Pokemon Sword & Shield: Ranking Every Gym Leader

12. Gordie

Gordie is just such a pain. Being a Sword exclusive doesn’t work against him in principle, but when he’s meh, it feels like a waste of an exclusive. In this mother/son match up of Gordie and Melony, Sword players definitely got the short end of the stick.

Melony seems a better fit for Circhester anyway, but that’s just for starters. While Melony has a sweet yet stern motherly vibe, Gordie’s personality seems to just be ‘he’s cocky’, and nothing else. When Raihan and Leon both do that schtick so much better than Gordie, he’s between a rock and a hard place.

His design is an uninspired collection of things that made you cool in the ‘90s, while his backwards battle stance just makes zero sense. Exclusives should be a chance to run wild with ideas, and really try and pull a player towards a version. Cynically, the ideal scenario is that players can’t choose, and instead buy both.

No one is going to buy Sword for Gordie.

His gym challenge at least feels like an homage to previous tricky dungeons, but that too feels better suited to Melony’s ice. He just can’t catch a break.