Pokémon Should Dexit Stop?

[Snek]

For those that aren't familiar with the term, Dexit is the term for the "exit" of the national dex in the games starting in Gen 8. Pokemon affected by Dexit aren't even in the games, not even coded in—meaning you can't play with them at all.

Should Dexit remain? Or should Dexit go?
You decide!

 

[Halloqueen]

So, I'm a person whose preferred method of playing Pokémon games is to choose team members from across the National Pokédex, breed them with the egg moves, Abilities, IVs, etc. that I want, give them a fitting nickname, and then use them in the playthrough where I'll EV train them so that they're competitively viable should the need arise. This is how I play all of the games in Generations 4-7, where the National Pokédex is a feature and you can transfer the non-native species into the games if you so desire.

As such, when Dexit happened in Sword & Shield, I was pretty disappointed. There is a freedom to the older games in that way that is lost now moving forward. As the years have progressed, I've adapted more and more to the new paradigm. The situation is what it is and I have to face the issue on its terms. I found the main game of Sword & Shield underwhelming and I hated the Dynamax/Gigantamax gimmick such that I've never yet played the DLC, though I will in the future. That said, I gave Pokémon Legends: Arceus a chance and absolutely loved it, and bugs and poor development aside I also love Scarlet & Violet. I got Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl too since I figured hey, I enjoy the older games, so why not. BDSP also lets you transfer Pokémon from Kanto up to Sinnoh, so it scratches a bit of the itch I have.

Considering they could cram all of those Pokémon into the less powerful games on the 3DS and because they added DLC to Sword and Shield, and presumably will do the same with the Scarlet & Violet DLC, where they include a bunch of Pokémon not included at launch, at some point Dexit feels arbitrary.

I've heard in the past that supposedly they had some issue where the 3D models they made for all of the Pokémon up to Alola, including walking and running animations, ran into some issues and that might be a factor into why Dexit came to Sword & Shield. I also understand the notion of futureproofing and how there would eventually be a limit where they'd have to do it anyway if they continue to add like 80 or 100+ Pokémon each generation, but it still sucks.

My heart wants Dexit to end, but my brain doesn't believe that it ever will. If my brain wins out on the matter then it's unfortunate, but it is what it is. I'll still be playing the games, even if not in my most ideal way, until and unless they keep down the path of rushed, cram development that led to the many technical issues plaguing Scarlet & Violet.

 

[-Raven-]

Dexit was an enormous factor in my quitting buying the games. To be honest power creep is so huge this generation that I don’t believe any excuse about it being for balance either. It didn’t balance the games.

They made subtle texture updates in SwSh and starting with Legends overhauled the lighting maps on models, but the franchise is big enough that they could afford to upgrade everyone. If they have that much trouble porting the models to different engines (which is a rumored reason for Dexit) then they need to get on top of that either way because it must be terrible coding.

If you don’t know there’s an early version of SwSh with Pokémon like Greninja who didn’t come back even in the DLC. It’s arbitrary.

I just… can’t say enough how angry and disappointed I was when it happened. Some people genuinely got toxic and at least I wasn’t that bad, but I had my fair share of rambles about it.

 

[-Apples-]

I’m not for it, but there is a reason why it had to happen. It happened because of the data limitations. It’s not as bad now because Scarlet/Violet and BDSP, as well as Pokémon Legends, have supported some Pokémon that were not supported by Pokémon Sword/Shield, and the ones not supported in these games were available in Sword/Shield. If those leaks from earlier this year hold true, then only 15 Pokémon, as well as older Spindas and the Alolan Raticate, are the only Pokémon stuck in HOME when it comes out. The Patrat line and elemental monkeys had it worse since they were last catchable in Pokémon X/Y, and only tradable in ORAS and the Gen 7 games.

That being said, while that was the main controversy surrounding Sword/Shield, there were other problems with Sword/Shield (like the games were a lot shorter with almost no postgame, the plot was lame and forgettable, and an incredibly annoying rival) that made it an even worse game than the bug-ridden Scarlet/Violet. To be truthful, Game Freak was well behind other game developers at every time a new Pokémon game came out.

 

[Midoriya]

I don't care about Dexit... seriously never understood why people were so unhappy with it. But maybe that's just me.

 

[Seastar]

It doesn't really matter to me. It's disappointing for sure but the real reason I didn't get Sword/Shield or Scarlet/Violet was because I thought the games were rushed. Seeing how buggy Scarlet & Violet were at launch only proved this further to me and that they're still rushing them.
I kinda want Scarlet or Violet because the story sounds interesting but there are games I want more coming out and I can't afford everything.

 

[Holla]

Dexit doesn’t really matter to me. Sure being able to bring in whatever Pokémon I wanted would be nice but it’s definitely not a deal breaker by any means. Most of my older Pokémon sit in my collection on Home and I wouldn’t bring them over anyways as they’d just sit in and take up too much box space in my games.

I always want to use new Pokémon in the new games anyways. Sure I have my old faves but it’s a new region to explore so I want to get to know new Pokémon. I also find even with cuts there are still a ton of Pokémon to choose from in each version plus DLC always adds in even more.

 

[Belle T]

I actually don't care much about Dexit in and of itself. I care about the fact that Dexit exists while they're still charging people for storage in Pokémon Home. Why should anyone be expected to pay for the possibility that their favorite Pokémon will maybe be usable in a later title if they're lucky?

 

[Flicky]

I put down "don't care" because, for the most part, I really don't. I always make a habit of playing a new team in every game, and I find it stifling to play only with my past teammates.

There are only a few issues I take with it, namely the blatant favouritism that means we're going to have the Eevee and Pikachu lines in every single game, along with maybe Gastly since Gengar is another huge moneymaker. Unless something changes, there will still be several Pokémon that will be unable to be shifted from Home even after ScarVio's DLC because Gamefreak haven't bothered to place them in any of the recent games, even though some games they might have fit better than those we actually did end up with.

It also really sucks that if you want a full 'ribbon master', then your options truly are Eevee or Pikachu, since they're the only ones that can be transferred through Hoenn to Paldea, although I feel like they're moving away from ribbons and onto these marks instead.

Also, what Belle T posted above about Home, especially when transferring Pokémon from one game to the other used to be free - now you gotta pay for anything from the DS or GBA games to be transferred, even though Bank is free, just for some of them to be stuck on there for years. If they absolutely needed payment (which I'd argue they don't, since Pokémon is the biggest franchise in the world), it should have been a one-time thing, not a yearly subscription fee. Especially when their website suggests that, in the future, they might delete them after a while on their server without payment.

 

[LoyalDragonfly]

Dexit is the biggest problem with new Pokemon for me. IMO the Pokemon are the most important part of a Pokemon game. I'm also the kind of person who likes to think about my Dream Team ahead of time, preparing eggs for a new game (or plan out where I'm going to catch each member of the team I want). Every time a new game comes out, instead of being hyped and excited for new Pokemon to use alongside my old favorites, now I have to stress out and hope for dex leaks (because Gamefreak won't even let us know ahead of time which Pokemon will or won't make the cut) to know whether or not any of my favorites will make it. This makes it harder (for me at least) to become excited for or attached to any new Pokemon that come out post-Dexit. Better not get too attached to anything, because who knows when it will come back?

There are additional facets of Dexit that further make me upset, as well.
1. Favoritism absolutely exists. Certain Pokemon like Pikachu, Charizard, the Eeveelutions, and Gyarados are absolutely guaranteed to get chosen, no matter what. Other inclusion decisions just seem arbitrary, or random.
2. Dexit is a lazy way for Gamefreak to build fake "hype" for DLC, by essentially holding popular Pokemon hostage (like Milotic) and then announcing them as 'coming back' for DLC so people will want to buy it. I don't like that at all.
3. All the initial reasons that Gamefreak made for Dexit have already kind of been confirmed by now to be lies. At any rate, they've proven that they can arbitrarily bring back whatever Pokemon they feel like for DLC anyway, so why even pretend like it's "too much work" or that it was all about competitive balance when that all gets thrown out the window when it's DLC time?

At the end of the day, it all just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. And I also can't help but feel like some day, Gamefreak is going to attempt a SSBU style "everybody's back!!" play to get people excited for a new game, hoping that they'll all forget that it was their decision to implement Dexit in the first place.

 

[Midoriya]

I actually don't care much about Dexit in and of itself. I care about the fact that Dexit exists while they're still charging people for storage in Pokémon Home. Why should anyone be expected to pay for the possibility that their favorite Pokémon will maybe be usable in a later title if they're lucky?

Yeah, exactly. This is the real problem with the newer gens. Pokemon Home is a joke to be honest.

 

[Zane]

I actually don't care much about Dexit in and of itself. I care about the fact that Dexit exists while they're still charging people for storage in Pokémon Home. Why should anyone be expected to pay for the possibility that their favorite Pokémon will maybe be usable in a later title if they're lucky?

I put my shiny Serperior in Home. He’s been trapped in there for years.

 

[-Apples-]

I actually don't care much about Dexit in and of itself. I care about the fact that Dexit exists while they're still charging people for storage in Pokémon Home. Why should anyone be expected to pay for the possibility that their favorite Pokémon will maybe be usable in a later title if they're lucky?

So I learned something new today. They took advantage of a new unpopular mechanic for profit. Sure they need the money to run the servers, but don’t they make a lot of money anyway? They could depend on the profits from their merchandise or games to run the servers.

And Pokémon HOME needs more work, besides having a Pokédex, trading, and storage spaces. Like could they give every species their anime voices? Like Onix sounds much more menacing in the anime than the games.

 

[Seastar]

Oh man, I could go on a whole rant about the subscription service. I used to enjoy bringing my Pokemon to the newest games but now I don't care anymore.

Spoiler: Rant about mostly Pokemon Bank

I was suspicious right at the start with Pokemon Bank. Was a cloud service with a paid subscription really the only possible way they could've let you transfer Pokemon? Absolutely not. The only reason they did this was because firstly it makes money and secondly if they had made a free app that saved to your system/SD card instead of the cloud, people would easily exploit it to hack in or clone Pokemon. While I don't care if people do that, Game Freak sure does... and people are still going to hack without that, so it honestly shouldn't matter.
It's also extra ridiculous that Gen 7 still needs Pokemon Bank to transfer Gen 6 Pokemon when these games are on the same system and could obviously have been made to connect wirelessly. Pokemon Bank isn't even going to be up forever (It's currently free, if you downloaded it before the eShop closed) so eventually Pokemon on the 3DS and below will be stuck there and never allowed to come to the Switch.
I don't have a lot of knowledge about Pokemon Home so the rant ends here

 

[.: Meri :.]

It doesn't really impact me or the way I play, but I still think it should go; as others have mentioned the situations with Pokémon Bank and especially Home are kinda ridiculous. I don't even bother with transferring my Pokémon up because I don't want to pay for storage—thankfully I'm not really one to get super attached to my Pokémon anyway, but I think that's probably kind of unusual given how much the series pushes forming strong bonds with your Pokémon.
But yeah, it also can make the selection of Pokémon available kinda dull. There's still plenty of Pokémon throughout the generations that I really love and haven't gotten the chance to use in a team yet, but the same ones tend to keep showing up throughout the games and others keep getting sidelined over and over. ;; Whether the technical excuses for not including all the 'mons is valid or not, the least they could do is change up which older ones are included from game to game more often.

 

[Belle T]

So I learned something new today. They took advantage of a new unpopular mechanic for profit. Sure they need the money to run the servers, but don’t they make a lot of money anyway? They could depend on the profits from their merchandise or games to run the servers.

Bear in mind that this is the same company that doesn't even use dedicated servers for their competitive multiplayer games. They're not exactly breaking the bank here.

Either way, I think the proper solution to this would be to have unlimited storage (or as close to unlimited as is physically possible on the Switch) for a local backup, and then charge people for cloud backups instead. But I highly doubt that Nintendo or Game Freak would ever consider it, because it would mean that people wouldn't feel like they necessarily have to pay.

 

[Lancelot]

From a personal play though style I couldn’t care less as I only ever use teams from the current generation in my first play through of the game, atleast this was the case until Scar Vio where I don’t like most of the new Pokémon.

But looking at it subjectively Ithink it’s a joke. The biggest gripe I have with it being the blatant favouritsm they have for Kanto. It’s also CRAZY to me that they don’t prioritise getting all Pokémon from the previous generation I’m the game. The fact you can’t have some Galar Pokémon in Scarlett and Violet seems so dumb to me when they say their target audience is children. Surely more children are going to have to most recent games, and not those from Kanto or Johto

 

[VernalLapin]

Tbh I really don’t care but I would like it to stop so everyone could be happy. All the fighting over it back when Sword and Shield were coming out was a downer. (Though my favorite pokémon is an eeveelution so I’m not really the one to talk lol)

 

[-Apples-]

Tbh I really don’t care but I would like it to stop so everyone could be happy. All the fighting over it back when Sword and Shield were coming out was a downer. (Though my favorite pokémon is an eeveelution so I’m not really the one to talk lol)

Yeah, I didn’t like the criticism Game Freak got over the Dexit controversy back when Sword/Shield came out. All the hate they received made the Dexit controversy more controversial than the Porygon episode. The Sword/Shield hatedom is one of the worst fandoms or hatedoms on the internet. You don’t have to like the game. Just don’t be disrespectful towards Game Freak, people who like the game, or people who criticize the hatedom for their poor behavior.

 

[Newbiemayor]

First I'll say that I don't really play pokemon anymore.

Spoiler: Long post

When I do I always keep the regional starter as my main and don't honestly plan the rest of my team that well (often to my detriment ) I never play competitive so my strategy is largely "Be 40 levels higher than my opponent and never bother to use status moves." The rest of my team ends up either being random pokemon I caught at the start of the game and kept around for sentimental reasons (eg. A staraptor I first caught as a starly in the first area) or just pokemon I catch that I think are cool (very rarely I think about varying my types for type advantage. But cool usually wins >,>) That being said I actually do think they should make at least one more game with a national dex. It would be very nice, I think to have at least one game on the switch (or I guess the next Nintendo console if it's going to be more powerful) that has a national dex to transfer all your pokemon up to. I also realize however that honestly, there's a lot of pokemon and they can't reasonably add a national dex in every new game and a hundred or so new ones. I feel like a mainline game with a national dex every now and then would be awesome but I wouldn't expect it for every single game. But either way just one more game with all 1000+ pokemon would be more than enough for me.

Tldr: I don't expect to see a full return of the national dex, but a final hurrah would be cool