Board 8 > Pokemon Sword/Shield Review Zone

(+) Yeah! (+)

BlueCrystalTear posted...

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.

Or

OR

People really liked CoD4 because it was a legitimately good game, and then the games have just mostly had minor changes in each iteration since, so those that still like the gameplay still buy it.

I know it's crazy that people may like games that you don't, but I really think I'm on to something, here.
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I was only half joking about the 2012 thing, but "I think CoD sucks so obviously those reviews are paid off" is truly the coldest take around.

And I don't even LIKE CoD.

BlueCrystalTear posted...

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.

most of the cods are good, this is a dumb post

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This seems like such a low review count for such a high profile game. I wonder if a lot of publications are waiting until Friday since there's still an embargo in place on what they can say.
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I hate the fact that they're limiting the Pokemon you can catch in the wild via gym badges. It's a single player game for fuck's sake, if I want to catch a high level Pokemon in the wild and cheese through the game, I should be able to do it.

Also, it would suck if you found a shiny and couldn't catch it. I might actually feel a tad better about the mechanic if you could catch shinies at any level regardless of badges, that would make finding a shiny amazing not just for collection reasons, but gameplay reasons too.
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RySenkari posted...

Also, it would suck if you found a shiny and couldn't catch it. I might actually feel a tad better about the mechanic if you could catch shinies at any level regardless of badges, that would make finding a shiny amazing not just for collection reasons, but gameplay reasons too.

https://www.usgamer.net/articles/pokemons-level-limits-wont-stop-you-from-collecting-shiny-pokemon
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MichelBollinger posted...

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."

I see that you are unable to comprehend the difference. I trust chefs because I'm paying the restaurant for the food they cook, and I'm CHOOSING a restaurant based on that food. I'm not paying anything to read a game review blog, and their "job" is having opinions, not providing a direct service. They also have to have a review done by a certain deadline, and they might not have experienced everything. It's two completely different systems.

HashtagSEP posted...

I know it's crazy that people may like games that you don't, but I really think I'm on to something, here.

Putting words I didn't say in my mouth doesn't change what Activision did back then.
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BlueCrystalTear posted...

Putting words I didn't say in my mouth doesn't change what Activision did back then.

Care to elaborate
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MajinZidane posted...

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?

Lol, thankfully not. That phrase just means "making a fool of oneself".

mnkboy907 posted...

This seems like such a low review count for such a high profile game. I wonder if a lot of publications are waiting until Friday since there's still an embargo in place on what they can say.

Yeah, this has felt like an unusually slow drip of information. I feel like Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey had 30+ reviews posted within minutes of the embargo lifting, but I could be remembering incorrectly.
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I don't believe in "paid reviews"
I don't want to believe it's a thing..it might be..somewhere, I dunno, but come on..

The IGN review feels more like she has a personal vendetta against the fans and want to stick a middle finger in their face by giving it such a high score

But I admit I am not objective enough in this matter
Still, this is what I feel


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banananor posted...

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

Most of the Pokemon community think every game is made for THEM, when the core fanbase for GameFreak has always been new players. The only generation were this wasn't the case is Gen II. Every other game is basically meant to be your first experience with Pokmon. It's why most of them are such a slog to get through in the beginning and there's few references to older games.
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Nanis23 posted...

I don't believe in "paid reviews"
I don't want to believe it's a thing..it might be..somewhere, I dunno, but come on..

The IGN review feels more like she has a personal vendetta against the fans and want to stick a middle finger in their face by giving it such a high score

But I admit I am not objective enough in this matter
Still, this is what I feel

I did not get a spiteful vibe, but I did just read the IGN review and it feels decidedly off - sort of manic, even? The author does a lot of over-the-top raving about really basic shit. It feels less like a typical game review and more like something written by an Instagram "influencer".
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HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

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

what kind of society are we living in where being critical to obvious corporate corner-cutting is considered toxic.
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SantaRPidgey posted...

HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

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

what kind of society are we living in where being critical to obvious corporate corner-cutting is considered toxic.

What rock are you living under if you think that's all that's been happening the past five months.
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mnkboy907 posted...

RySenkari posted...

Also, it would suck if you found a shiny and couldn't catch it. I might actually feel a tad better about the mechanic if you could catch shinies at any level regardless of badges, that would make finding a shiny amazing not just for collection reasons, but gameplay reasons too.

https://www.usgamer.net/articles/pokemons-level-limits-wont-stop-you-from-collecting-shiny-pokemon

...did you read the article? Their argument is "you can just avoid battling them to avoid them being shiny"

How are people being critical being called toxic but not people who are out and out putting out misleading articles to defend game freak not?
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I mean that article says those Pokmon arent capable of being shiny if Im reading it right

However, there's no need to fear coming across a super strong shiny Pokemon you can't catch: these "very strong Pokemon" aren't random spawns. They're anchored to a certain part of the Wild Area, and they don't seem to come in shiny varieties.

Also the IGN review is done by the "too much water" lady.

She's not getting paid off, but IGN gets its hits from upsetting people. Their demographic is people who go to IGN to make fun of it. It's the same reason the NYT publishes recipes like guac with peas. Outrage gets clicks.
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swordz9 posted...

I mean that article says those Pokmon arent capable of being shiny if Im reading it right

They're anchored to a certain part of the Wild Area, and they don't seem to come in shiny varieties

"don't seem to come" means "I don't know for sure"
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SantaRPidgey posted...

mnkboy907 posted...

RySenkari posted...

Also, it would suck if you found a shiny and couldn't catch it. I might actually feel a tad better about the mechanic if you could catch shinies at any level regardless of badges, that would make finding a shiny amazing not just for collection reasons, but gameplay reasons too.

https://www.usgamer.net/articles/pokemons-level-limits-wont-stop-you-from-collecting-shiny-pokemon

...did you read the article? Their argument is "you can just avoid battling them to avoid them being shiny"

How are people being critical being called toxic but not people who are out and out putting out misleading articles to defend game freak not?

But that's not their argument at all, did you read the article? They say the strong Pokemon are scripted encounters and seem to be shiny locked.
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Thats fair. I mean shiny are rare enough anyways that maybe 1 in 100,000 people would even see a shiny very strong Pokmon anyways. Ive been playing since the first gen and even played several multiple times and have only ever naturally encountered like 3 shiny Pokmon...

Shinies are so rare that I'll only believe they can't be shiny if a datamine says so.
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SantaRPidgey posted...

Also the IGN review is done by the "too much water" lady.

She's not getting paid off, but IGN gets its hits from upsetting people. Their demographic is people who go to IGN to make fun of it. It's the same reason the NYT publishes recipes like guac with peas. Outrage gets clicks.

The "too much water" reviewer wrote the GameSpot review. The IGN one is apparently by a huge Pokemon fangirl? I guess that explains how over-the-top that review feels.
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whoops yeah I switched up the name, my bad

replace IGN with gamespot
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BlueCrystalTear posted...

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.

This game isnt on PS4, 0/10
User reviews are toilet paper
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that woman is 100% correct, the pokemon fanbase has shown themselves to be hilariously toxic in the months leading up to the sword/shield release
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Naye745 posted...

that woman is 100% correct, the pokemon fanbase has shown themselves to be hilariously toxic in the months leading up to the sword/shield release

Expressing yourself in a shitty way doesn't mean you are not right

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Naye745 posted...

that woman is 100% correct, the pokemon fanbase has shown themselves to be hilariously toxic in the months leading up to the sword/shield release

Yeah, I definitely agree with her as well. I have had to avoid the subreddit for like the past week now because of how entitled and whiny it has become.

That isn't necessarily exclusive to the pokemon fanbase as I've found reddit in general to be intolerable when they target their outrage circlejerk somewhere but this has been particularly annoying.
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Nanis23 posted...

Expressing yourself in a shitty way doesn't mean you are not right

No, but it does mean you're acting shitty and no one is required to entertain your shittiness

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Im not sure if anywhere is worse than the GameFAQs Pokmon board. Like a good 90% of the topics are toxic and then theres all the topic posts too.

TheCodeisBosco posted...

Yeah, this has felt like an unusually slow drip of information. I feel like Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey had 30+ reviews posted within minutes of the embargo lifting, but I could be remembering incorrectly.

They stopped sending out early review copies once the leaks started happening.
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Gamexplain review:

https://youtu.be/iYyFpKtsvWI

Surprised he was as down on it as he was, but appreciate the honesty. I mean he still liked it of course, but that's a pretty low "score" for them.
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https://twitter.com/EmperorBigD/status/1194663230192463874?s=19
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But I already played it over a year ago. What do I do now?
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Play it again.

If you bought Pokemon you'd basically be playing the same thing again anyway.

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MichelBollinger posted...

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

There is something funny about seeing this specific clip getting spread around as much as I've seen (saw it in the previous topic here too), considering what happens right after it's cut off -- the rabbit gets hit from an invisible G-Max, both pokemon stand at 0 HP, and the game just hangs indefinitely. Of course this was the guy who used hacks in his game so this is likely not something that would happen in normal playthroughs, but I just find that kind of funny.
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Is it possible that hacking messed up the Double Kick animation?

....also that music's pretty annoying

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Not unless it also messed up the E3 demo that had the same animation.
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Not to give GF a pass on having bad animations, but is Double Kick really the hill to die on here? I honestly have trouble caring about trash moves like Double Kick and Tail Whip. I'm more interested in seeing animations on bigger stuff people will see more - trainers, competitive staple attacks, Dynamax forms and moves. More attention should be paid to those.

Either way it is a small bummer it is shaping up to look like more of a handheld game in HD, apart from the wild area.

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Suprak the Stud posted...

Naye745 posted...

that woman is 100% correct, the pokemon fanbase has shown themselves to be hilariously toxic in the months leading up to the sword/shield release

entitled

This word has become so bastardized in the past couple years that I don't even know if anyone has any idea what it means anymore.

GameFreak has, at best, stretched the truth about this game's development, and at worst, outright lied to all of its fans. It's not an entitled attitude to find that objectionable, and sticking your head in the sand and pretending that all of the vitriol is coming from manchildren that are crying over one particular favorite Pokemon not being in the game or something is, at this point, a deliberate misrepresentation that I just don't understand.
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I think the issue is that the majority of the stuff people are complaining about now have been issues with the series for years, yet they never complained before, so it's hard to not assume they still wouldn't be complaining if all the Pokemon were in the game.
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You have clearly not read the pokemon subreddit and for that I envy you because that is nowhere near the limit of what they are saying.
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Also yeah

It'd be one thing if people were able to express their disappointment/complaints in a mature manner

Instead it's "FUCK YOU SHILLS IF YOU BUY THIS GAME I HOPE YOU GET CANCER" everywhere
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Maybe its more "spoiled" than "entitled" but honestly both apply pretty well.

I WANT IT THIS WAY

Well maybe they did it this way for these reasons you'll see when you play the game.

I DON'T WANT RATIONALE I WANT IT THE WAY I WANT IT
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HashtagSEP posted...

Also yeah

It'd be one thing if people were able to express their disappointment/complaints in a mature manner

Instead it's "FUCK YOU SHILLS IF YOU BUY THIS GAME I HOPE YOU GET CANCER" everywhere

I see someone has been to the pokemon subreddit.

(It isn't quite that severe but it is honestly pretty close)
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Suprak the Stud posted...

You have clearly not read the pokemon subreddit and for that I envy you because that is nowhere near the limit of what they are saying.

I visit the subreddit semi-frequently but I'll allow that I don't go much further than the most upvoted posts, so if you can direct me to some actual unreasonable complaints there I'd be happy to amend my statement.

Either way, it's hard for me imagine "entitled" is the proper term.
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Bane_Of_Despair posted...

You know GameFreak can have some criticism thrown its way AND the Pokemon fanbase can be toxic. It can be both.

This is the correct take

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There's also been a ton of "you incels will buy it anyway," "you're an ungrateful prick if you complain," "look at these manchildren caring about a CHILDREN'S SERIES," etc.

I don't think it's a matter of SwSh defenders or boycotters being particularly worse than the other. I think the split is just a matter of who can remember that this is a video game, these are strangers on the Internet and none of it is worth taking personally... and then those who can't.
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Suprak the Stud posted...

HashtagSEP posted...

Also yeah

It'd be one thing if people were able to express their disappointment/complaints in a mature manner

Instead it's "FUCK YOU SHILLS IF YOU BUY THIS GAME I HOPE YOU GET CANCER" everywhere

I see someone has been to the pokemon subreddit.

(It isn't quite that severe but it is honestly pretty close)

As always, Reddit is a special kind of abysmal. Amazes me how bad it's gotten.
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Just took a look at the Pokemon subreddit for the first time, and while the negativity on it goes farther than my personal feelings, this thread is pretty spot-on

https://www.reddit.com/r/pokemon/comments/dvtu54/something_the_reviews_have_made_clear_a_new/

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Nanis23 posted...

I need to grow up?

Yes

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