Board 8 > Pokemon Sword/Shield Review Zone

(+) Yeah! (+)

The review embargo will be lifted soon, so we'll finally get an early snapshot at the Metacritic score and what the reviewers have to say about the game.

https://www.metacritic.com/game/switch/pokemon-sword
https://www.opencritic.com/game/7899/pokemon-sword-and-shield
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Tag!
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If the reviews are bad this is gonna be good

If the reviews are good this is gonna be great
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Currently at a 84 Metacritic Score after 10 reviews.
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What the fucking fuck IGN
What the fuck

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Lot of positive reviews so far! 8.5 and 9 mostly. Seems the reviewers find the game to be a great first step!
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I expected the outlets which aren't as enamoured with Nintendo - GameSpot, Eurogamer, Edge - to eat this game alive. With that in mind, I'm floored that GameSpot gave it a 9. Looks like Eurogamer is gonna eviscerate it after all, though...

EDIT: Just finished the GameSpot review. It's actually a good and informative review, but the author is showing her whole ass on Twitter. Gross. https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/259372-pokemon-sword/78156912
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TheCodeisBosco posted...

EDIT: Just finished the GameSpot review. It's actually a good and informative review, but the author is showing her whole ass on Twitter. Gross. https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/259372-pokemon-sword/78156912

I mean....is she wrong about the Pokemon fanbase being toxic?

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TheCodeisBosco posted...

I expected the outlets which aren't as enamoured with Nintendo - GameSpot, Eurogamer, Edge - to eat this game alive. With that in mind, I'm floored that GameSpot gave it a 9. Looks like Eurogamer is gonna eviscerate it after all, though...

EDIT: Just finished the GameSpot review. It's actually a good and informative review, but the author is showing her whole ass on Twitter. Gross. https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/259372-pokemon-sword/78156912

Good job totally not understanding that being mad at a game not having one of the series most important appeal is a dealbreaker to some people

If you enjoy the adventure, good for you
If you enjoy the battling, good for you
If you just enjoy petting Pokemon in Poke Amie or whatever, good for you!
But what if the main reason I enjoy Pokemon is the collection aspect and not having a full collection is hurting my enjoyment? I need to grow up?

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Oh wow this is the same reviewer that said "too much water" about ORAS? The backlash against that was dumb as shit. It's like almost the entire fanbase just forgot everyone said that about Gen 3 when it was new. I definitely understand why she has no love for Pokemon fans.

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HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

TheCodeisBosco posted...

EDIT: Just finished the GameSpot review. It's actually a good and informative review, but the author is showing her whole ass on Twitter. Gross. https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/259372-pokemon-sword/78156912

I mean....is she wrong about the Pokemon fanbase being toxic?

Honestly, I don't think the Pokemon fanbase has been that unreasonable. There have been some real pills, no doubt about it, but I think most critical folks have been understandable enough. A lot better than the Super Smash Bros. fanbase has been during the Ultimate era, that's for sure...

Folks like this author act entitled to a positive echo chamber. I don't think that's ever a good thing. As an example, I love Splatoon, and Splatoon 2 received a good deal of flak during its launch window. There were the brainlets making bad arguments - "It's just SPLATOON 1.5, maaan!" - and yeah, they could get stuffed. But there were plenty of reasonable criticisms about new weapons, Salmon Run and its limited hours, etc. Even as someone who loves Splatoon to this day, I think that type of healthy criticism is ultimately a good thing, and I feel the same way about Pokemon here.
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Shes right
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The reasoning they gave for the Dex cut was clearly nonsense, as the animations they've actually given us are pathetic in quality.

And they have no one to blame but themselves for the scrutiny they're under over it.
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You know GameFreak can have some criticism thrown its way AND the Pokemon fanbase can be toxic. It can be both.
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Right, it can be both. I'm not the one you need to say that too. That reviewer is acting like GameFreak can't come under criticism because the fanbase is toxic and honestly that's the stance most people defending them have taken.
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HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

Oh wow this is the same reviewer that said "too much water" about ORAS? The backlash against that was dumb as shit. It's like almost the entire fanbase just forgot everyone said that about Gen 3 when it was new. I definitely understand why she has no love for Pokemon fans.

Lmao, I just checked and this looks to be the case. Yeah, if this is the "too much water" reviewer we're talking about here, she deserves some extra leeway.
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https://twitter.com/lildom911/status/1194493230940745728?s=19

https://twitter.com/GeekyStoat/status/1194568971409743872/photo/1

GameFreak getting absolutely crucified on Twitter today.

I am not buying this game.
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ExThaNemesis posted...

I am not buying this game.

yEs YoU aRe. WhY eLsE aRe YoU tAlKiNg AbOuT iT??

Jk, that's the dumbest argument ever.
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Why on EARTH couldn't they just come out and say "Hey we fucked up on the transfer process, don't worry, the rest of the Pokemon will be patched in at a later date."

Literally EVERYONE would've accepted that.
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The animations being good was such an obvious lie to anyone familiar with the series. I don't know why they even bothered telling it.
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Honestly I don't actually care about any of that myself, my issue is that there's absolutely nothing about this that says "console pokemon game". It's just another handheld pokemon game but for the Switch. Like playing one of the old ones using a Gameboy player.

It running so poorly is pretty embarrassing though. I just don't think Gamefreak can actually make console games. Maybe it's time for a mainline entry to get moved to another dev for the first time.

Lol GameFreak patching anything. They clearly dont put the effort in because they know the game will sell millions of copies anyways

MichelBollinger posted...

It running so poorly is pretty embarrassing though.

really? my boyfriend got it early and played through like 3 hours and said he was surprised about how well the framerate was holding up, since he's not been a fan of all this Sword/Shield business either
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MichelBollinger posted...

https://twitter.com/lildom911/status/1194493230940745728?s=19

Honest question:

How were the animations in Let's Go? I didn't play that one but I also thought the reception was generally positive.

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I don't actually belive that. I think they do care. I just think there are literally not the right people at Gamefreak to have worked on a jump in resources like this. I have no doubt they put effort into this, but that can only go so far if you didn't bring anybody in to the team with modern console gaming experience, and this is just conjecture, but Gamefreak does not strike me as a studio super interested in new blood.

HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

MichelBollinger posted...

https://twitter.com/lildom911/status/1194493230940745728?s=19

Honest question:

How were the animations in Let's Go? I didn't play that one but I also thought the reception was generally positive.

No better, but people saw Let's Go as a low budget side game.

MichelBollinger posted...

No better, but people saw Let's Go as a low budget side game.

Right, but I thought the devs insisted they were considering it a main title.

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Bane_Of_Despair posted...

MichelBollinger posted...

It running so poorly is pretty embarrassing though.

really? my boyfriend got it early and played through like 3 hours and said he was surprised about how well the framerate was holding up, since he's not been a fan of all this Sword/Shield business either

Only basing this off clips from other sources showing absurd levels of pop in, framerate drops in in-game cutscenes, and screen tearing, but obviously that could all be people picking and choosing a handful of bad moments that don't actually represent the majority of the experience.

HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

MichelBollinger posted...

No better, but people saw Let's Go as a low budget side game.

Right, but I thought the devs insisted they were considering it a main title.

But people didn't believe them.

At least, people didn't WANT to believe them.

Oh wow.

I genuinely think (technical limitations aside), Gen I had some better move animations than that.
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GameFreak should've said "Due to the increased graphical quality of the Switch, we are budgeting for higher-quality animations instead of releasing a game with all one thousand Pokemon at the outset. Additional Pokemon will be made available in four waves following the game's release while our team works on their models. Thank you for your patience and understanding."

I think the Pokemon fans would still be infuriated by that, but they'd be the ones looking petty. So long as the game is good, which I don't know if it actually will be (especially if you can't turn EXP All off), more content can come later to keep people interested.

Questions I want answered:
1. Are HMs still gone? - Looks like even more so than in S&M
2. Is EXP All mandatory? - It seems to be innate, which is dumb because of the way EVs work.
3. Can you turn off that annoying thing that tells you what moves are effective? - From what I gather, it looks like it's NOT on the move selection, but is possibly under "More Info." That works better, and rectifies what was by far my biggest issue with S&M.
4. Does the game still tell you you're an idiot? - Seems to be LESS bad than S&M

I might utilize my Target discount and get them to match the Walmart sale to get the game for a reasonable price. I duly hope this is more enjoyable than the turd that was S&M, where the only good things were the starters and HMs going away.

TheCodeisBosco posted...

the author is showing her whole ass on Twitter. Gross

but is she HOT?
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I am morbidly curious how nuts it's going to be if this is the first mainline pokemon game to go under that mystical fake 80% threshold on Metacritic. It's looking like it might. Obviously it doesn't ACTUALLY matter, but the masses don't agree.

It probably will get a lot of negative user reviews just because of the cuts and stuff anyways.

I'd be kinda careful of what clips you take as gospel. There are a lot of people posting clips of gamebreaking "bugs" around that conveniently cut out where you can see the dude hacked the game and said screwiness is likely a result of said hacking.
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Roomate had an analogy I Iike: S&S feels less like a big jump to consoles, and more like when an annualized sports franchise has it's first release on a new generation of consoles.

swordz9 posted...

It probably will get a lot of negative user reviews just because of the cuts and stuff anyways.

User reviews are even more worthless. It fanboys and haters counterbombing the game with 10s and 1s respectively.

HashtagSEP posted...

I'd be kinda careful of what clips you take as gospel. There are a lot of people posting clips of gamebreaking "bugs" around that conveniently cut out where you can see the dude hacked the game and said screwiness is likely a result of said hacking.

I haven't actually seen any of this, just stuff like slowdown, pop-in, and tearing. I haven't actually gone to seak out anything in general, just what's been showing up for me naturally.

Even some of the more negative critic reviews seem to ignore that Pokmon hasnt had a good post game in ages or much to actually do in areas. Its been this way for a long time now

MichelBollinger posted...

HashtagSEP posted...

I'd be kinda careful of what clips you take as gospel. There are a lot of people posting clips of gamebreaking "bugs" around that conveniently cut out where you can see the dude hacked the game and said screwiness is likely a result of said hacking.

I haven't actually seen any of this, just stuff like slowdown, pop-in, and tearing. I haven't actually gone to seak out anything in general, just what's been showing up for me naturally.

Yeah, that's fair. It's just getting a push now as a reaction to reviews, people are like "look the game is a broken mess" when it's from a stream where the guy had 999 of every item and had changed the power of moves and who knows what else
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TheCodeisBosco posted...

I expected the outlets which aren't as enamoured with Nintendo - GameSpot, Eurogamer, Edge - to eat this game alive. With that in mind, I'm floored that GameSpot gave it a 9. Looks like Eurogamer is gonna eviscerate it after all, though...

EDIT: Just finished the GameSpot review. It's actually a good and informative review, but the author is showing her whole ass on Twitter. Gross. https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/259372-pokemon-sword/78156912

Why would we need to grown up?
We arent entitled cry babies, maybe the trolls should grow the f*** up.. But we fans arent them, so we dont need to grow up.

this is the post of someone who doesn't need to grow up

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MichelBollinger posted...

User reviews are even more worthless. It fanboys and haters counterbombing the game with 10s and 1s respectively.

I value user opinions more than critic opinions because there's no money being paid to users for that.

This is a rare exception of me thinking otherwise, because so many idiots - both the haters and the defenders - are judging the game before it comes out. I can't trust any opinions but my own.
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BlueCrystalTear posted...

I value user opinions more than critic opinions because there's no money being paid to users for that.

Bruh please.

I wouldn't be surprised if the game recieved very normal or slightly low scores

If you zoom out for a minute, pokemon games have had an identical formula for 20 years.

The game clearly delivers a basic pokemon experience as visible to the average non-fan, so how low of a score can a reviewer reasonably give it? If the missing pokemon were implemented tomorrow, how much higher should the score be?

I used to go nuts over every change in every wow expansion. One was the worst, one was the best, and that was certainly true, but those changes didn't matter to my friends who either never played or always played

They simply either were or were not interested in the core gameplay loop

This might be the shittiest pokemon game, but really all pokemon games are probably within 1 or 1.5 points of each other on the grand scale
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MichelBollinger posted...

BlueCrystalTear posted...

I value user opinions more than critic opinions because there's no money being paid to users for that.

Bruh please.

What? User reviews are honest retrospectives - so long as you filter out the clear idiots who give 10/10s liberally (very few games deserve that score, but I'd round up some of my 9.5s) or ever give a 1/10 to a game that clearly doesn't deserve it. Critic reviews are done by people paid to rush through the game, so often times they don't get a full experience. And plus, since those reviews get more clicks, the developer can "invest" money in a superior review score. That's exactly why garbage like Call of Duty became so big. User reviews are done by people like us because we want to do them.
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So far not as good as Death Stranding
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OK man enjoy your 2012 gamergate mentality.

BlueCrystalTear posted...

I value user opinions more than critic opinions because there's no money being paid to users for that.

lmao you still believe companies pay reviewers to review games.
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Note that I said "can" be paid off. I didn't say how often it happens in this day and age - it's way less than it once was.

swirIdude posted...

lmao you still believe companies pay reviewers to review games.

Critics themselves are paid by the publication, like GameSpot or IGN.
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Yeah because it's their JOB. They have a JOB.

"I don't trust chefs to make my food because they're paid by the restaurant."

TheCodeisBosco posted...

I expected the outlets which aren't as enamoured with Nintendo - GameSpot, Eurogamer, Edge - to eat this game alive. With that in mind, I'm floored that GameSpot gave it a 9. Looks like Eurogamer is gonna eviscerate it after all, though...

EDIT: Just finished the GameSpot review. It's actually a good and informative review, but the author is showing her whole ass on Twitter. Gross. https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/259372-pokemon-sword/78156912

Did you mean that literally?
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