Today marks the release of Pokemon Sword and Shield, the two newest titles in the long-standing Pokemon franchise.
While eager Pokemon trainers all over the world are setting out on their respective journeys today, they might discover that actually capturing the multitude of Pokemon that can be encountered in the wild is a little more complicated than it was in previous titles.
Near the Galar region, players will encounter a large open-world location known as the Wild Area. This space is home to many different wild Pokemon of varying levels. Some of the Pokemon there will be weak and some will be substantially higher in level than the player.
If you try to capture one of these high-level Pokemon, the game will let you know via a message that this particular Pokemon “won’t drop its guard,” which makes catching it impossible.
Does that mean you can’t catch these Pokemon?
That’s exactly what it means.
Players will not be able to capture Pokemon that are at a higher level than themselves. So if you’re at level 15, you can only capture Pokemon that are level 15 or lower. That’s a departure from previous games, where all you had to do was weaken a Pokemon, regardless of its level in order to capture it.
That’s not to say that these strong Pokemon don’t have a purpose in the game. You can still battle against them and earn a wealth of experience points. If you think you have what it takes to do battle with a Pokemon that is at a much higher level than you, have at it and scoop up all of that experience. Then, once you’re sufficiently leveled up, there will be all-new Pokemon that you will be able to capture.
In regards to leveling up, it should be noted that an experience sharing system is constantly enabled. That means regardless of whether you actually used them or not, every Pokemon in your party will gain experience from a battle.
Pokemon Sword and Shield are two titles that have been exciting longtime fans of the franchise for months, mostly thanks to its inclusion of Gigantamax Pokemon, which can undergo a transformation that causes them to experience an extreme growth in size. These Pokemon can be encountered and captured in special areas and players of Sword will have access to different Gigantamax Pokemon than the players of Shield.
Pokemon Sword and Shield released on November 15, 2019 and are available exclusively on the Nintendo Switch console.
