Even in this incredibly dull and lazy game one game decision stands out as so nonsensical, unintuitive and perplexing that I can't stop thinking about it. Unlike most other games, where adjusting sound settings is in the options screen by default, to be able to adjust the sound settings in "Pokémon sword" the player must acquire a pair of "Hi-tech Earbuds". These "Hi-tech Earbuds" can only be found after playing for a reasonable amount of time after finding an NPC. This NPC is not required to talk to, they do not stand out and look as poorly made as the other background NPCs. If you don't talk to this NPC you will not be able to adjust your audio settings for the rest of the game.
This might be one of the worst design choices I have ever seen in a video game. I ask myself, who thought this was a good idea? But then I realise, no thinking was involved when creating this decision.