Stop spamming Legendary Pokémon as Third Game/DLC Incentives

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Devaluing your own lore.

Coming later this month is The Crown Tundra downloadable content (DLC) for Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield's Expansion Passes. You'll enter the “depths” of a Pokémon den where “lots of Legendary Pokémon call the area home” where you can “obtain every Legendary Pokémon that has appeared in the main series of Pokémon games so far. Many of those Legendary Pokémon seem to dwell deep inside a special layer where Dynamax Pokémon are said to lurk, the same layer you can explore during Dynamax Adventures.” Well, gee, ain't that a swell coincidence? Check it out:

I should remind myself that The Pokémon Company International/GAME FREAK announced that The Crown Tundra will spam Legendary Pokémon all the way back in January, though it was unclear how that would manifest.

Why are all of the Legendary Pokémon in the whole world living deep under the... I assume it's either underground, or a giant cave, in/near the Galar region? (Or an underground giant cave.)

Compare to what they did with putting all of the Legendary Pokémon in last generation's Pokémon Ultra Sun and Pokémon Ultra Moon versions, where they also made a big deal about that. For that, they stuffed all of the Legendary Pokémon in various wormholes to different worlds many light-years away in the Ultra Space Wilds.

Putting Legendary Pokémon in an alternate/far-out dimension is a bit better for canon and lore and world-building because going through that kind of travel literally breaks the rules of time and space, and you're basically going to infinite monkey theorem. Maybe Arceus is that kinda Creator to pull things like that. (I should note that Arceus Himself is not a Legendary Pokémon, but a Mythical Pokémon, and is therefore excluded from this.)

But putting everyone in a giant hole in the ground is problematic. Here's an example.

Dynamax Cresselia looks beautiful,
but what is she doing in the endless depths of a Pokémon den where the moon don't shine?

Lady Cresselia is all about the crescent moon. She glows beautifully on nights with the quarter moon.

How, exactly, will Lady Cresselia know what the moon looks like if she's residing deep in a cave or underground? There's no view of the moon from down there.

In Lady Cresselia's native Sinnoh, she hangs out at Fullmoon Island. She can see the moon from there. She does like to roam, however, and in the Hoenn remakes (in Generation 6) she found a nice place called Crescent Isle to look at the moon from, too. It looks just like a crescent moon. Couldn't be better for her. You can also summon her to Unova (in Generation 5, only in Black 2 and White 2) by taking a Lunar Wing and presenting it on a certain bridge, with the Lunar Wing obtained from a house that very much matches Lady Cresselia's lore.

I've demonstrated that it's been a pattern to keep bringing back Legendary Pokémon out of their existing generation. Reasons for these include it being a potent marketing tactic, as well as making them more accessible to trainers who weren't fans of the franchise yet (or weren't...born yet) during the debut generation. The alternative is be more regular about producing remakes, and GAME FREAK still hasn't produced Sinnoh remakes

But with each generation adding more Legendary Pokémon, I guess it's more effort to keep bringing them all back each time (and it's only in the games that aren't the ones that debut a generation, if you haven't noticed—counting the Sword and Shield Expansion Pass as a non-debut experience), so the amount of lore-friendly things (special specific locations, items, dialogue, whatever) decreases from generation to generation, until we're bringing all the Legendary Pokémon back in Generation 8 and just dumping them in an underground pit.

I think it's better this stops, because I don't want to know how it gets worse. I'd rather have them just give you the Pokémon pre-caught as gifts than this affront to the Legendary Pokémon's dignity.


Ludwig still refuses to actually buy Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield (and it would be the latter if he did buy it), and he doesn't feel like picking up the physical bundle of the game and the Expansion Pass, either. This is yet another example of GAME FREAK steadily cutting corners over time with the main series Pokémon titles.


There may be a very good reason these Legendary Pokémon are hiding away: Galar's horses, including Legendary Pokémon, are a big threat to everyone else's existence.
It's also warmer in a cave than outside.
In Sinnoh, you can just stroll in a park and find a bunch of concentrated Legendary Pokémon.