I have not gotten it yet. What are your thoughts?
I was a hold out for a very long time, and I only just bought Sword last week because I had the itch to play Pokemon.
It’s a step up from Generation 7 in most ways, there is still a lot of hand holding but not nearly as much as Generation 7 had. The game is still incredibly easy to play through but that’s been the case for many years.
Some really cool Pokemon designs mixed in with questionable ones, so par for the course
The wild areas and raid battles are the best thing to be added to the Pokemon games in generations and I hope they stay.
Pokemon ‘job’ system is a cool addition as well
Rival is annoying crybaby so nothing new
Meloney is thiccc and a goddess.
7 Likes
I had fun playing it! It little easy but enjoyable !
It’s the worst pokemon game ever released. It’s an unfinished game for 60 usd that lacks animations, textures, dialogs, story and treats you like a 2 years old infant. If you are ok with that go for it.
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Way better than SM, was very enjoyable to casually play.
I had a good time playing it even if it was easy and enjoyed the community aspect of it. I’m also excited for the expansions coming soon!
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I really liked it. I only bought Ultra Moon after playing Sword, but I thought Sword was much more interesting than UM. I also thought Sword was better than ORAS. It’s not very difficult, but are Pokemon games ever? Personally not a fan of dynamaxing instead of mega evolving, but raid battles are fun.
was it as polished as i had hoped it to be, compared to botw and odyssey? no, not even close really. but did i stop bitching for 15 minutes to enjoy some of my favorite franchise anyways? yes.
you just have to accept that it is what it is. the rivals were still annoying and useless, and the plot was very, very underdeveloped. the game definitely felt rushed, but overall is was serviceable. i think that the wild area was fun and at the very least, a step in the right direction for the main series games.
however, i did find the lack of metagross disturbing. and if anyone says nessa or bea is best girl, they are wrong. because it is still rebecca. 6/10 would probably play again, but nothing close to yellow, emerald, or platinum.
Best points are 1. no random encounters anymore which until now wasted hours of my life when already wasting them playing games, 2. The Wild Area.
I liked shiny hunting (SOS and Wormhole) and Story much better in Sun and moon. The rest is more subjective, I enjoyed the game. Not Sure if I will get the Add ons .
Definetely has (had?) very lazy, unpolished looks.
Sword&Shield hurts my soul. On one hand it was still good enough to make me play it through. That’s a low bar, but with the progression of the video games since Gen 6, I don’t take that for granted anymore.
First of all, here are some good things about the game:
- Corviknight is a badass Pokemon
- The Champion battle was more challenging than I anticipated, considering the rest of the game is super easy
- Free movement in the wild area is a good first step in the right direction
- The atmosphere during gym leader battles is great, the huge stadiums and the cheering crowd contributes to this
- getting competitive Pokemon became much easier and less time-consuming
Now the negative points:
The game is rushed. You can see how the developers were forced to finish only the most necessary things. The textures look bad, the wild area is devoid of detail and just too empty, most cities look empty and lifeless as well, battle animations are a mixed bag and there’s a complete absence of side-content except for the battle tower. No battle frontier, no Pokedome, no contests, no Pokestudio, no World Tournament. It’s such a shame because there are a few instances of the game that look great, and they show that Game Freak could make great games if they had more time (signature moves of the starters are animated beautifully and Ballonlea is a gorgeous town).
The multiplayer elements also made a huge step backwards. Raids get repetitive and boring too soon and they made online trading and battling unnecessarily complicated. GTS is gone and of course you need to have a Nintendo Switch Online membership to do anything online (which costs money).
As for story and characters, I didn’t have expectations to begin with, but was still disappointed. I didn’t find any character endearing. At best I didn’t care about them (Marnie), at worst I found them annoying (like the rival Hau and his brother Leon, who just always had to be the center of attention and a show-off). Bede had potential for being a good jerk rival, but they trashed his character in the second half of the game. The ‘evil team’ is pointless and the goal of the main antagonist made even less sense than in previous games. And the post-game antagonists are even worse. The only saving grace are some gym leaders like Bea, Bea and Bea.
Game Freak made some other very questionable decisions, for example the return of 1-time TMs in the form of TRs (horrible, horrible decision). Online battles also have a limit of 20 minutes (wtf Game Freak) which enables scumbag timer stall. Also no VS-recorder. And the exp share is permanently on.
With all of these drawbacks, I didn’t have any incentive to play the game again after making it to the battle tower (except for downloading the gifts from the current mystery gift distribution). Instead I’m replaying Soulsilver right now and there are WORLDS between those games.
2 Likes
Pros:
- The Wild Area is epic. It’s really what we always wanted Pokemon to be and there’s so much fun you can have there. People bitch about the dex cut, but the variety of Pokemon in the Wild Area is massive. You’ll be able to put together a strong team easily.
- The Pokemon designs are amazing, obviously you’ll have some duds as you do in every generation but this gen honestly has the highest percentage of badass Pokemon since Gen 3 (in my opinion).
- The soundtrack is awesome!
- The graphics quality is a huge step up from other Pokemon games. It does not compete with BOTW/others and if you’re a serious gamer you will likely not be impressed, but the changes from SM and even Let’s GO are really significant.
- Raids are lots of fun (but you kind of need to get online to have a chance at beating the bigger ones) and the shifting bosses keep you interested in the game.
- The item drops from raids make grinding a thing of the past.
- Some people hate on the paid DLC, but let’s be real, paying $30 for two DLCs is much better than having to re-buy and re-play the same game just to get the extra features.
Cons:
- The story is predictable. The main plot is just copy-paste from pretty much any other Pokemon game with some slight changes.
- Shiny hunting is super boring. Chain fishing is gone, DexNav is gone, catch combo is gone, pretty much every skill-based shiny method is out the window. You’ll be hatching a lot of eggs.
- The postgame is lacking. Just a small sidequest and no extra legendaries to catch or exciting things to do. The lack of shiny hunting methods makes this even worse.
- You have to pay for online services. It’s not too expensive, but I don’t think I should have to pay to trade Pokemon.
- Many serious console gamers find the overall performance of the game to be lacking. I personally feel that if you’re expecting console performance from the first main-series non-handheld Pokemon game you’re expecting way too much, but you may be disappointed if you have high expectations.
3 Likes
Pokemon really needs to implement a difficulty setting, its criminally easy.
3 Likes
Very comprehensive review that I mostly agree with!
It is a very fun game if you enjoy it for what it is, as it is indeed a step in the right direction for Pokemon games. Still very easy to play through and beat just like every other Pokemon game plus quite a few interesting new Pokemon. As other previously mentioned, don’t set your expectations to the moon and you won’t be disappointed as this game has its pros/cons but overall is pretty enjoyable. At first I was a little disappointed with the initial release but eventually got over what the game lacked and just enjoyed it for what it is and had a pretty fun time playing it!
for the casual player like myself, i found it very enjoyable for the short time i played it and finished the storyline. Just as easy going game with your familliar poketune to it, so if thats what youre looking for id say its worth a shot in playing.
I had played X&Y most recently and before that I played Sapphire so keep that in mind when it comes to context of my gameplay. I also play Nuzlocke challenges since it makes me feel more involved in the game.
This was my experience:
I liked the game but only very lightly. It was worth playing once, versus games like Sapphire, Crystal, and Emerald which I’ve played multiple times. The story was predictable, the characters were boring and basic (outside of the final gym leader), and I absolutely HATED the hand-holding. I felt like I was barely able to explore different areas on my own without an annoying cutscene or someone telling me I HAD to go somewhere. I felt like I was treated like I was 2. I know this is meant for kids, but I played Red when I was in 4th grade and I had no problem getting through that. It felt stuffy.
I had fun, but I felt like it could have been so much more. The puzzles were a nice gimmick too which felt “new” but were easily forgettable.
The one thing I will say that this game has done tremendously well with is it made grinding FUN. I never really enjoyed grinding levels in earlier Pokemon games, but having Dynamax battles and finding higher leveled Pokemon in other areas made for a nice challenge and a change of pace. I originally hated the idea of Dynamax because I feel like Pokemon is now so removed from the world I grew up with, but the mechanic made the game feel more fun. The music is also good.
If renting games was still a thing (is it?), I’d say rent it. But for me, it’s not replayable. Battles were easy until the Champion battle. In my Nuzlocke challenge, I didn’t lose anyone to a battle until the Champion.
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The game is pretty trash and only carried by the fact that the core gameplay - that has been present in every pokemon game - is fun.
If you want a good, innovative game look elsewhere. If you want the same Pokemon experience that is re-experienced every few years [but this time with PS2 graphics], this is the game for you
3 Likes
I like the new pokemon and the soundtrack overall, other than that the game is pretty weak imo. I’m very disappointed with the wild area (look at botw, let’s be serious here) and the game lacked atmosphere and was too linear for me. Also where is the post game?
If you accept any crap gamefreaks releases as it is what it is dont expect anything better.
Once the high of a new Pokémon game with new monsters has worn off, which doesn’t last that long (at least for me it didn’t). All that remains is a mediocre experience with poor graphics, uninteresting areas with nothing cool to seek out off the main path, and forgettable characters.
I just found it very boring and with so many other vastly better games out there to play I wouldn’t go back to it.
The DLC looks really cool though and introduces a lot of great monster designs, but I doubt it will be any different from the main game.
Agreed… I’m in the middle of my play through right now and it’s okay, but it makes me want to play my crystal version for gameboy for the 100th time. I doubt I will ever replay this game again unlike the first 4 generations.
At least I’m confident I will finish it. I did not complete sun and moon because I got bored and did not like the gym challenges. I do HATE the stupid road blocks in this game. Every time team Yell is in the way it’s for a ridiculous reason that only a 3 year old would think is realistic.
Pokemon block the road? Sure. Bad guys rallying troops and blocking the way? Okay. Literal obstacles that you need a special move to get rid of? Makes sense.
Team Yell not letting me pass because I will wake up a pokemon while “yelling” or any of the other ridiculous reasons they came up with… No thought was put into obstacles in this game. Very little problem solving for ANYTHING.