Pokémon Sword and Shield are a bit of a conundrum.
It's possible to have a blast with them yet also want them to be better, more cohesive, and robust.
On one hand, various quality of life improvements are very appreciated,
and Game Freak once again demonstrates how capable they are of creating enticing monster designs.
On the other, the games’ rigid structure feels stifling,
and many of the best ideas are frustratingly underdeveloped.
If you've played and enjoyed Pokémon before, you largely know what you're in for,
even if there are brief moments when the games hint at something greater and more ambitious.
Once again, you play as an aspiring pokémon trainer who travels across a large region
defeating gym leaders in an effort to become a champion.
The various cities that you inevitably visit come with an abundance of personality.
The industrial Motostoke has tufts of steam puffing out of the ground,
giant turning wheels that loom overhead,
and a large rotating lift that carries you from one level of the city to another.
Ballonlea is completely different.
The lush city is basked in neon thanks to the glowing colorful mushrooms widely spread throughout.
There is certainly joy in uncovering these locations
because of how much each one conveys its own brand of coziness.
Unfortunately, a lot of the appeal is skin deep.
There generally isn't that much to do at any of these locations, and worse still
is that the gyms themselves, presented as challenges of skill,
feel disappointingly similar despite being technically different.
The second gym is water themed,
and in order to fight the leader, the player must turn different water pipes on and off
in order to create a path forward.
It's a pretty basic idea as far as puzzles go, and the implementation here
is so rudimentary that you just sort of get through it in the blink of an eye
without much thought or fanfare.
The same is true of so many of the gimmicks that accompany the gyms.
Some of these gyms even have legitimately interesting ideas, but they’re hindered by such simple execution.
Actual fights against the gym leaders carry a similar sort of sentiment.
As long as you're aware of type matchups, it's easy to completely bulldoze your opponents,
especially if you're someone who likes to thoroughly explore, battle, and capture pokémon.
The new dynamax mechanic does little to add any sort of variety as well.
By dynamaxing a pokémon, they become more powerful for a limited time,
but because both you and your opponent can do it, it doesn't meaningfully change battles.
When a gym leader dynamaxes their pokémon, you can just do the same, and
if you already had an advantage, it pretty much stays that way.
It's not that these fights need to have an insurmountable level of difficulty, but rather
they feel so much alike that battles blur together.
At least there are light touches in the presentation that add some flavor.
Sometimes when a pokémon dynamaxes, they change in appearance, referred to as gigantamaxing.
Seeing how any one pokémon alters upon becoming the size of a skyscraper is a surprising delight.
It's just too bad gigantamaxing doesn't happen more frequently and with more pokémon.
The music during a gym battle is also excellent.
Hearing the crowd enthusiastically chant in rhythm with the song
adds to the sense that you're in a giant stadium, and it's certainly catchy.
Dynamaxing is also a bit more interesting against a human opponent
where strategies can be more unpredictable.
Thankfully, getting into online battles or doing surprise trades
is straightforward enough to quickly hop into.
With Sword and Shield, there are changes that may seem small, but add up in a significant way,
eliminating a good deal of the fussiness present in past games.
Being able to easily open the menu and access your box of reserve pokémon is wonderful
and cuts out the unnecessary tedium of having to go to a pokémon center
just to make a change to your team.
It's a feature that was introduced in the Let's Go games and it's a smart thing to bring to the main series.
In addition to the traditional rare candy,
there's also experience candy that can quickly level up pokémon, so
getting a new recruit up to speed is painless.
While out and about, you can set up a pokémon camp to play and bond with pokémon.
It's possible to cook curry at camp, which increases friendship and experience while healing pokémon,
including fainted ones, cutting down on trips to the pokémon center.
There’s so much that’s been done to help the momentum of the game, making it smoother overall.
This streamlining also applies to how you find pokémon in the world.
Similar to the Let's Go games, you can see pokémon wandering about in the open,
allowing you to easily choose what to fight and when.
Of course this greatly reduces the need to use items like repel,
and it makes you feel like you're constantly encountering something new, because you have so much control.
At the same time, there's a mechanic that lets you discover random and potentially rare pokémon
by going to specific spots when the grass is rustling.
As always, it's genuinely thrilling to stumble upon something awesome by chance.
By having both pokémon in the overworld and the sense of surprise in the rustling grass,
Pokémon Sword and Shield take an approach that delivers the best of both worlds.
They make the process of hunting down specific pokémon
or simply trying to catch as many as possible convenient without hurting the thrill.
It feels even more significant here than it did in Let's Go partially because
there are so many more pokemon to catch.
One of the biggest new features to Sword and Shield is the Wild Area,
and in a way, it represents the best and the worst of this new generation all at once.
The Wild Area is one large, continuous chunk of the world with different sections
that have their own groupings of pokémon
as well as distinct weather such as sandstorms or hail.
In addition to having a significantly wide variety of pokémon to catch,
high level pokémon also occasionally appear
and can be a real danger if taken on too early.
Players get access to the Wild Area very quickly in the main story, which
is wonderful because if you're someone who loves filling out the pokédex,
it's exciting to have a lot to go after.
For a series that’s notoriously slow and restrictive,
the Wild Area is an appreciated bit of freedom.
There are dens scattered throughout the Wild Area, and some of these dens offer max raid battles,
fights against always-dynamaxed pokémon that can be taken on with either AI companions or real people.
Initially, these battles are far too easy, but after finishing the story,
some do get more interesting and challenging enough
to incentivize you to team up with other trainers.
Yet for as easy as it is to whittle away time in the Wild Area,
the execution of the idea leaves a lot to be desired.
When connected online, performance in the Wild Area can get worryingly stuttery
with other trainers abruptly popping up out of nowhere.
The result is an area that feels artificial and thrown together
rather than becoming an exciting and natural place that's easy to get lost in.
The presentation is also bland with little to look at.
Abrupt transitions, like when the weather immediately changes from one area to another,
only hurt the sense of immersion even further.
Since the game's heart is in the right place with the Wild Area,
it's disappointing that the overall structure is so linear,
feeling similar in many ways to past efforts.
Game Freak largely relies on an overly familiar route-filled layout,
and the story mirrors these problems as well.
There are intriguing characters to meet throughout the Galar Region
including gym leaders like the quirky Opal and the ferocious Raihan.
Yet interactions with them are so sparse
that it almost always feels like whatever potential they have is underutilized.
The same is true about the numerous plot threads Sword and Shield try to weave together.
Perhaps any one of them could be presented in a more engaging way
if given more time to properly develop, but that just doesn't happen,
sapping away a lot of the impact.
Plus, two of the most humorous characters in the game don't show up until after finishing the main story.
If you have a decent interest in Pokémon,
there is a largely enjoyable time to be had with the latest generation.
There’s still a magic present that nothing else has been able to quite replace,
and the improvements and additions are meaningful.
It's also easy to want a mightier effort.
There are times when you can see where the game could be so much better,
and it's frustrating how it falls short of ideas that seem to be right in front of it.
Whether it's the fact that a beloved pokémon might not be in the game, the mediocre story,
or a strong sense of having seen a lot of this before,
you may be left hoping that the next effort packs a more substantial punch.
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