Unbelievable: Pokemon Sword & Shield Won’t Let You Import All Of The Deep-Seated Hang-Ups From Your Childhood

New reports out of Japan suggest that Nintendo might have finally crossed a line with the upcoming Pokemon Sword & Shield, confirming live on stream that players will not be able to import either all of their Pokemon from the other thirteen games, nor the unresolved emotions that they have been carrying around for years, into these new adventures.

The news will come as a shock to many long-term Pokemon players, who first experienced the series more than 20 years ago at a deeply formative and vulnerable time in their lives. While previous Pokemon games allowed players to transfer their battle-tested companions and associated coping mechanisms, Sword & Shield is rising the ire of fans by insisting that they leave all of that behind and finally confront their parents’ divorce.

“What we are doing with the new Galar region is asking players to make a clean break with years of being attached to things like the Pikachu, the Cubone, the time that your parents were fighting in the next room and you hid under the covers and played Pokemon Silver as loud as you could so you didn’t have to hear it any more,” explained producer Junichi Masuda in a follow-up statement, gently squeezing you on the shoulder.

“We know some fans went to a lot of trouble catching those Dialga back in Pokemon Pearl, and that it felt like catching Pokemon was the one thing they were good at, the one way to finally earn some respect from their peers,” Masuda continued as he enfolded you in a warm hug. “We understand. It’s okay now. It doesn’t matter that you didn’t get into medical school.”

Still, some fans aren’t happy at the thought of a version of Pokemon that doesn’t include Unown, Vibrava, and that one time they tried to pretend to be sick because they’d asked Jenny Halliway out the previous day only for her to laugh in their face and tell them that she was already dating Brad Hoof, and then the other girls laughed because why would a dweeb like you think you had any chance with a popular girl like Jenny?

Popular YouTuber Blenk ‘PokeBALLSOUT’ Snoder uploaded a reaction video minutes after the statement was released, saying through tears that he would “never forgive” Nintendo for forcing him to leave behind his beloved Piplup, the same way that he could never forgive his parents for letting his pet goldfish die and then just buying another one and pretending that it was “all the same”.

“It’s not the same,” PokeBALLSOUT continued, wiping his eyes on the sleeve of his school uniform. “It’s not the same. It’s not.”