Author Topic: Pokemon Sword and Shield - The good and the bad  (Read 5865 times)

bruh this 100%. i completed one pokemon game and now im content

so your saying u played gold/silver/crystal and you didn't even try ruby/sapphire/emerald or what, wtf

They are not all the same. for instance, from gen 2 to 3 they introduced secret bases, the running shoes, pokemon contests and poke blocks among many other new things.

all i played was pokemon rumble on wii. i would try out pokemon again if only i had the current consoles

Personally i loved pokemon during my earlier years, but as i grew older i strayed from the series because i had less and less time to get invested in pokemon. I remember criticizing the designs of black/white and coming to love them years later, now i take a good look at some of sword/shield's designs and i can't help but think that the majority of the pokemon created were created by different artists from the last games.

I've played all of the games, with the exception of eevee/pikachu. Here are my gripes with pokemon as of now.

Pokemon has lost it's "soul".
I've been reading into this, but over the years the flavor and definition of pokemon hasn't resonated with long time fans such as myself. Sure we get new pokemon, and a new story every once in a while is nice, but it isn't the same. This wasn't a long time change either, I'm willing to state that pokemon started to stagnate for a lot of people after black/white 2. The game was made much much easier for players in the later titles. Some argue that it's just the transition to 3d, but i disagree. A lot of neat designs came out of the later titles like sun/moon, but the core gameplay loop of the new games is altered in a way that is uncomfortable. HMs were slowly faded out, they were a pain sure, we can all agree that they took up vital moveslots, but they were essential for unlocking and exploring later parts of the game. It made you going back worthwhile, it gave the areas we explored in the first half of the game a second purpose. HMs are useless now anyways because a typical pokemon journey today consists of a linear path with little variation. The older titles gave you freedom of choice to explore and battle gym leaders in no particular order.

The Introduction of a party-wide XP share destroys any aspect of training your team. Leveling your team used to take thought and strategy. Now any moron with a type advantage can steamroll an entire section of the game and the rest of their team gains levels without even participating. That's not challenging, that's intended laziness. There's not even an option to turn off XP share (UNLESS YOU PLAY X/Y, BUT THE GAME NEVER NOTIFIES YOU OF THE OPTION IN THE KEY ITEMS POCKET OF YOUR BAG). If there was a difficulty option with XP share on AND off, i wouldn't have a problem with it. It forces you to think critically about your party and their stats (even though a large % pay no attention to their pokemon's EV/IVS anyway). I digress, as of sword/shield, there's absolutely no way of turning off XP share. Its hard baked into the loop now.

The introduction of mega evolutions was great, but they are (for now) thrown away for gigantamax. I don't really have an opinion on gigantamax, it's just a silly gimmick to give people some eye candy.

Also, something extremely nitpicky, but the starters loving suck. I'm not going to beat around the bush, they all lack expression and character. Like, from an artists standpoint, that's a really poor first impression of the rest of your roster. Also something else, why are all the final evos of starters anthropomorphic? I've noticed this throughout some of the more recent titles, your starters are either all bipedal or all human shaped. This wasn't an issue in past games, usually you had two on all fours and one bipedal or vise versa. They may have stood on two feet but they were different enough from people to actually still be considered pokemon.

Cinderace could literally be a guy in a loving fursuit, and none of us would be the wiser.

One final note. It doesn't help that sword/shield is a demo of what we were actually supposed to receive. Anyone skeptical about sword/shield would be interested to know that the success of pokemon go prompted gamefreak to make a mobile pokemon game with the intention of linking it with go. That game was sword/shield, but the success of eevee/pikachu also prompted gamefreak to port the game over to the switch. This was all planned from the beginning of pokemon let's go. If the switch pokemon game flopped, they would exclusively make games for mobile, but luckily it didn't and sword/shield seem to be doing well given the needed criticism.

I still stand by my statement that the heartgold/soulsilver/platinum games are the definitive pokemon titles that stay true to the formula without adding in a bunch of random bullstuff to pad time.


so your saying u played gold/silver/crystal and you didn't even try ruby/sapphire/emerald or what, wtf

They are not all the same. for instance, from gen 2 to 3 they introduced secret bases, the running shoes, pokemon contests and poke blocks among many other new things.

still feels the same lol

sobble's final evo is honestly one of my favorite pokemon
On the topic of the starter evos, personally, i think Scorbunny has the best line, Sobble's emo phase is a bit odd, but i like it's final form, Grookey's second form just looks kinda bad, like it's wearing some kind of banana suit, but it's final form looks good

What was the idea with Grookey's second form?

sobble's final evo looks like some gay polituber's fursona who's about to explain why child labor laws are bad

sobble's final evo looks like some gay polituber's fursona who's about to explain why child labor laws are bad
even has the pose

The Introduction of a party-wide XP share destroys any aspect of training your team. Leveling your team used to take thought and strategy. Now any moron with a type advantage can steamroll an entire section of the game and the rest of their team gains levels without even participating. That's not challenging, that's intended laziness. There's not even an option to turn off XP share (UNLESS YOU PLAY X/Y, BUT THE GAME NEVER NOTIFIES YOU OF THE OPTION IN THE KEY ITEMS POCKET OF YOUR BAG). If there was a difficulty option with XP share on AND off, i wouldn't have a problem with it. It forces you to think critically about your party and their stats (even though a large % pay no attention to their pokemon's EV/IVS anyway). I digress, as of sword/shield, there's absolutely no way of turning off XP share. Its hard baked into the loop now.
I never understand why people say xp share makes pokemon too easy and takes away challenge when the games are already easy af to begin with and XP share literally just makes the game way less grindy which is a good thing tbh

People who talk smack about EXP Share must like repetitive tedium in their video games

You still have to switch 'Mons in and out if you want certain party members to get more EXP than others
« Last Edit: November 28, 2019, 07:40:46 PM by Masterlegodude »

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so your saying u played gold/silver/crystal and you didn't even try ruby/sapphire/emerald or what, wtf

They are not all the same. for instance, from gen 2 to 3 they introduced secret bases, the running shoes, pokemon contests and poke blocks among many other new things.
just turn based combat tho

just turn based combat tho
do you know how many games use a turn based combat system?

-snip-
Yeah, it's become too linear in those aspects. The EXP share would be great if you could choose to disable it, now training a single pokemon means you have to dump all your other pokemon in a box which I hate. They should have just kept the EXP share the way it was. Personally, I felt the starters were not that bad but shiny locking them and then also making their shiny forms look like stuff compared to the default was not a good choice. Seriously just look at shiny Cinderace, what a terrible reskin



I do like their moves and the designs seem pokemon enough to me, imo better than sun and moon but i suppose they could have done better. The absolute worst part about this game is how it's not actually a 3D open world to explore but rather a short sub-par storyline with one area where you actually have camera control. The game is just too short and small with not enough to do, I don't regret buying the game because it was fun while it lasted but I do feel a bit ripped off paying 60 dollars for a game with such little replay value

Why do the starters even have shiny variants if they're shiny locked? How else would you get them?

Why do the starters even have shiny variants if they're shiny locked? How else would you get them?
breeding because thats super fun and not loving horrible