Gamefreak ushered in the 8th generation of mainline titles of Pokemon with the November 15th, 2019 release of Pokemon Sword and Shield, the first mainline games and first home console release of the series on the Nintendo Switch, and today as a long time Pokemon fan for over 20 years I’m here to give my brutally honest review of the game as a whole, the good, bad, and everything in between. I mean anything has to be better than the $40 DLC that was Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, with 2 hours worth of extra content from the previous entries from Sun and Moon right?
Controversy surrounding the release
During the E3 Conference this year Junichi Masuda (Producer of Pokemon Sword and Shield) Stated all Pokemon would not be present this time in Pokemon Sword and Shield. All games have had every Pokemon from the generations preceding up and including the generation of the new game previously. This sent the the Pokemon community into a tail spin. As people were shocked and rightfully, I’ll say it bluntly, pissed that their favorite Pokemon might not be in the game and rightfully so in my opinion. If you are reading this you might know and probably aware this spurred on the hashtags #dexit (Pun on Brex-It as the game’s region is based off the United Kingdom) and #BringBackTheNationalDex. This went on since and up until the games release and still to this day, every post on a prevalent Pokemon social media account I see a plethora of those 2 hashtags still to this day. People are outraged at this and here is why: Gamefreak lied as to the reason the Pokemon were removed from the game to begin with. Three reasons are given by them as to why all the Pokemon are not included:
1. All Pokemon models made from scratch (Lie 1)
2. High resolution models and improved animations (Lie 2)
3, Balance of the Pokemon battle scene (Lie 3)
3 strikes and I call bullshit.
Lie 1: All Pokemon models made from scratch
This reasoning has been confirmed to be a lie. I will leave a link at the bottom to have a better explanation as to why this is false. All the models were found to be reused from Ultra Sun/Moon almost identically for Sword and Shield. This was found to be true thanks to data miners looking through the game files:
Strike 1
Lie 2: High resolution models and improved animations
This point is subjective to some people but pretty glaring if you know anything about quality in game design. All animations look stiff and uninspired as seen below.
Some moves don’t have any animations to speak of, Pokemon don’t move when doing moves, like they should with certain moves, example of Tyranitar shooting a hyper beam from its stomach, when it should be shot from the mouth.
The overall game looks like it is from the Playstation 2 era, is it an improvement for Pokemon? Yes. Is it good for 2019 standards? No.
Textures are lazy and the overall feel to the look of this game albeit for Pokemon looking better feels uninspired as I’ve said.
Strike 2
Lie 3: Balance of the Pokemon battle system
This one honestly makes no sense to me in the slightest as to a reason as to cut over half the Pokedex. Balance the meta of the battle scene? That is a load of shit. 400 mons are in the game and you cut 435 for balance? No. you restrict people by only allowing a handful of Pokemon and creativity is stunted as a result. That balances the game out? Not in the slightest.
Strike 3 and you are out Gamefreak.
All this so far has been the controversy surrounding the games and I haven’t talked about the games themselves or my overall thoughts, well you are in luck because that is where we are headed to next.
The Good
Gameplay additions and Quality of Life Improvements:
With all the negativity surrounding Sword and Shield you’re probably wondering how is there anything good coming from these games? Did Gamefreak listen to the fanbase at all? I can say in some aspects yes.
1. Ability to Skip Tutorials/Cutscene
Name says it all up until this main series release there had never been a way to skip tutorials and skip cutscenes. As a Pokemon Player who started with Red Version in 1998 I appreciate this greatly. I don’t need to learn to catch a 1st route Pokemon for the 8th time.
2. Continued removal of Hidden Moves
Like Sun and Moon for 3DS and the Ultra variant sister games, Gamefreak decided to retain this feature for Sword and Shield. No more needing to waste a move slot on a bad Pokemon and carry a bad Pokemon for you to surf or fly, instead you use the Rotom bike as a flotation device to tread water or use the Corviknght Pokemon Taxi to fly around the map.
3. No need to go to Pokemon Center to use PC to shuffle Pokemon around/Pokemon Box in bag
This feature was borrowed from the spin-off game Let’s Go: Pikachu and Eevee where you carried a device where you could access your PC boxes like you would in Pokemon Centers to deposit and withdraw mons. You can still go to the Pokemon Centers and do it the traditional way but a nice QoL improvement to not have to walk or fly back to a Pokemon Center to do a basic task.
4. The Wild Area/Raid Battles
The wild area is a vast area where mons in the overworld of all kinds can be seen and caught from Pidove to Tyranitar a myriad of different Pokemon are there in the grass, water, and sky, breathing fresh life into the Pokemon series giving a new huge area to explore.
Raid battles are just what they sound like if you have played any MMO with a raid boss but with Pokemon. Huge Pokemon appear in water wells in the Wild Area called “Dens” I liked these a lot because it is a new spin on the franchise, raid with up to four people to catch a giant Pokemon? Sign me the hell up! I hope they Keep this in future iterations of the games.
5. New Pokemon/Galar Forms
With 81 new Pokemon being introduced in Generation 8 it brings the grand total to 890 different types of Pokemon. For the past few generations I have complained like many others that some of the Pokemon designs are lackluster. We have a Pokemon that is a trash bag for god’s sake. However in gen 8 I actually don’t mind any of the designs that are inherently bad. We have the corgi Yamper and the wonderful dopey bird Cramorant that shoots fish from his beak. Just to name a couple good mons.
Like Generation 7, Generation 8 brings along regional variants called Galarian Forms. These are different forms of already existing Pokemon and some Galaraian forms can only evolve if they are Galarian, Galarian Farfetch’d, for example can only evolve into Sirfetch’d if he is Galarian as normal Fafetch’d cannot. Which is pretty unique if you ask me.
The Bad
1. The Story
The story is pretty basic and boring in my opinion. You start in the new region of Galar in the small town of Postwick. You meet the current Pokemon Champion’s little brother named Hop and receive a Pokemon from the champion (not the professor of the region like every other game) and you choose from the grass monkey Grooky, the Fire Bunny Scorbunny, and the water chameleon Sobble. I chose Scorbunny for my Twitch play through. Hop’s brother tells you about the gym challenge in Galar and how battling is a big deal in Galar and how they use sport stadiums as arenas for battle, He tells you, the main character and Hop, who wants to be like his brother to, enter the Gym Challenge, which you need a sponsor for apparently with no real explanation in the story as to why that is you, you just do. He sponsors you two and you go on collecting 8 gym badges doing basic gym puzzles, meeting the box legendary of the game you purchased and fight a guy named Rose that is the chairman of the gym challenge that is hell bent on saving the future from ruin 1000 years from now. Which maker no sense whatsoever. The story is really all over the place and makes no sense in its current form which leads me to believe there is to be a third or sequel game to these two. You battle two rivals who you meet through the story that are just minor characters. Bede that is sponsored by Rose, is a complete asshole and full of himself trying to make Rose proud and is way too hell bent on pleasing people. The other rival is Marnie, the connection to the “evil” team for this game if you can even cal them evil. Team Yell are Marnie’s fans and just want to harass people and cheer on Marnie and that’s about it I’m serious. So evil I’m shivering in my boots by being yelled at. After you get 8 badges you battle in an 8 person tournament, replacing the traditional Elite 4 formula and then the champion. Battle the evil guy Rose and then the champ and the game ends. Really short, lot of loose ends and this will be echoed a lot, uninspired I wish the story formula would be different for at least once.
2. Dynamaxing/Gigantamaxing
Ever since generation 6 a new mechanic has been introduced, Gen 6 with mega evolution Gen 7 with the introduction of Z-Moves. Generation 8 brings us Dynamaxing or Gigantamaxing, Making Pokemon huge for 3 turns per battle and essentially combines mega evolution and z-moves in 1. Again uninspired in my opinion.
3. Lack of National Pokedex
The cut of over half the entire Pokedex in Sword and Shield is definitely a mark that will follow this game for all of time. This game was rushed and they probably didn’t have time or what have you but the rumor is the importer to import the models for all the other mons broke during development and that is the REAL reason for the massive cut in mons in this game if this is true that’s a shame. If it isn’t then you have no excuse to not add them when the game was only 10 GB and they have 64 GB cartridges for the Switch games out there. Time was probably a factor but if you could do it with the 3DS and if all the models were future proof for other games then you shouldn’t have had an issue.
All in all, I think minus all the negativity surrounding these games and what comes with that, these games are OK Pokemon games. Notice I said Pokemon games, not just games. If these did not have the Pokemon brand backing this game, the game on its own would be a damn dumpster fire. This game is definitely better than the Ultra games but not by much. This is a step in the right direction for the franchise but a lot of corners were cut with this. This game was rushed and that might not be entirely Gamefreak’s fault but the lack of time and resources show with this one. Given more time and polish I think games in the series can be great. One step forward 3 steps back with this one.
Reddit Post Explaining Asset Re-usage and Movement issues:
My Rating:
6/10
Let me know your thoughts and feelings in the comments below.
Until Next Time!
Ryan
The Life of Ryan 