Current Events > Disregarding Dexit, are Sword and Shield good?

(+) Yeah! (+)

CE is the only place I can trust to be unbiased.


---

Cheese_Crackers posted...

CE is the only place I can trust to be unbiased.

Lulz.

---

Seems barren of content and animation.

---

Eh. I think theyre better than Sun and Moon but there is absolutely zero exploration or dungeons in the game.

---

They're fine enough for $40 or so, but you're not getting an experience that'll capture your whimsy like Crystal or Emerald. I think the review bombing and the really bad bitching about it is way too far, and stuff about this game like the culmination of the main story with the legendaries and the music is really good, but I think I paid too much money for it and I didn't enjoy it as completely and on as many levels as I enjoyed Emerald and Crystal back in the day.

Keep in mind that in both games, I didn't even enjoy the Battle Tower/Frontier. I just enjoyed the campaigns. SwSh fell short from my favorite Pokemon games, and I honestly could have Shield alone and gone on with my life to little or no consequence.

Granted, that's coming from a 24 year old talking about a game that failed to compare to childhood defining games - there's going to be inherent bias in that judgement. But that's how I felt. It was a solid enough game, but don't expect something that'll capture your attention like the game/s you grew up with.

---

"Hop took back the Rusted Shield!"

lmao

---

Like, at worst, SwSh falls back into standard Pokemon trappings and cliches. The issue is that there's not a whole lot that rises above it.

If you're gonna get one of the games, I recommend waiting for a price drop or a cheap sale copy. Like, I defend Final Fantasy XIII on an aesthetic level and because the story is serviceable enough if you're willing to lower your expectations - but that's only because I bought it for $10. It's a fine enough game, but don't go spending upwards of $80 on it.

---

I'm hoping they release a physical version that invites DLC, even if it's just a voucher. I might pick it up then. As disappointing the lack of polish is, Pokmon is still Pokmon so it'll be a decent enough time.

---

They're good for going in blind and seeing all the new Pokemon and forms for the first time, but the game is overall pathetically easy, and has a piss-poor postgame where all you have is the Battle Tower (which itself is neutered from past incarnations) and the Wild Area's Max Raids.

Definitely the weakest game in the series, and it's a shame that it's also one of the best-selling entries (if not outright the best-selling one).

---

Solar_Crimson posted...

They're good for going in blind and seeing all the new Pokemon and forms for the first time, but the game is overall pathetically easy, and has a piss-poor postgame where all you have is the Battle Tower (which itself is neutered from past incarnations) and the Wild Area's Max Raids.

Definitely the weakest game in the series, and it's a shame that it's also one of the best-selling entries (if not outright the best-selling one).

Idk if the total has gone up substantially, but every Pokemon gen since gen 3 has sold ~16 million units at initial release (with another boost for the third version). Sw/Sh sold about the same last I checked.

---

honestly depends how into pokemon you are. If you are hardcore into pokemon and want to do everything possible in the cartridge games, then you'll find it slightly lacking. But if you are a, I wanna build a team and get thru the gyms and become champion and tend to fall off after that, this is the best pokemon gen since gen 5. Dexit really doesn't matter unless you are doing lots and lots of stuff. The available pokemon you can get right from the start way outweighs the lack of final count.

---

Have you played a Pokmon game withing the last 5 years? It's pretty much more of the same. Whether that's good or bad is up to you.

---

no

---

Solar_Crimson posted...

They're good for going in blind and seeing all the new Pokemon and forms for the first time, but the game is overall pathetically easy, and has a piss-poor postgame where all you have is the Battle Tower (which itself is neutered from past incarnations) and the Wild Area's Max Raids.

Definitely the weakest game in the series, and it's a shame that it's also one of the best-selling entries (if not outright the best-selling one).

This, but there's also the issue of an overwhelming amount of cutscenes, cutting out a lot of the exploration elements that were present in the earlier games, and Sword and Shield holding your hand the entire time which ruins most of the storytelling the game has to offer. (Characters like Hop and Bede have interesting character arcs, but is completely ruined by having it be so blatant and awkwardly shoved in your face basically every 5 seconds.

Now I enjoyed the ever-loving **** out of Sw/Sh when I first picked it up, but I haven't touched it since December, which is not at all how I usually treat the Pokemon games.

Also, if you want to go farther about the lack of post game, the introduction of Dynamax and the Dex cut has more or less ruined the competitive/online game (even Smogon and stuff has gotten pretty bad IMO) which is basically all there was to do in previous post-games as well.

I probably liked it more than Sun and Moon, but not as good as Gen 5 and 6

---

I feel like it's the best since Gen 5 (the bar is pretty damn low).

---

I think I got to the 5th gym and haven't played it since. I liked the wild area more than I thought I would but the game wasn't really very fun to me. I intend to finish it at some point.

I also think I've just kind of grew out of Pokmon. I used to try to get all event pokemon, had been working on a living dex with a competitive mon for all fully evolved... and then I just kind of lost interest. Gen 6 was the last time I played a lot of.

---

My honest to God belief, TC, is that they're unfinished/rushed, but not necessarily bad. Some points to consider:

Cons

• The game has very little actual story. There's not much that happens outside of you going to the next gym to get a badge. Occasionally there's little bits of story that take place, but they all happen almost exclusively off-screen, and a character tells you what happened.
• The game is REALLY bad with padding. You go through long stretches of meaningless battles, but very little actually going on, which adds to the feeling that the game was rushed out.
• Team Yell is a great idea in concept, but they don't actually do much in the game, and end up being the worst bad-guy-team in the entire franchise IMO. I won't spoil anything, but don't go into it thinking theres gonna be a cool story/development with them.
• The main gameplay gimmick, Dynamax, is kind of underutilized. You can only do it in gyms and the wild area, so you don't actually get to have much fun with it. On top of that, if theres a specific Pokemon with a cool gigantamax form you want, you need to first hope you find one in a raid, which is hard enough. If you're lucky enough to find one, you then need to be lucky enough to catch it too, since you only get one Ball attempt to catch it. If you happened to catch a Pokemon you really like outside of a raid, there's absolutely no way to give it the special GX form.
• The potshots people took at the textures/graphics are legitimate. Animations in particular are baaaaad. It doesn't necessarily get in the way of the game, but overall just gives the game a very unpolished feel to it, which goes back to me thinking it was rushed.
• There isn't a great deal of sidequests or much to do outside of the main story. You can explore the wild area, but unless you're a hardcore completionist, you'll get bored of it quick.
• The game has some notoriously unfair conditions for catching some Pokemon. Certain species have a 1% spawn rate and only appear in certain weather. Not a huge deal, but if you're focused on catching em all, it's gonna be a huge PITA.

Now to be fair, it has some positives too.

Pros

• The region itself is really cool and does a good job of capturing the culture of the UK.
• The music is better than it's been for the past few games.
• There's a decent number of QOL changes they made to help raising Pokemon like EXP candies that level your team up, ways to reset their IVs/EVs if you're into that, etc.
• There's the expansion packs coming out soon? I dunno if that counts as a pro.
• Also the new Pokemon are all pretty damn cool.

---

It's really undercooked. Has some great concepts but needed another year ot two of development.

It's bland, has problems with constant interruptions, and can feel very on-the-rails. The wild area feels a little slapped together as well.


---

Oh! I busy remembered one more Pro I left out of my big dumb list above,

After years of fans asking, they finally gave us a jerk-rival again. Bede is a good-old fashioned douche antagonist, which we haven't had in a while. (Though Hop, your main rival is pretty uninteresting)

---

I thought it was pretty good and I put a lot into it but I love Pokemon so idk

It's good for a first-time playthrough, but it has a severe lack of postgame content until the DLC comes out, and the story is short and linear enough that it has a lot less replay value than past Pokemon games too. The game's also bad from a quality perspective too. It looks and feels like a 3DS game ported up to the Switch. The new Pokemon designs are neat and quality of life changes are great, and the idea of adding content with DLC rather than just releasing an "upgraded version" is good too, but the game itself just doesn't have much substance to it.

If you really want to try, try to find a cheap used copy or wait for a "collector's edition" with all of the DLC bundled in. But it's not worth $60 right now,
---

GallisOTK posted...

or wait for a "collector's edition" with all of the DLC bundled in.

I doubt that will ever happen.

---

Bryfang posted...

https://youtu.be/oPx0pCH5oh8

*clap clap clap* gets me every time lmao

---

It feels like a poorly optimized remaster of an incomplete 3DS game.

MrMallard posted...

Like, at worst, SwSh falls back into standard Pokemon trappings and cliches. The issue is that there's not a whole lot that rises above it.

If you're gonna get one of the games, I recommend waiting for a price drop or a cheap sale copy. Like, I defend Final Fantasy XIII on an aesthetic level and because the story is serviceable enough if you're willing to lower your expectations - but that's only because I bought it for $10. It's a fine enough game, but don't go spending upwards of $80 on it.

Pretty much.

---

Solar_Crimson posted...

I doubt that will ever happen.

"Version DynaSword and Version GigantoShield"

---

SerperiorThanU posted...

It actually kind of surprised me that sold so well since while X and Sun came out during a dearth of 3ds games during their period, Switch already had a bunch of bangers.

I disagree. 2013 was actually a very strong year for the 3DS.

---

Solar_Crimson posted...

I disagree. 2013 was actually a very strong year for the 3DS.

This. X and Y came out right when the 3DS was really hitting its stride and there were a few good years before it started winding down.

Sun and Moon being on the 3DS was weird tho, but you could probably attribute it to trying to keep the 3DS going for a few more years (which it did pretty well). Remember when GF had to make an announcement saying "yeah, we know, Gen 8 on the switch stop complaining"?

Dynamax battles are a chore they take so long to get through because of the shields

---

Bryfang posted...

https://youtu.be/oPx0pCH5oh8

lol
---

It went all in on the competitive play aspect and made finding and training the team you most desire the easiest thing ever. Even down to letting you rig stats so you don't waste your life breeding and carefully EV battling just the right pokemon. It turned a 100+ hour chore into about a 20-40 hour fare of selective building and light grinding.

Everything else took a backseat. The story is non-existent, the overall number of pokemon reduced, a region that is bare bones while they stretched their legs building a 3D environment, and an underlying attitude from the devs that seems to scream that they're actually tired of Pokemon (at least, that's what I gathered from my playthrough of it).

---

It's honestly pretty bad. People who find it fun find the foundation of the game fun and some of the ease of mechanics that shouldn't have been so restrictive in the first place.

Otherwise there's nothing redeeming about this game. Region is horseshit, animations are horse shit, story doesn't exist, voice acting doesn't exist for scenes that are ultra awkward without it, difficulty is literally backwards, etc etc

---

Lunar_Savage posted...

It went all in on the competitive play aspect and made finding and training the team you most desire the easiest thing ever. Even down to letting you rig stats so you don't waste your life breeding and carefully EV battling just the right pokemon. It turned a 100+ hour chore into about a 20-40 hour fare of selective building and light grinding.

Which I think is such a shame considering it also kind of ruined competitive battling. Dynamax is just way too overpowered and the Dex cut removes a lot of viable pokemon that led to stuff like Clefable, Toxapex, Corviknight, etc... being way too hard to break through. (Clefable was on 40% of Smogon teams in April) and IMO it just makes playing competitively no fun.

VGC is a little bit better, with doubles making the super defensive pokemon less viable, but its still strapped in terms of decent pokemon and dynamax completely breaks the format.

Competitive is absolutely easier to get into, but another part of those efforts just ruined the meta game IMO.

For me the game is mediocre. A lot of the hype came from it being a Pokemon Title on the Switch and a new region. They relied on that hype to carry the game but it really couldn't. Even for a Pokemon game is severely lacked a plot. The Wild Area is cool at first but really lack luster, very boring. The towns aside from the starting ones are very underdeveloped relying on one cool feature to make them seem great.

The game overall just feels really rushed to get a Pokemon title that wasn't a remake on the Switch.

---