Pokemon Sword And Shield Trailer Shows Off Competitive Training Improvements

Pokemon Sword and Shield arrive on Nintendo Switch in a little over a week, and The Pokemon Company continues to share new details about the titles in the lead up to their launch. The company has released a new trailer that shows off some of the changes developer Game Freak has implemented to make it easier than ever to get into competitive battling.

The trailer begins with a look at new items called Mints, which allow you to change the effects of a Pokemon's nature. For instance, if you feed a Modest Mint to a Pokemon, it'll alter that monster's base stats to what they would be if it had a Modest nature--in this case, increasing its Special Attack at the expense of its Attack.

Game Freak has also made a significant change to Egg Moves--moves that certain Pokemon can only learn through breeding. In the past, Egg Moves could only be passed down by the father Pokemon; in Sword and Shield, however, two Pokemon of the same species can pass Egg Moves to each other if both are left at the Pokemon Nursery.

Another quality-of-life improvement the trailer showcases is the ability to access your Pokemon Box remotely. In previous games, you could only store and take out Pokemon by accessing the PC inside a Pokemon Center, and while that's still an option in Sword and Shield, you can now also perform those same actions from almost anywhere in the Galar region, so you'll no longer need to constantly head to a Pokemon Center if you want to change up your Pokemon party.

The trailer closes out with a look at Exp. Candies. These are similar to Rare Candies in that they make it easier to level up a Pokemon; however, unlike Rare Candies, which automatically increase a Pokemon's level by one, Exp. Candies bestow a bunch of experience points on a Pokemon. The candies come in small, medium, large, and XL, and the size of the candy determines how much experience it grants.

Pokemon Sword and Shield launch on November 15. If you pick a copy up by January 15, 2020, you'll receive a free Meowth that's capable of Gigantamaxing. If you're not sure which version to choose, we've rounded up all the version differences and exclusive Pokemon confirmed so far. For more, check out our Pokemon Sword and Shield pre-order guide.