Sword and Shield bring so many cool quality of life and UI improvements, but somehow, the UI around held items, and only the UI around held items, just makes no sense at all. Letâs break it down:
In the context menu when you select a PokĂ©mon on the party PokĂ©mon menu, thereâs a âHeld itemâ option. The options under that (assuming the PokĂ©mon is currently holding an item) are âOpen your Bagâ, âPut it back to your Bagâ and âGive an itemâ.
âOpen your Bagâ will open the bag, so that you can give an item to the PokĂ©mon...
...except that when you select an item there, the top option will actually be âUse this itemâ, which will use the item instead - even though you entered the bag specifically through a âHeld itemâ option.
The other option is âGive to a PokĂ©monâ, as if itâs going to let you select a different PokĂ©mon to give it to, but no, itâll give the item to the PokĂ©mon you selected previously.
âPut it back to your Bagâ at least works as youâd expect, but is it just me or is it pretty weirdly phrased? Shouldnât it be âPut it back into your Bagâ or even âPut it back in your Bagâ? Iâm not a native speaker but it sounds off.
The âGive an itemâ option, on the other hand, is for moving the item to a different PokĂ©mon in your party. What?? How on earth is that âGive an itemâ?
(While in the party menu, you can also press X to âSwap held itemsâ, in order to move items between your party PokĂ©mon. Why is that bizarre âGive an itemâ option even there when thereâs a much more sensible way to do what it actually does.)
Meanwhile, when you select a PokĂ©mon in the box, the only held item-related option in the menu will be âCheck held itemâ. Sounds like an option to see if the PokĂ©mon is holding an item and if so what it is, right? Maybe itâll tell you what itâs holding and then give you some options?
But! Actually! If your PokĂ©mon is not holding anything, this option will just go straight into your bag to prompt you to give an item to the PokĂ©mon! (Same âGive to a PokĂ©monâ option, but this time thereâs no âUse this itemâ.)
Meanwhile, if your PokĂ©mon is holding something, the âCheck held itemâ option will ask you to confirm that you want to remove the item from the PokĂ©mon. I never said I wanted to remove it! I picked an option to check it!
Also this means that the UIs for held items are just arbitrarily completely different depending on whether youâre in the party menu or the box, including how if youâre in the box there is just no option to immediately give a new item to a PokĂ©mon thatâs already holding one, without first removing the current item.
It took me a while of gameplay to get any sense of what any of the item-related options actually meant. The first time I was going to do something with held items I just ended up being completely confused and felt like I eventually stumbled into doing what I wanted basically by accident.
Iâm guessing these are probably largely translation mistakes. The âGive to a PokĂ©monâ option, for instance, is just phrased in a way that would make sense in one context where that menu is used but not it another, which would almost definitely be the same in Japanese with the lack of articles, and I can picture these various other phrasings as being ambiguous in Japanese, one way or another. And then... probably the playtesters for the English localization were just not much for held items and never actually used these options, and thus didnât notice. Itâs really glaring in a game where the UI is otherwise so polished.
