Overall, 2019 felt like the year of people complaining until they got what they wanted. Marvel fans complained about the designs of the heroes in the upcoming Avengers game, so Square Enix and Crystal Dynamics tweaked the designs. The first trailer for Sonic the Hedgehog dropped over the summer and the world was horrified to find the blue hedgehog looking as if he had been designed by someone who had never even seen him before. The backlash was so fierce that the movie's release was pushed back three months to allow time for Sonic to be redesigned.
The only company that seemed to take a stand against whining fans was Game Freak. Upon revealing that Sword & Shield would be the first of its games to not feature a full Pokédex, a certain sect of Pokémon fans lost their collective minds. Bellyaching about an incomplete Pokédex turned into "fans" finding anything they could to complain about before the games had even been released. Launch day came, and Sword & Shield have gone on to break all sorts of records.
You Can Always Get What You Want
We applauded Game Freak for staying the path and not buckling to what was more than likely the vocal minority. Fast forward two months, and it seems as if those trying to boycott the games might have had an effect on the developers after all. Nintendo revealed during this week's Pokémon Direct that DLC expansion packs are coming to Sword and Shield later this year. The Isle of Armor in the summer, and Crown Tundra later in the year.
The packs will bring with them new areas to explore, characters to meet, and tasks for trainers who have done anything and everything there is to do in the Galar region already. That's all well and good, but the DLC will also bring with it more than 200 new Pokémon. A handful of those new creatures will be brand new Pokémon part of the latest generation, but the majority will be Pokémon from the past making the slimmed-down Pokédex look more complete. That will include allowing players to make more transfers from some of the older games.
What Makes Charizard So Special?
That's not all players' complaining seems to have done. When Game Freak revealed that Gigantamax Charizard would be a part of Sword & Shield, most people's reaction was "that's pretty cool." However, that reaction was drowned out by others who questioned why Blastoise and Venasaur weren't also getting Gigantamax versions for the new games. Fear not if you were part of the latter group, as the games' latest update adds Gigantamax Blastoise and Venasaur to the mix.
Since it has been less than two months since the games were released, it's very possible that this was the plan all along. That Game Freak was always going to re-expand the Pokédex and when all of those complaints were pouring in prior to release day, developers were tearing the hair out and yelling "just be patient!" at their phone screens all day long.
However, even if that is the case, the emphasis put on the addition of new Pokémon and the introduction of Gigantamax Vensaur and Blastoise during the Direct just goes to show that Game Freak has been listening and reacting. Some of the complaining might not have appeared to be helpful or constructive, but it clearly had an effect.