The latest games in the Pokémon franchise, Pokémon Sword and Shield, are only nine days away, and Nintendo has one last reveal up their sleeves before the game launches on November 15.

Nature or nurture?

In previous iterations of the games, every Pokémon you catch had its own unique nature and this, in turn, has affected that individual Pokémon‘s in-game stats. Sword and Shield look to be doing away with this system and replacing it with a far more useful system known as “Mints”. With these new consumables, you’ll be able to change the nature bonus your Pokémon gets at the drop of the hat. This means you won’t have to spend hours trading or hunting in order to get the perfect Pokémon stats.

Another welcome change is the ability to use more than one of the in-game supplements such as calcium, iron, zinc, etc. when powering up your Pokémon. Up until now, trainers have had to manually stack the supplements one at a time and what’s more, they’ve raised the number of times that a supplement of a single type can be used on a Pokémon from 10 to a whopping 23, which is a definite improvement.

But wait there’s more!

In past games, Rare Candies were an item in the world of Pokémon that allowed you to instantly increase the level of a Pokémon by one, but now there’s a new trick to getting that level 100 Caterpie you always wanted. With the help of the new Exp. Candies, you’re now able to add experience points directly to your Pokémon. Obviously, this has a major upside, in that it enables you to boost the power of a low-level Pokémon without having to battle the Elite Four for the fifteenth time or leave your Pokémon in the daycare for hours on end while you traverse the Galar Region. However the downside is that there are varying levels of Exp. Candies, ranging all the way from extra small to extra large and you can be sure that Game Freak won’t make it easy to find the Exp. Candies that give off the biggest boost. Basically, you’d best be prepared to search your heart out if you want those easy levels.

While we’re talking about the daycare, the new trailer had a little something for Pokémon Breeders as well.

When you leave two Pokémon of the same species at the daycare together, there is now the chance that they’ll pass egg moves to one another, previously if you wanted to pass moves between Pokémon of the same species, you have to hatch a new Pokémon from an egg, but now you don’t have to wander around for hours trying to hatch eggs to give your Pokémon the best moves possible.

We aren’t done just yet!

Game Freak and Nintendo have one final quality of life update they’re bringing to the Galar Region, the mobile Pokémon Box!

Originally a mechanic in Let’s Go Pikachu and Eevee, the mobile Pokémon Box lets you switch out your party of six Pokémon for any that you’ve stored in the in-game computer. Previously, you had to visit a Pokémon Center whenever you wanted to switch out a member of your team, which can get frustrating if you’re someone who likes to rotate out your team to give yourself the advantage in whatever battle you’re heading into. It’s possible that Game Freak looked at how well received the mobile box feature was and decided that with the large open spaces of the Galar region and the addition of Gigantamax Raids that rely on you having the best team possible, that it was time for a much-needed change.

What are your thoughts on the new features being added to Pokémon Sword and Shield? Have you already pre-ordered the games ahead of launch or are you waiting to see the reviews?

Let us know in the comments below and be sure to keep with us here at ReplayWire. Pokémon Sword and Shield are releasing November 15.

Feel free to watch the trailer: