I won't be buying the expansion pass, I don't even think I'd accept someone buying it for me either because I'm not sure I'd want to waste the memory space on my Switch.
Twenty years I waited for a UK inspired region for Pokemon, and not only did it end up being the first original, core, home console, HD adventure in the series, it also ended up being the worst Pokemon generation I have ever played, and now also the most expensive.
Sword and Shield were a miserable experience.
For me, the new Pokemon weren't great, the story was threadbare and it made the development team seem apathetic and uncaring.
Towns had barely any content and there was even less content in the routes connecting them, the Dynamax gimmick is awful and there was no reason to cut so many Pokemon.
The visuals were terrible in most places with no attention to detail, the amount of bugs and bizarre Pokemon behaviour in the Wild Area is astounding and the optimisation is just terrible across the entire game.
So why then would I pay for more of that? Especially at such a hefty price?
The Direct made it look like the expansion was bursting with content, but I'm not so sure that it will be.
They didn't announce a patch to fix the visuals or optimisation of the game and with these new locations in the expansion operating like full Wild Areas then surely they're just going to be full of pop in and bad textures and bizarre Pokemon behaviour, just like the base game.
Plus, with Galar feeling so vacant and empty and lacking in content, it makes me feel as if these areas should have been part of the base game.
If there were two more substantial locations that were full Wild Areas with more Pokemon that weren't on the mainland with stories of their own then I could have forgiven the base story a little bit for being lacking...
But they're charging us for it instead. We've never had legacy Pokemon sold back to us before and here we have it; cut Pokemon now come at a price, and even then the game still won't have all of them, we'd still be missing around 300.
The fact they will be out within the year too, makes me feel as if they held this content back just to sell it as DLC. The Pokemon that will be added in the expansion were in the base game's code.
The games released in November and we'll have a whole new region with a story and new and old Pokemon ready to play by June?
I'm sympathetic to the deadlines GF must face at the demands of TPC but hire more staff to negate those time constraints (because they can damn sure afford to).
If you want us to pay for more content then you need to make sure that the base game is something worth adding to, and right now, for me, Sword and Shield just aren't worth adding to.
I got my copy of Shield at a low price because I split the cost a few ways and share a copy with others and I still feel short changed.
I'd have been happy if GF had announced a patch alongside the expansion pass to punch up the base game.
A patch that made things look better, add some QoL enhancements, update the visuals, make the draw distance better, improve the bahviour of the Pokemon in the Wild area, make the battle backgrounds actually match the location you're actually in for god sake...
But no, pay half the price of the game again for what will probably be more ugly, threadbare, poorly optimised adventures in Galar (which don't really even look Galarian) with features and Pokemon that should have been in the game from the beginning....
Just, no...