The established lore and story of Galar in Pokémon Sword & Shield left a lot to be desired, as there were many open-ended elements and unanswered questions by the end that many players wanted answers to. Instead of getting answers to any of these questions in the Expansion Pass, we instead got more questions to add to the pile.
This leaves many aspects of the newest expansion, The Crown Tundra, in the same boat as several burning questions from the main game, such as why Sordward and Shielbert’s family history is never expanded upon, as well as where they get their hair done.
10 The Hoenn Regis
The Regis in Hoenn were, like many of the legendary trio sets, firmly ingrained in their regional culture, as each had its own dedicated shrine that had to be navigated to find the legendary within. While it is fairly obvious at this point that there is more than one of each legendary Pokémon in the world, that doesn’t explain why the Regis in Galar have similar ruins to those found in Hoenn, especially considering Galar’s geographical location compared to the Hoenn region.
9 The Regigigas Raid
While the Hoenn and Galar Regis have their own dedicated ruins, complete with puzzles that need to be solved, Regigigas is left stuck in a hole in the middle of a field and will only come out to play if the other five Regis are together on a trainer’s team. Why the big boss of the Regis doesn’t get their own ruin is nonsensical enough, but how it is able to hide inside a clearly visible Raid Den without being seen by anyone who doesn’t have every other Regi on their team makes even less sense.
8 The Dyna Tree Greedent
A neat hidden Max Raid battle in The Crown Tundra is a Dynamax Greedent that can be battled in the Dyna Tree after shaking it enough times. Greedent hiding in berry trees is nothing new since this has been a feature since the main Sword & Shield game, but how it was able to stay there without scaring off the legendary birds is questionable.
As shown in the short cutscene of Moltres, Zapdos, and Articuno fighting in front of the Dyna Tree, they are fairly skittish for legendary Pokémon and run as soon as they see a trainer. Theoretically, they shouldn’t have been around that tree in the first place if the Greedent would have scared them off as well.
7 Both Versions Of The Legendary Birds Appear
In both Sun & Moon and Sword & Shield, the regional variants of Pokémon who are lucky enough to have one are the dominant variation in that region, with the originals not making an appearance without transferring from previous titles or using Ultra Wormholes in Ultra Sun & Ultra Moon. In The Crown Tundra, however, not only are the Galarian forms of the legendary birds easily available, but their Kantonian forms are as well in the Dynamax Adventures. While there isn’t a reason given for how or why there are so many legendary Pokémon inside the Dynamax Adventures cave, the legendary birds, in particular, raises a few more questions.
6 The Island Guardians
Of all the legendary Pokémon that are ingrained in their region’s culture, the most nonsensical Pokémon to make their way to Galar are the Island Guardians from Alola. Aside from the drastic change in weather that would turn away any Pokémon native to a warmer climate, they are essentially abandoning their roles as island guardians to go spelunking and get caught by a random group of trainers. Considering how big the Ultra Beast threat was during Sun & Moon, they probably shouldn’t have abandoned their posts so readily.
5 The Ultra Beasts
Ultra Beasts are weird, even by Pokémon standards. While not technically Pokémon, they can be caught inside Pokéballs and function identically to creatures from the Pokémon world. To add more confusion to the mix, the Ultra Beasts managed to find their way to Galar through Ultra Wormholes and hide inside the Dynamax Adventures cave, despite there being no apparent Ultra Wormholes in Galar. The only reasonable explanation is that the player character and Aether Foundation didn’t do a very good job in dealing with the Ultra Beast invasion in Sun & Moon, which resulted in Ultra Beasts running wild across the world.
4 Mewtwo
Of all the legendaries that repeatedly appears in multiple games, Mewtwo still doesn’t make sense no matter which way you slice it. Although the anime somewhat retconned Mewtwo’s origins to explain why there is more than one, the games have done no such thing and, according to the established canon of the mainline series, there should be only one Mewtwo in existence.
Unless no version of the protagonists in Kanto, Johto, or Kalos have canonically caught Mewtwo in the past, there should be no reason for one to appear in Galar aside from the game design aspect of letting players catch nearly every Pokémon.
3 No Updated Movesets In Galarian Star Tournament
The Crown Tundra introduced the Galarian Star Tournament as its secondary battle challenge with some mixed results. While the double battle format and character interactions are a nice touch, it falls short when you realize that none of the trainers are any stronger than they were in the standard tournament, nor do they use updated movesets. Even though The Isle of Armor and The Crown Tundra are supposed to take place after the main game has been finished, their Pokémon’s levels and moves are exactly the same as when they are rematched in the standard tournament, with none of them taking advantage of the new moves or Pokémon that come from the expansions.
2 The Poison and Psychic Gym
During the Galarian Star Tournament, Klara or Avery say they have been chosen to be the gym leader for a Poison-type or Psychic-type gym respectfully, though neither of these gyms are actually present in Galar. While it is mentioned that they are a minor league gym leader, this has never been referenced in the game before and could simply be a way of explaining why their gym doesn’t actually appear in the games. This could also simply be yet another Kanto reference since that is the only region in the series to have both a Poison and Psychic-type gym.
1 Calyrex’s History
The main story of The Crown Tundra follows Peony and Calyrex as the royal legendary tries to regain its former power and status. A part of this process is trying to find out its history from the people of Freezington, though no one seems to remember anything about Calyrex. Freezington is a tiny town, if a legendary Pokémon was ever a major part of its history like Calyrex was, it’s doubtful that the people living there would forget, especially when Spectrier and Glastrier start galloping through the town and nearly trample an old woman.
