Available for: Nintendo Switch
Reviewed for: Nintendo Switch
Firstly, the National Dex part of it:
1) The National Dex was the worst part of every game...it threw all sense of progress with the Pokemon that resided IN THE GAME WORLD out the window.
2) The National Dex was literally never there in any game until the very last second of the story, so it affects literally nothing about the game.
3) They already F***ING removed the National Dex in Sun/Moon version! I literally praised Sun and Moon for taking it out in its year! Don't believe me? Go back and click on the previously provided link to that review! Yeah, Pokemon outside of the "technical" game world could be transferred, but there was no way of measuring it.
Finally, there's the removal part of it:
1) Literally every game after gen 2 removed Pokemon from the game...that is, until the very last second of the story, in which case they didn't suddenly magically appear in the world...you could just transfer them from other games. More recent generations have made it easier to transfer Pokemon as soon as you reach the first Pokemon center (by way of the Pokemon box on the 3DS, etc), but certain Pokemon not being in a game is nothing new at all.
2) People have compared this decision to the Thanos snap from Avengers: Endgame...and such people shouldn't be trusted even if they say the sky is blue. This is one game that they had to optimize for the Switch hardware, and thus the decisions were likely made based off of what Pokemon would be more likely to appear in this particular region...dunno why f***ing pyukumuku would make the cut even if it made all sense in the world for it to be in a Pokemon-ized Great Britain, but whatever.
3) The Pokemon aren't gone permanently or anything. As dataminers have proven, the movesets and names of deleted Pokemon still exist in these games! If you import, say, a Weedle into these games, the data is still there. These Pokemon haven't been deleted from existence going forward, you giant, screaming children! They just aren't here for this particular game. I'm just reporting what I've seen videos of, so I don't know the back end weirdness, but I'd say that indicates a potential return for many of your favorites at some point...hopefully not as paid DLC....please not as paid DLC.
4) This generation has more interesting new Pokemon than any generation since Gen 5, and assuming you don't play Pokemon the wrong way (i.e. looking at stats, hidden EVs or whatever you basement-dwelling redditors call it, instead of just looking at the Pokemon's design and its type), that should be more than enough. I happen to agree with certain sentiments that a way to combat the controversy would be to scrap every last one of the old Pokemon and start fresh, but it is what it is.
5) Everyone who leaves a 0 score on Metacritic should require a permission slip from their parents in order to purchase food or go to the bathroom by themselves.
As I'll go on to describe, I can understand being upset that you can't, through any means, have a particular Pokemon in this game...but I haven't seen any middle ground here. It's either "this game is perfect!!! There's absolutely nothing wrong with this game, it's the best Pokemon game ever made!!!!!" or "0/10 YOU'RE BEING PAID BY GAMEFREAK DON'T QUESTION JUST CONSUME CONTENT!!!!!!!"
It's nothing new, dear reader...When it comes to games, the critic side of critical aggregate websites is a circlejerk of people obviously holding back a little bit due to corporate contracts and the fact that their batteries drain more readily the more critical they are. Meanwhile, the user side is a bunch of paste-eating, mentally-unhinged, drooling morons who would have their own mothers killed for not cutting their peanut-butter sandwiches the exact way they like.
Now, in spite of how much I've intentionally tried to get myself killed by way of cheeto-dust-covered knife in this opening paragraph, I did say that I could understand one being upset. Given the friendship-based nature of the Pokemon anime and the stories of the mainline titles, people get attached to their Pokemon, myself included. And like all of you Pokemon fans who are reading this, I've lost many of my favorites...for this single game. In fact, I went through the list of cut Pokemon and made notes, just so I could prove that point.
It may be more than some, more likely than not it's less than many, but my favorites that got cut include:
Squirtle, Wartortle, Blastoise, Nidoran (female), Nidorina, Nidoqueen, Horsea, Seadra, Kingdra, Lickitung, Dratini, Dragonair, Dragonite, Chikorita, Bayleef, Meganium, Totodile, Croconaw, Feraligatr, Mareep, Flaafy, Ampharos, Marill, Azumarill, Heracross, Houndour, Houndoom, Lugia, Torchik, Combusken, Blaziken, Skitty, Delcatty, Aron, Lairon, Aggron, Swablu, Altaria, Tropius, Spheal, Sealeo, Walrein, Metagross, Shinx, Luxio, Luxray, Gabite, Garchomp, Snivy, Servine, Serperior, Sandile, Krokorok, Krookodile, Ducklett, Swanna, Mienfoo, Mienshao, Fennekin, Braixen, Delphox, Froakie, Frogadier, Greninja, Skidoo, Gogoat, Popplio, Brionne, Primarina, Pikipek, Trumbeak, Toucannon, Crabrawler, Crabominable.
And those are just the ones that I regularly go to for gameplay purposes. In reality, I love almost every Pokemon that has ever existed (except f***ing pyukumuku, though if it gave me a really cute look I might reconsider), and I'm sad to see any of them go even for one game. But we have to ask the pertinent question: what does it affect? Not a thing. It might affect the experiences of people who look at hidden stats and only play these games competitively...but people who do that instead of choosing Pokemon based off who they want to be friends with are basically Pokemon villains...and Pokemon villains aren't even three-dimensional, well-developed villains, so there! Like it or not, for the reasons I've outlined above, not one thing you people are crying about actually affects the game in any way. An argument I've seen is "cut content." Here's the thing, though: sometimes that isn't a bad thing. Just look at The Elder Scrolls. Take the changes between Morrowind and Oblivion. A lot of stuff was taken out in the transition between the two, but the result was a more focused, less overwhelming experience that still let players absolutely break the game if they had the know-how. Similarly, Pokemon games beyond gen 3 have consistently cut content, to the crying of not one person. Poffins? Gone by the next generation. PokeBlocks? Gone by the next generation. The Dream World? Gone by the next generation. Super Training? Gone by the next generation. Mega Evolution? Gone by the next generation. Z-Moves? Gone by the next generation. Pokemon-amie? Gone by the next generation. That care thing from Sun/Moon? Gone by the next generation. The point? If your argument for giving Sword/Shield a 0 is "they cut content," firstly, Pokemon games have always been better for cutting and replacing content, and secondly...you're...a little late to the party. Now, if Game Freak comes back a couple months from now and announces a national dex + restored Pokemon PAID DLC? I'll write a full article on that, referencing how blind I was in this review. But for the time being, none of the things people have been whining about actually matter.
This is perhaps the longest introduction paragraph I've ever written, but allow me to conclude the introduction with a little bit more musing. At the time of writing, I've completed both Sword and Shield version...in other words, I've played gen 8 two times: the first being a mostly-blind, mix-and-match kind of playthrough, the second being my standard "water-types only because water-types are the best" playthrough. I've played the generation once with as varied a team as I could, and I've played it once with only a team of the exact type that I love. For playthrough #1, I went with a team of: Cinderace, Barraskewda, Frosmoth, Orbeetle, Corviknight, and Toxtricity. For playthrough #2, I went with a team of: Intelleon, Gyarados, Seismitoad, Ludicolo, Jellicent, and Arctovish. At this point, I've provided details on my nostalgic feelings on Pokemon, my thoughts on the controversies surrounding these games, and how I played + the teams I used in my two playthroughs. So, as I delve into details, you should have all the info you need on my specific contexts.
Now, say goodbye to your mom, ready your dynamax bands, and let me tell you why Pokemon Sword/Shield version is one of the better Pokemon games in recent memory!
On a more positive note, I'll say I did find the characters in this installment more endearing than a lot of characters featured in the earlier games. I'm pretty sick of the "friendly rival" idea, but Hop (this game's friendly rival) is pretty much the best one in at least the past few generations. He still has the same personality as any friendly rival character, but he goes through an actual character arc and regularly changes up his team so that you don't necessarily cakewalk him every time. He's basically got the restless personality of the rival from gen 4, the basic look (and exact animations...and a similar name) of Hau from gen 7, and the battle variety of Gary from gen 1. Beyond Hop, the other gym challengers are also pretty compelling. There's Bede, who serves as a more traditional rival character in that he constantly looks down on you, yet he still acknowledges the progress you make. Then there's Marnie, the goth chick from a poor town who's competing in the gym challenge for reasons other than helping her hometown. These two characters don't appear quite as often as Hop does, but every appearance they make has some kind of character development purpose, and I always love to see that kind of effort put into a Pokemon game. Other characters in the game get a decent amount of development as well, but these three are the ones that stick out the most to me.
Now that I've talked about both major gameplay gimmicks for this generation, I'd like to talk a little bit about their practical application. Well, as I've said, you can only use either of these modes when the games tell you you can. With that in mind, the use cases for gym battles and max raid battles (next section, I promise) are exact opposites of each other. In gym battles, the gym leader can also dynamax their Pokemon, and they always save it for their final Pokemon, which is always the same no matter what approach you take. So when it comes to the gym challenge, you'll likely use dynamaxing right at the last minute either for the gratification of taking the last Pokemon out in one hit or at the last moment for the purpose of delaying long enough to get the enemy back to normal form. In my exclusively water-type playthrough, I ended up using dynamax outside of the very last minute because I absolutely needed to get a single enemy Pokemon out of the way. So as I've said, you're probably just going to use this gimmick in the last moments of a battle, but as I've proven with my water-type playthrough, there are moments that will make you break away from that formula.
Now, I've been hinting that I'll talk about the Max Raid battles in multiple points in this review, so the time has come to pay the piper. See, in the open world portion of Sword/Shield's map, named "The Wild Area," there are Pokemon dens scattered all around. Every day, certain Pokemon dens have a red light coming out of them, and this signifies that a Max Raid Battle is available. When you interact with these dens, you get a silhouette of the Pokemon you're going to face, a list of its types, and you have the ability to choose which Pokemon you want to use + the option to invite actual humans to play with you or play with CPU trainers. Now I refuse to play games online unless they're Dark Souls (nor did I want to purchase the Nintendo Switch online pass...), so I naturally just went with CPU trainers. There doesn't really seem to be any rhyme or reason to which trainers join you in a raid, but I'll say that more often than not you get a fitting group...except when you get Alfie the Wobbufet trainer, in which case you're going to lose because he does nothing for the team. But I digress. Regardless of whether you're with actual people or CPU trainers, you'll be in a team of 4 trainers, each of which only using one Pokemon. The 4 of you will be fighting one dynamaxed Pokemon with enhanced stats and other advantages (such as being able to attack more than once a turn, being able to bring up a barrier that absorbs three attacks before you can deal damage again, etc), and your ultimate goal is to defeat this Pokemon. Unlike regular dynamaxing, the Pokemon you're fighting stays in dynamax mode the entire battle, but your Pokemon can still only stay in the mode for 3 turns. If your Pokemon is defeated, it'll respawn with full health two turns later. The battle is over when you defeat the Pokemon, when the Pokemon makes Pokemon on your side faint 4 times total (all 4 of you in a row, the same two Pokemon twice, etc), or when the battle lasts for longer than 10 or so turns. If the battle ends the latter two ways, you get no rewards, but you can jump back into the raid again immediately from the beginning with no consequences. If you manage to defeat the Pokemon, however, you have the ability to catch it, and regardless of whether or not your succeed, you're given a multitude of rewards: experience candies that grant varying amounts of experience points to a Pokemon of your choosing, berries, rare candies, and TRs, which are one-time use TMs that you can use to teach your Pokemon moves (in other words, they're what TMs were in the first couple generations). Participation in these Max Raid Battles isn't mandatory to be able to beat the game, but I believe you'll find the rewards more than worth it. Beyond the material rewards that these raids offer, there are many Pokemon that can only be caught in a Max Raid Battle, and as I've already outlined, if you want to be able to Gigantamax, you'll only find Pokemon capable of that through these battles.
The last thing I want to touch on in terms of gameplay is the difficulty. The mainline games from the past 3 generations have been...unchallenging, shall we say? That's never been an issue for me, but it's a fact that recently these games have been pretty easy, and I don't think it's because I'm an adult. So, what about Sword/Shield? Well, I had two different experiences with one clear difference between the two. In my first playthrough, I focused mainly on gaining experience by filling up the Pokedex, and I did maybe two or three Max Raid battles just to get the experience candy to bring a late-game addition to my team up to snuff. In that playthrough, I never lost a battle, but I'd find myself constantly at the same level as the wild/trained Pokemon in whatever route I was about to venture into, and when the time came to face the champion, a couple of my Pokemon were underleveled and the experience was a challenge. In my second playthrough, I only caught the Pokemon I needed to assemble my water-type team, and I instead focused entirely on getting experience through Max Raid battles. In this playthrough, I most definitely never lost a battle, and most of the time I was overleveled, but by the time I reached the champion, my Pokemon were about the same level as his, and while I only had one or two Pokemon faint, the remaining ones were in the yellow. What's the point of all this? The point is that while I never, in my 60+ hours of playing Sword/Shield, lost a single battle, the gameplay is well-balanced enough to make sure that you aren't an absolute PokeGod among PokeMen...unless you're spending days upon days upon days grinding. Regardless of the way you go about training, the challenge consistently increases so that the game isn't 100% trivial the entire time, yet it never goes so far as to throw up a difficulty spike. I found myself appreciating the balance here throughout my time, and it's something I wish could've been there in the past so that I didn't have to spend days grinding in the last section of Victory Road for 1/200th of the experience I needed to level up.
That's it for gameplay, but before I go into the technical details, I'm going to speak to the items I look for in a Pokemon game. If you read my Sun/Moon review, you'll already know them, but for the uninitiated, what I need to truly enjoy a Pokemon game is: 1) A feeling of adventure, 2) Interesting Pokemon, and 3) A sense of partnership. So, how does Sword/Shield fare in these key areas? Let's find out!
Another aspect to talk about in terms of feeling of adventure is the "Wild Area." This is a sizeable portion of the map that basically...is GameFreak very cautiously testing the waters in preparation for a potential 100% open-world Pokemon game in the future. That's basically what it is. Similarly to how last year's Let's Go games were hardware tests to see how having Pokemon appear in the overworld would work, the wild area in Sword/Shield is a hardware test to make sure giving the player the ability to move the camera themselves won't destroy anything. GameFreak is a slow, slow learner, but I digress. As I said, this is a sizeable portion of the map that leads to two of the major Galar cities, and in this area, you have the ability to control the camera. I'll say that it's amazing how much a Pokemon world opens up when you can look around it freely, but I really hope it doesn't take GameFreak another couple generations to implement it fully. Similarly, having a wide open space that leads to cities instead of just linear routes is an incredible feeling. The linear routes are still there, of course, but the difference in feeling between them and the Wild Area isn't small. One point I'll make for the future of this concept, however, is this: I've heard people calling the Wild Area "lifeless" and "empty," but I'm not sure that's the best way to describe it. There's exactly as much to do in the wild area as there is in a bog standard linear route...and that's something that needs to change when GameFreak adopts this concept for a full game. I personally didn't feel any negativity towards the Wild Area because I just kind of imagined it as functionally identical to an open route when GameFreak was describing it, but I'll concede that if GameFreak is going to end up with a fully open-world Pokemon game, they're going to need to do more with it than they did here. There are some other things that kind of break the immersion in the wild area, but I'll save that for the technical paragraph. So while it isn't a perfect adventure, Sword/Shield version does meet my requirement that a Pokemon game feel like an adventure.
Beyond the exclusively new Pokemon, Sword/Shield also continues the Sun/Moon tradition of taking older Pokemon and giving them new "local" forms. In Sun/Moon, I thought the concept was interesting, but I never felt compelled to use any of the Alolan forms. With Sword/Shield, however, the concept has been taken to a new level that I actually really appreciated! In addition to changing up the look and type of certain Pokemon, 6 of these Pokemon are given entirely new evolutions! Sometimes the new evolution is another tier of evolution that the original version of the Pokemon didn't have, sometimes the new evolution is an alternate to the existing next evolution, and I was glad to see this kind of change! Now, just like in Sun/Moon, not all of these new versions are winners. For instance, Galarian Zigzagoon/Linoone are pretty difficult to tell apart, Galarian Mr. Mime isn't any less creepy than the original, and Galarian Darmanitan made me laugh out loud. But other than that, I enjoyed all the new designs! Even Galarian friggin Stunfisk is a better design than the original even though I'll still never use it. So, in addition to the brand new Pokemon, the redesigned Pokemon are also, for the most part, pretty good!
That brings us to the last piece of the "interesting Pokemon" puzzle: the Pokemon that are both returning and unaltered. I'll say this: for the most part, the Pokemon that made the cut to be in these games are the good ones. As I've already said, I love nearly every Pokemon that exists, so that previous statement should go without saying, but I still believe that the roster is good even in the context of my favorites that got cut (which I listed in the introduction). But I'll also say this: there were some that made the cut that I was truly shocked by and that I couldn't help but scratch my head upon discovering. Wishiwashi? Pyukumuku? Klink? Klang? Klinklang? The Ice Cream Cones? Goldeen and Seaking? Mr. Mime? Remoraid and Octillery? Lunatone/Solrock? The list goes on, and I don't necessarily dislike any of these Pokemon, but I do have to wonder why they made the cut when Blaziken didn't.
Now, before I move on, I do have to give a shoutout. Sword/Shield has the single greatest new non-starter Pokemon since gen 5. What Pokemon is it? The incomparable "Snom" (pictured above). It's a little worm Pokemon of the ice/bug-types, and its name is a combination of "snow" and "nom" (as in "nomnomnom"). It's the cutest little guy ever, when you call for it in camp (which I'll go into in the next paragraph), it takes upwards of a minute for it to worm its way over to you, and it evolves into a badass moth Pokemon when...wait for it...you become good enough friends with it. Not only is its base design and concept wonderful, but once you make it feel loved enough, it becomes a Pokemon that slays in combat! So...why do I bring this up? Well, in any Pokemon game I try to have at least one ground-type on my team (ground being my second-favorite type) just to be cautious, so when I caught a decent-looking ground-type in my first playthrough, I thought that my team was complete. But then I met Snom, and I made a noise of adoration outloud. Once I caught one, I knew I had to have it on my team, so I dropped off the ground-type that I'd caught and turned my usual strategies on their head. THAT is the power of the immortal, the beautiful, the simply incomparable Snom! I mean it, if anybody reading this is in the position to give me Christmas gifts, I don't know if Snom merchandise exists, but I'll take it all! Shirts, keychains, extremely-girly plushies, it doesn't matter! Snom is the best, and I'll take any opportunity I can to sing its praises!
...Moving on...
By using berries and other food items you can find in the wild or purchase from special vendors, you can cook different curries for you and your Pokemon. There's a full "Curry Dex" of recipes to unlock, and all curries have the same effect (restoring health, healing status afflictions, and granting a little bit of experience). That basically means that there's no gameplay incentive to make as many curries as you can, but if you're like me and want to roleplay like you're out on an adventure with your Pokemon and need to keep them fed with a variety of curries, this is there for you!
So you can camp with, talk to, play with, and cook for your Pokemon, so why is it that Sword/Shield earns 90% of my favor instead of a full 100%? Well, the answers are 100% subjective and didn't actually negatively impact my experience, so I can't really take points off, but I always strive to give as many details as I possibly can. See, in Sun/Moon and last year's Let's Go games, you had the ability to pet your Pokemon, and you don't in these games...see why I can't take points off for that? Beyond that, remember the Lapras example I used when I discussed gygantamaxing? I didn't use Lapras in either of my playthroughs, but if I had, then I would've had to be sure that the one I caught was capable of gygantamaxing. For some people, that won't be a problem, but unless I'm doing a playthrough where I want a Lapras of a particular gender or something, I'm more inclined to go with the first Lapras I come across. Making it so that only particular Lapras' can get the most out of the game flies right in the face of the friendship-based message of this saga...again, see why I can't take points off for that? But I digress. There are some subjective aspects that make Sword/Shield fall just short of victory in the "sense of partnership" requirement, but it still comes really close!
So basically, Sword/Shield's post game has few redeeming qualities. It takes all of 2 hours to beat the post game, but it's not that big a deal. See, I wasn't exactly anticipating a great post game, and by the time I beat the champion, I was already looking forward to starting my second playthrough. So, you could say that the positives of the game proper outweigh the negatives from after the credits roll.
Now that that's out of the way, let's talk about the technical positives! As I already stated, facial animations for human characters are the best they've ever been in a Pokemon game, so this game stands in stark contrast to the dead, lifeless eyes of the Sun/Moon protagonist. I never experienced any glitches, texture pop-in, framerate dips (though I hear that it's different if you're online), or anything like that. Furthermore, the soundtrack is surprisingly good. The gym leader theme is high-energy and adds to the excitement, the dungeon themes are...groovy, and at one point the game uses a Dark Souls-esque choral piece to accentuate a battle with one of the game's villains. It isn't quite as foreboding as the battle theme against Ghetsis in gen 5, but I can at least appreciate the intended direction.
Let us review:
Messy story ending - 0.3
Threadbare postgame - 0.5
Wild area wackiness - 0.3
Tech issues (obvious ripoff animations, crash) - 0.5
The final score for Pokemon Sword/Shield Version is...
8.4/10 - Good
Good work, GameFreak, good work!
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