When you boot up Pokémon Sword and Shield, you make a choice, just as you have in every mainline Pokémon game ever. You must choose your starter, your companion on your long journey, your loveable little friend that will grow and change with you over the course of the game. And as always, there are three to choose from: a water-type, a fire-type and a grass-type. This time around it’s Grookey, Scorbunny and Sobble.
Of course you’re not just choosing between Grookey, Scorbunny and Sobble. That’s who you’ll get at the beginning of the game, but they will evolve by the end and you’ll wind up with someone very different. And so you should know that going in, lest you choose someone you like at the beginning but wind up with something weird by the end of the thing: I’ll be honest, I was never a huge fan of Venosaur.
So here are your evolutions, something to keep in mind as you move forward.
Grookey: Our lovely little drum beating monkey retains its love of rhythm as it gets older, and that’s a wonderful thing. Grookey evolves into Thwackey at level 16 and Rillaboom at level 35. Rillaboom is far and away my favorite third-tier evolution, take a look:
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Sobble: I’ll be honest, Sobble was my favorite going into this. There’s something about a perpetually upset translucent tadpole that just sings to me. The final evolution, however, has me leaning a little bit back twoard Grookey. I love Sobble’s second evolution, a sort of an emo lizard named Drizzile. But the boho gecko that is Intelleon, Sobble’s third evolution, just doesn’t do it for me. take a look:
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Scorbunny: And finally we’ve got our rascally fire-type starter, the incorrigible Scorbunny. Unfortunately for me, the evolution line once again leans a little too humanoid for my taste. I want Pokémon, not people, and that has always been the case. Scorbunny evolves into Raboot and Cinderace, retaining Scorbunny’s devil-may-care attitude but with a few more years on it. Raboot and Drizzile are definitely smoking behind the arcade. Cinderace has become popular in the fanart community, as you might guess.
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