOWN AWAY from your rewite and am absolutely invested for the entirety of the video!!!
An incredible rewrite that I oh so wish was canon 😩🙏
20:40 the energy crisis plot with eternatus is also completely nullified by the existence of regieleki in the crown tundra
Im vibing as you explain this, nice work!
From the moment they advertised Leon as being this unbeatable champion, I hoped they were going to do some kind of plot point around match fixing so I'm glad you covered that
Considering it adds nothing to the story, what’s the point of having it
This is such a thorough rewrite, I love everyone getting more relevance. Definitely deserved.
people have mentioned oleana's backstory, so i'll instead say that leaving that stuff as backstory is completely fine. having a beautiful woman with a bunch of beautiful pokemon and an 'ugly' ace serving as the lieutenant to the main villain is good storytelling in and of itself. it doesn't need explaining or examination.
Historical revision/erasure would make a fascinating theme, but it's very hard to imagine a Japanese company poking that particular hornet's nest
1:53:29 my favorite part of Pokemon B&W was how your rivals ended up choosing other paths in life that wasn’t strictly Pokemon battles.
I just watched all of this video and was thoroughly immersed throughout, amazing. I’ve always struggled with themes in the little story writing I’ve done, and I just love how appropriate the theme of history turned out to be, as a fellow Brit. I loved how it improved Rose’s character, and adding Swordward and Shielbert into the main story was surprising to me at first, but it seems so obvious now with the way it was integrated. Also, making Oleana more sympathetic was a good idea, and I actually felt bad for her when she was explaining that Rose fired her and now she was back to the poverty she’d been in before he’d taken her under his manipulative wing.
Speaking of feeling bad for characters, I felt actually terrible for Leon. I’ve seen plenty of fan interpretations of Rose controlling his life, whether he’s aware of it or not, but I think I prefer this interpretation where he’s so blind that he only realises his legacy was a lie when its said right to him so carelessly. I was also thinking his reaction to losing to you could represent his illusion of himself shattering, but like, in a good way? Like, it’s a reminder for him that he’s just a pokemon trainer like everyone else. I LOVE IT.
I also love what you did with Team Yell. I wasn’t so sure at first about making Marnie and Piers colder towards you, but I love how you build up their trust, and the residents of the shunned town Rose wants everyone to forget about become your closest allies towards the climax (speaking of the climax, I even felt bad for Eternatus, because I wondered if it was suffering being chained up like that, with Rose essentially torturing it to siphon its energy). Also, the way you fleshed out Spikemuth was really interesting, and I just LOVE how the Gym is integrated into the main storyline, with Piers being made a more sympathetic character, so you trust him over Rose - leading up to the ironic decision to work with the “evil team” to take him down.
This should be so much more well-known in general, enough to become considered an AU so that more content could potentially be made based on it. I’m just imagining a novelised version of this, with all of Sw/Sh retold exactly like this… I need it. I’d read every page.
I mean, considering his entire career is a lie, no he’s not a trainer like everyone else. He’s a phony who isn’t as good as he thinks he is. He’s a fake who thought he was a. Good trainer, but it turns out he’s not really that good at all and he’s only where he is due to a fluke
Literally a few seconds before the Dark gym rewrite I asked how a British game with punks and a bunch of powerfull people didn't even tried to touch the anarchy and skinhead culture.
@20:38 - Actually I _DID_ just have two pretty solid ideas for why Rose would suddenly be so anxious about the whole Eternatus thing: First is going with the anime alteration that it's only 10 years away, and second is the idea that he's actually screwed up and given it too many wishing stars too quickly and it's going to awaken a _lot_ sooner than anticipated. Thus, he is trying (and failing) to save face while also getting Leon to put off the championship so Leon and his pokemon, ostensibly still fresh and ready, can face off against Eternatus in prime condition and not only save the company but also his reputation.
But when he realizes how much he's just screwed up, he's REALLY hoping to get Leon to just do the thing, hence why he decides to play the villain when Eternatus starts waking up during the tournament and pretends it's all part of his plan. It's likely so the blame can fall squarely on him as a person and not on his company.
He likely challenges you because he's hoping to test whether or not you're good enough to join Leon in facing Eternatus.
As for the red light scenes, they were likely intended to exist and you were likely meant to take part in them, but that was likely changed when they decided on the dynamax battles in the wild areas.
As someone who decently enjoyed what Sword/Shield tried to do with its story, I completely agree that most of it had no legs to stand on, no enough meat to bite into, or (like the Rose Tower section) simply had no reason happening. I do like the ideas presented in the video, especially about how the gym leaders are more actively involved in the story. I like the adjustment to Rose's motivation, I like the stronger integration of Oleana, I like the approach you have with Leon as a character (though I vastly prefer the whole "being put on a pedestal is one of the most dehumanizing and stressful things" vibe Leon has in official material, though it's more explored in the anime and Pokémon Masters than in Sword/Shield), and I DEFINITELY enjoy the way you made Marnie, Piers, and Sonia feel important to the story instead of just being… agonizingly there. I do kinda wish there was a bit more for Hop leading to the adjusted role you gave him at the end, but it's fine; I'm just a bit sad at losing the only rival to actively change up his team for story reasons (which we didn't actually get until Kieran in the Scarlet/Violet DLCs). I even really like how you implemented Sordward and Shielbert into the main story convincingly (though I still do not like how they look, my main complaint about them in the Sworld/Shield post-credits story was that they felt utterly pointless).
I have one huge complaint here: the scripted loss. Though I understand what you were going for here (with the whole "Dynamax isn't working!" aspect), but the way it was written into the battle doesn't work for me for a few reasons.
Reason 1: People who do not use the gimmicks. I don't like using the gimmicks for various reasons. I only used Mega Evolution once in X/Y (during the tutorial battle, and only after I learned that it was basically impossible to win that Lucario vs Lucario battle without it), and I've only Terrastalized in Scarlet/Violet when playing solo in the raid dens (since those are incredibly annoying otherwise) and during the final battles of the main story and the Blueberry Academy DLC (because I got swept up in the moment). I did NOT use Dynamax because I did not enjoy the concept of the gimmick-plus it let me pretend that my Pokémon were taking on kaijus in a fistfight and winning. Someone who did not Dynamax for the entire game suddenly being forced to Dynamax only to be told that it didn't work would be immediately taken out of the game, especially if the result was that the Pokémon fainted as a result. This game already HAS a scripted loss well before this, and that was against the illusory box legendary; yet that feels a lot better to play out because of the mystery behind this creature you cannot seem to touch. Having a seemingly normal battle just yanked out from your hands because of an action you're forced to feels bad, ESPECIALLY when it's an action that you purposefully CHOSE to avoid doing and built your playstyle around not doing it.
Reason 2: Challenge runners. I'm not a nuzlocke player, but being forced to lose Pokémon for the sake of plot sucks for challenge runs like Nuzlockes. But even without self-imposed permadeath rules, this prevents people from playing with freedom because of how it hijacks control from the player in a way that doesn't feel natural. For scripted wins, that's a bit more acceptable; for scripted LOSSES, there needs to be a finesse that wasn't shown here.
Reason 3: Dynamax rules. Dynamax works for three turns before wearing off. Unless the game is suddenly enforcing 3v3 rules, Dynamax will not last long enough to defeat a player's entire team of 6, especially if the player is tactical, overleveled, or flush with restorative items. Once the number of rounds reaches 3 and the opponent is STILL Gigantimaxed, then the scene loses whatever credibility it still had. At that point, the game is breaking its own rules to force a result, which just feels gross. So far, there are 3 instances of characters cheating against the player, and all three are treated as obstacles to be adapted to and defeated. This is not that.
Legitimately, the closest to a scripted loss that Pokémon has done in the main games (other than the illusory Zacian/Zamagenta) is the final battle in the Scarlet/Violet main story. That is how you give an "unwinnable situation" to a player without it feeling awful. You don't have that opportunity here. Unless there is some way to showcase WHY your normal Pokémon can't beat a Gigantimax Pokémon (like the shields from raid battles blocking damage from non-Dynamax Pokémon being a part of the gym challenges in general), players will struggle to buy into this scene. And that's a shame, because the NARRATIVE setup for the scene is really good here.
Getting away from the scripted loss, I think 4 years is too short a time. I saw a commenter (@jasonmaggard6674) mention changing the timeline to 6 years, and I think that would be pretty good timeframe. Not only would it allow for a chance to better establish the range of connections between the gym leaders, it would allow for a stronger timeline for Mustard and Peony-both former Champions-to factor into things. Plus, as jasonmaggard6674 mentioned in their comment, it would have given Leon 4 opportunities to defend his title after winning.
So the timeline could be that Peony won against Mustard. Then one year later, Leon won legitimately against Peony (who left because of Rose becoming Pokémon Chairman shortly afterwards); Eternatus broke out of the egg a year after that (not in time to fix Leon's first Champion defense, but SHORTLY afterwards, so Leon could still have another legitimate win under his belt, specifically against Raihan); then the next year could be a win against Piers, who doesn't Dynamax anyway (thus giving Rose an alabi here); then the next 3 years are fully fixed with the power of Eternatus. People could justify that other trainers were trying to be like Piers because Piers was the closest to beating Leon without Dynamaxing, and that was the most exciting battle anyone had seen in a long time (and this would make sense for Piers, since he would have been the gym leader who battled without Dynamaxing for the longest time), so whispers of tampering would not have gone past the claims of "They tried to show off and are just sore losers after they couldn't deliver".
Honestly, with all of that, the DLCs fit in pretty well! The only thing left to address would be Sordward and Shielbert post-credits, which would need to be DRASTICALLY rewritten. Maybe, instead of pretending to be the decedents of heroes (since that was their whole deal during the main story of this rewrite), they are causing calamities so they can regain their popularity like "See? We ARE real heroes! Love us again!!!" And then when the player characters uncover their involvements with overclocking Power Spots just so Dynamax Pokémon will go wild, they become so utterly livid that they attack the player character. But here comes Reporter Hop, revealing the true colors of the dastardly Sordward and Shielbert, this time on tape! Now THEY get put in jail! Maybe Oleana is made Chairman, or maybe Peony is, or maybe Honey (Mustard's wife) could be. Who knows. Leon still goes on to create the Battle Tower as a way to help Galar shine, but maybe he also just wants to make sure his battles are all real, win or lose.
One more thing: Sonia deserves to be a trainer. Sure, she is not the most competitive person by a long shot, but she (like Bianca in Gen 5) started out as a legitimate rival. In fact, in the actual lore, Sonia was the only one to truly defeat Leon-it was early on in their journeys, but it happened. That means Sonia should still retain SOME battle knowledge. Being able to battle Sonia would be an amazing post-credits bonus deal. I also wish the Isle of Armor DLC better incorporated Leon's history with Mustard and the dojo-that is canonically where Leon got his Charizard, considering how the player only had Squirtle and Bulbasaur to choose between.
Ultimately, this is a really good rewrite! I'm glad to have watched the entire thing, even with my misgivings at the scripted loss. You keep it up!
a better way to do a scripted loss would be to not make the player try to dynamax, but the pokemon always is outsped and one shot if you don't
I like your version more. Character motivations that make some sense can go such a long way.
So the rant about “if you dislike listening to my yappuchinos leave the stand” got me to subscribe because oh my GOD I’ve felt that.
Rose really said “It’s my L’Manburg. If I cant have it no one will.” 💀💀💀💀
1:48:01
Holy shit.
I LOVE your re-imagining of the final Rose encounter! The music fits perfectly! This actually gave me shivers.
In defence of Piers wanting to "cause a ruckus" at Rose Tower, i think he does have a reason to want to do that. Rose basically started punishing him for not conforming to what Rose wanted him to do, so he isnt too fond of the guy (same, dude) and might just want to cause trouble for Rose the same way that Rose has caused problems for Piers. If someone caused my hometown to go to ruin, then id want to cause as many problems for them as possible too
I thought of something else to give Oleana's character some more depth through enviromental storytelling:
Every other time she fights you, her Ace Pokémon is a Lopunny with a max power Frustration (I think that this would work better because of what we know from her base game's ace being a Garbodor; maybe Chariman Rose *forced her* to use that Lopunny to maintain that "Beauty" archetype she has).
And after you lose the championship fight against Nessa, Oleana goes to see you at your house and she challenges you again for one last combat so she can make up her mind. *But this time* she does have her Ace Garbodor in her team.
This was *so good.* As impressive as the parts you invented were your choices of original elements to keep, accentuate and recontextualize.
You told me yesterday that, as a fan of the Sordward + Shieldbert storyline, I would be happy with this, and *you were right.*
Ultra Sun and Moon were such great games packed with content, it's a shame that the series spontaneously combusted and no sequels were ever made -_-
I really liked this rewrite, but one thing I have to criticize is the implementation of sections where you are required to win or lose. I honestly think having the player unable to do anything but Dynamax while their Pokemon get taken out. You yourself left this out in the Eternatus battle, because limiting the player's ability for forced losses is really dumb and one of the things I really disliked about Sword & Sheild. I personally like the idea of just not showing the Dynamax button at first, then showing it at Nessa's final Pokemon, before revealing it's not an option. You could then beat Nessa and move on, but never get the Dynamax option back, while the opposing trainer Pokemon gain steeply in levels to where they'll be after the Rose plotline is over, until the player loses. (I don't really have a good idea for how you would force the player to lose if they somehow manage to make it to Raihan, so let's go with the original idea of removing the player's attacks.) This would allow the player to not only actually play the game, but make the loss feel genuine and not have the classic Sword and Sheild feel of "things happen because the plot needs them to".
Secondly, this plot struggles to take into account how the player could lose to certain trainers. I have this problem with the original game (and most other Pokemon games tbh), where you have to do the ultimate battle to decide who is champion, but if you fail, no sweat, Leon is ready to hand the title over to you because you won a once-in-a-lifetime battle after six tries. I think the easiest way to prevent this would to be to simply have a retry screen or something if you lose. You could also get a little more creative with this: maybe the player was just imagining a terrible battle, letting you somewhat seamlessly retry (it would be a bit silly after multiple losses, but it's better than having the ultimate villain wait for you to try again before enacting their plans).
I think energy can be the focus of the story in two ways - either Rose wants to seize the means of production himself and has made everyone a pawn in his scheme to get Eternatus
OR
the energy crisis is 10 years away, and Rose realizes that Galar Particles are finite and dynamaxing eats into this finite resource. So every dynamax battle eats more and more into this resource (giving urgency to halt the tournament)
Also so many people have commented throughout the series on how it seems like world-ending phenomena and massive criminal enterprises are tackled by you, a random character. This is why, because suspending disbelief a bit in this fantasy world is preferable to “and a qualified person fixed it offscreen”
that silicobra joke sounds so funny and also very pokemon coded, sad it isn't like that
This was such a sick listen on my way to work and it was actually really inspiring. I have a bit of nostalgia for SwSh since it came out during COVID time and it acted like a nice distraction from everything - that said though, this video made me realise what we COULD have had instead of what we did, I feel almost spoiled. There’s so much quality to it all and thought put into it too
As someone who also studied in the creative field for a degree and hasn’t had the chance to put that time much use, I can say really hope you find your footing soon ❤️
Dynamaxing isn't necessary to win most battles, and forcing the player to not be able to and have a scripted loss would feel awful. Not just the "oh no, why can't I do this? Something must be going wrong!" feeling that I think you're trying to go for, but the "why the hell is the game forcing me to dynamax when I don't need to, and also force me to lose? This is so goddamn railroady!" I think a forced loss in this manner isn't acceptable, and your rewrite hinging on this loss is a big flaw. I loved everything else though!
Huge banger of a video! Absolutely adored this rewrite
Video really starts getting good at 0:10
I think Orbeetle would be the best fit for Rose. Orbeetle regularly uses manipulation to make others do its bidding, especially its GMAX form. Additionally Orbeetle starts out as a weak, Inconspicuous, caterpillar, kinda like how Rose started, and pretends to be.
This was such a breath of fresh air; being able to imagine this story as opposed to what we got was a really invigorating experience
This abridged version of the story is so much fun! I love it!
Although 2 hours long, I enjoyed your sense of humour and the entire video.
this is the best sword and shield rewrite video ive ever watched, keep up the good work this is so awesome
I have never been more inspired to work on my Pokémon game as I have after watching this video. One day, I sware to u, I will make the British brothers proud and remake galar.
If this were the story, I might actually still be playing Pokemon today. Holy hell this is great!
As someone who's working on game development myself, I know how difficult writing characters is, and you did a great job, I WISH I was this skilled at bringing it altogether!
Gatomon? Niiiiiice. Im a Patamon guy myself.
@@YABOIMIKEYBOI Patamon is also adorable! Might even be a close second to me, but there are so many great digimon it's hard to say!
@IkeyIlex Frrrr
19:20
„Rose spends the entire game being this relatively normal guy who just decides to be completely insane one day“
Wait a minute. A weird ass kind of energy-concerned CEO who does relatively normal CEO shit until he decides to go entirely bonkers one day? Where did I hear this before? HMMMMMMM.
Did Rose recently purchase a social media network too by any chance?
25:07 before you said scarlet and violet, I was thinking sun and moon. There is a high level threat, that being the ultra beasts, but you the player don't deal with that, you deal with Lusamine. The final boss of the main story before the wrap up isn't the legendary pokemon the villain was trying to summon, it's your friend's cruel mother who won't back down from her obsession and must be dealt with. It just has that flaw of being in the ten million cutscenes game
Only issue with Raihan losing Duralidon, is as the dragon tamer he’d use Flapple/Appleton, which a) is possibly Milo’s and b) explains why he never beats Leon. But perhaps in this universe where the story makes sense, Haxorus must be a Gigantimax. (G Max Savage Cleave)
I really like the rewrites you did to finale. It seems actually cool and interesting now. I think it's probably the most you can do with Rose without entirely throwing him out.
You could potentially wrap up Oleana's story by having her eventually assist or flat-out replace Leon as the new Chairwoman, seeing as she likely already has a lot of second-hand experience and she was simply misguided and manipulated in this retelling. Maybe she could be the proper rags to riches story that Rose stomped on.
... Yes, she likely assisted in far too much shady business to not be locked up, but this is Pokemon. That, and your ending to her involvement already implied she was either pardoned or able to hide her prior actions.
This video is REALLY REALLY good man, you dont see much stuff like this for pokemon, especially not at this quality. Id love to see more like it out of you!
Amazing rewrite. What could have been...
you have no idea just how perfectly timed this video was for me as someone who's been thinking way too hard about swsh recently and lamenting what it could've been. it somehow manages to be one of my favorite pokemon games despite literally everything about it because i enjoy the gym challenge being made into a huge sporting event THAT much (+ the gym leaders having actual personalities and some bearing on the "plot"). this rewrite is awesome and i love how it makes rose into a real threat deserving of his theme music in the end! i'm also a long video enjoyer so the length was perfect, i hope this gets the attention it deserves!!
I haven’t even played either of the Switch Pokemon games myself, yet I was enthralled by every minute of this video. I’m especially impressed with how well you rehabilitated Marnie and Team Yell. Marnie was such a nothing character before, but by adding just a little more friction to her personality and a proper backstory, she feels like a character you can actually root for. Team Yell actually feels like a clever subversion now instead of just a necessity by the status quo. And whereas before Marnie, Piers and Team Yell were punk in basically aesthetic alone, the idea that Team Yell consists of all the people who stuck around in Spikemuth even after Rose ruined it really makes them feel like a proper family, which is what punk is all about, after all. Finding the people who will accept you and stand by you even when The Man stomps all over you, and expressing your refusal to change the things that make you, you. Now, Team Yell look less like ridiculous fans and more like a loyal family backing up their champion.
I’m also glad to see Oleana get some more attention. Even if she doesn’t get that many more appearances, her being such an integral part of the final trajectory of the plot feels much more fitting for a character that’s supposed to be so close to the main villain.
And I gotta say, you really delivered on your promise to make Rose’s character fit his battle theme. The first time it played, I was honestly baffled that they chose that track for the character they made. But when it played at the end of the video, I got chills. I’d say your version of Rose is probably the most thoroughly evil antagonist Pokemon has ever had, and I like it.
i'm still actually really mad they made a region based off the uk, but reduced wales to a single city struggling with poverty, and turned scotland into this empty snowy desert. literally what was going through their heads.