Glimwood Tangle is by far the most fascinating place in all of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Pokemon Sword & Shield. While it's not necessarily on the same level as illustrious locations like 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Sootopolis and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Goldenrod, it is inherently imbued with a sort of unquantifiable, Brothers Grimm-esque magic - it's no wonder that its woods are teeming with Grimmsnarl's pair of pre-evolutionary forms.

Unfortunately, Glimwood Tangle is never able to reach its full potential. This issue isn't exclusive to this area - in general, Pokemon's greatest locations all inevitably fall short of their own ambition for one specific reason: they're never as much about the Pokemon who inhabit them as they should be.

Related: You Can't Truly Appreciate Pokemon Until You've Seen The Movies

Glimwood Tangle is a little bit better than most other places in Pokemon because it does, at least, attach some level of importance to the Pokemon who live there. There are two static Impidimp events you can trigger by interacting with mushrooms, as well as a particularly well hidden, one-time encounter with Morgrem. Combined with the context of all the wild battles being random - there are no overworld sprites, only traditional hidden triggers - Glimwood Tangle manages to somewhat remedy one of the series' most longstanding failures in storytelling. Still, all this small victory does is further accentuate the need for more. As a means of explaining what I’m on about, I'd like to draw your attention to 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Dragon Age: Origins - specifically, th💞e storyline about werewolves running rampant outside the Dalish encampment in the Brecilian Fore🔜st.

glimwood

This, I think, is one of the most stunning examples of grounded storytelling in a specific environment I've ever seen in a video game. I am admittedly a bit biased - a couple of months ago, I spent a long time working on 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:the oral history of D🐻ragon Age: Origins, and I have regularly argued that it's 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:BioWare's true magnum opus. Beyond that though, I reckon this example holds weight because of how easily transferable its strengths are to a place like Glimwood Tangle. If Game Freak had looked to Origins for inspiration, this could have quickly established itself as the greatest Pokemon locat𝔉ion ever designed.

First of all, let's look at Glimwood Tangle itself. It's a weird and wonderful fairy forest bridging the gap between the treacherous cliffs of Stow-on-Side and the more ethereal ambiance of Ballonlea. Without meaning to sound too artsy fartsy, it is brilliantly liminal in that it is temporary, transitory, and fully capable of articulating its own atmospheric identity. It is self-contained with the sole intent of making it vaguely memorable. When you consider all of this together, it becomes extremely clear that it’s the perfect area to tell a compelling story of its own, away from the traditional formula of gyms, badges, and telling your little PokePals to claw-punch other people's PokePals.

The best way for Glimwood Tangle to expand on what's already there would be to focus on Grimmsnarl, a Pokemon who does not appear itself but is present in spirit due to the forest being home to Impidimp and Morgrem. Sure, there are other 'mons here too - Indeedee, Hattrem, and Passimian or Oranguru depending on whether you have Sword or Shield - but Galar's curious fairy family are the stars. Given Grimmsnarl's status as one of Gen 8's most powerful and popular final evolutions, it’s in a perfect position to convert that stardom into something much more enduring.

In Dragon Age: Origins, we come across a pack of werewolves after attempting to enlist the help of a small Dalish tribe. Apparently, they’ve been losing loads of people to the lycanthropes, all of whom have started ravaging the forest out of nowhere. Before we can recruit any elf pals, we need to solve the problem - but there's much more to it than that.

werewolves

After learning about a weird curse, a weirder spirit, and a whole lot of weirder-than-weird stuff in between, the wolves evoke an 🌃immense sense of pathos due to their plight, which the Dalish Elder is hellbent on expunging before anyone discovers his identify as the true, irredeemable antagonist. By framing the story in this way, we learn more about the forest, its animal inhabitants, and its humanoid neighbours. If, say, a rogue and powerful Grimmsnarl was to lead an assault on the people of Stow-on-Side, a similar feat could be easily accomplished. Unfortunately, no such attempt was made - Glimwood Tangle is just one more area that looks nice and has a relatively newish gimmick of being fully committed to random encounters. Not quite as memorable as a story of Pokemon protecting the forest from profiteering lumberjacks, eh?

I know that implementing stories of this scale throughout an entire mainline game would be a massive undertaking, but there doesn’t need to be loads of them. I'm not asking for a ten-hour side quest on Route 13 - I'm simply stating the irrefutable fact that with better, more niche areas like Glimwood Tangle, Viridian Forest, and Meteor Falls, a little more attention to detail would be a welcome addition. Pokemon has already done similar things elsewhere in the series - the Hypno encounter in FireRed and LeafGreen's Berry Forest springs to mind - but they're few and far between. If they became more of a staple, the series would be significantly better off.

This has all already been proven by New Pokemon Snap, a game that understands the simple fact that interactions between individual Pokemon in their natural habitat are far more intriguing than repeatedly pressing A to spam Flamethrower at a Pidgey. The movies are also a great example of Pokemon storytelling done right - features editor Eric Switzer has been rewatching all of them for a weekly column and recently concluded that they prove 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:there are no bad Pokemon. He also told me watching them would make me like Leafeo🅰n, but I’m not so sure on that one - joint-w꧑orst Eeveelution with Glaceon, innit.

Basically, Sword & Shield came tantalisingly close to telling a phenomenal Pokemon story with Glimwood Tangle - Game Freak just forgot to actually implement the story. In future games, I would hope a location this brilliඣantly designed would be actually made proper use of. Right now, Pokemon’s best places are mostly just pretty spaces. I’m not convinced Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl will change that, but I’m hopeful Legends: Arceus might.

Next: Pu🌌t Pokemon HeartGold & SoulSilver On Switch, You Cowards