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Pokemon Sword and Shield dragged the series into the Switch era and then spent years arguing about the Pokedex cut.
Pokemon Sword and Shield launched in 2019 on Nintendo Switch. It dragged the series into the Switch era and then spent years arguing about the Pokedex cut. It sits on the canon-defining RPG backbone that decides regions, monsters, battle systems, and the assumptions every other Pokemon project eventually reacts to.
Example
No other Pokemon release made 'Dexit' a household forum word that fast; the game spent months being debated before players even settled on how good Galar itself was.
Why it matters
Mainline Pokemon releases are the load-bearing beams of the franchise. If you want to understand why the rest of Pokemon looks the way it does, these are the games that set the rules.
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