As a young Pokémon fan, it was impossible to not dream of someday being able to play
the series on a console. The Pokémon Stadium games and Gale of Darkness were a tease, but
they’re not the exact adventure I wanted. A journey to collect all eight Gym Badges
and become Champion of a region felt like it would be so much more epic when not confined
to a handheld. And finally, that day has come thanks to the Switch and the start of the
8th generation of Pokémon, Sword & Shield. But is it everything we dreamed it would be?
Does it have that certain something that’ll make it feel special?
This time around, players take the role of a new trainer in the Galar region where the
Gym League and the Champion Cup are all anyone can talk about. It’s emphasized so much
more than any region before and that could be due to its Champion, Leon, who has never
suffered a single defeat. With a new season of the Gym League beginning, you and the Champion’s
younger brother, Hop, set out on a journey to compete in the League and maybe, just maybe,
be the first one to defeat Leon.
It’s a Pokémon story that’s both familiar yet different as the League itself has never
been highlighted quite this much. Rather than just something some trainers set out to do,
the League is a highly publicized sport that the entire region tunes into as they see how
far the new batch of Gym Challengers can make it. This created a different feeling for me
as I played. The Challenge seemed like, well, an actual challenge. Something that was more
difficult than the average person could expect to complete. And this was emphasized the further
I progressed as I heard more about other challengers just not able to cut it. This new take is
something I really appreciate as it made the things I did as a trainer feel all the more
special. I wasn’t just another challenger. I was the one who could potentially end the
Champion’s winning streak.
Unfortunately, this is also one of the most barebone Pokémon tales that I’ve ever encountered.
There’s almost nothing beyond the Gym Challenge. Hop and the other Gym Challengers, Bede and
Marnie, have their own character arcs, but Hop’s the only one with any real amount
of time in the spotlight. It’s great having a more jerkish rival in the form of Bede,
but Marnie doesn’t get to do much until late in the game. And that goes for Team Yell
as well. They’re just rowdy fans of Marnie who occasionally get in people’s way, making
them even less of a threat than Team Skull with none of the understanding that made Sun
& Moon’s evil Team so memorable. And by the time a plot does unfold that doesn’t
involve the Gym Challenge and Champion Cup, it’s too little, too late.
It’s a shame too, because the setting, along with the pomp and circumstance of the Gym
Challenge really sets it apart from past games. There’s a sense of grandeur here that I
really enjoyed. Even the lead-up to the Gym Leaders was fun as the idea of Trials from
Sun & Moon carried over. And then, of course, there’s the new Wild Area, a large swath
of land where dozens of different Pokémon roam, the weather changes often, and the camera
can be freely controlled. It’s the most open Pokémon has ever been and while it’s
not huge, it’ll still take at least a few minutes to walk from one end to the other
when not on your bike. The Wild Area is also a bit dangerous early on though as higher-level
Pokémon can be encountered. After all, within the first two hours of the game, it’s possible
to start exploring the entire thing. You will find Pokémon that provide a challenge.
That said, the game goes out of its way to balance this element as only Pokémon up to
a certain level can actually be caught with that cap expanding as you defeat each Gym.
The high-level Pokémon can be defeated so it’s a possible way of grinding up your
team early. Story-wise, it’s only necessary to travel through the Wild Area twice, but
it can easily be returned to at any time to capture more powerful Pokémon, including
some evolutions that require trades like Steelix, with each new badge earned. Despite the freedom
allowed in the Wild Area, it meshes well with the rest of the game. But for as cool as it
is to see such a large area filled with Pokémon, it ultimately felt a bit empty with little
to see or do beyond catching Pokémon and going on Max Raid Battles, which I’ll detail
soon.
While the Wild Area could be used as a place to grind, I never found that necessary thanks
to the newly required experience share. No longer is this an option, but something tied
into the experience itself. At first I was unsure how to feel about this change as previous
experience shares seemed to keep me from using my entire team. And while there’s still
an element of that here, it’s been rebalanced in such a way that it never felt as intrusive.
Sword & Shield is completely built around this mechanic and it’s all the better for
it.
The Wild Area isn’t just a place to battle and capture wild Pokémon though. There’s
also the the Max Raid Battles, which are accessed through nodes known as dens spread all around.
Raid Battles feature you and three other trainers teaming up to take down a Dynamaxed Pokémon,
which greatly increases its size and power. These raid Pokémon can also put up shields,
dispel buffs, and act more than once per turn making for a decent challenge. But defeating
it will allow the players a chance to capture it themselves.
The dens are a kind of focal point for the Wild Area as merely inspecting one will earn
players Watts that can be spent with NPCs for special items or to even upgrade your
bike. There’s a few other activities, but the biggest is absolutely the Raid Battles.
They can be done either with A.I. allies or other players, but unfortunately that option
wasn’t available before release. The A.I can get the job done, but most of the work
relies on yourself. It’s not a bad option, but for the more difficult Raid Pokémon,
I highly recommend doing this with other humans.
Along with capturing the Pokémon, winning a Max Raid Battle earns players unique items
as well including berries, Experience Candies, and Technical Records, or TRs. These work
like TMs except they can only be used once, pretty much like the old versions of TMs,
which means there are 200 different moves that can be taught through this method alone.
It’s a staggering amount that allows players to truly customize their team however they
want, and that’s just the start of it as I’ll detail soon.
First and foremost, I think the new selection of Pokémon are fantastic. Every starters’
final evolution is a favorite to the point that I’d be happy picking any of them, the
new Galar forms are diverse and spread the love beyond Gen 1, and each new Pokémon I
encountered felt like a treat. I love the new ideas on display and some of the new type
combinations are a lot of fun. There are a few duds, but on the whole, this is a great
new line-up, and I was able to easily make a team of all newcomers. If you’re able
to stay spoiler-free when going into the game, I believe finding each new Pokémon will be
a real thrill upon seeing their design.
Seeing them all in battle is a joy as well as the combat system is fast and full of new
moves and abilities to take into account while still maintaining that classic appeal. There
are no new battle types though beyond singles and doubles. The big new mechanic--literally--
is the introduction of Dynamaxing, which allows Pokémon to become much larger versions of
themselves that increases their stats and changes their moves to become more devastating.
It’s a mix of Mega Evolution from X & Y and Z-Moves from Sun & Moon.
They’re not as pervasive in the main game however as they’re only available during
Gym Battles or Max Raid Battles. It helps make them not feel as overpowered, and the
limit of only being active for three turns makes knowing when to activate them be more
strategic. In most cases, I felt like Dynamaxing was a way to add some more challenge to the
Gym Battles as early on, I would often have at least one or two Pokémon faint. While
it’s exciting to see, it feels more like Dynamax was designed with competitive players
in mind. And that seems to be the case in a lot of instances.
There are so many options in the game, specifically the post-game, that allow players to change
their Pokémon’s nature, ability, and so much more. It is shockingly easy to create
your ideal team and even before the post-game, every Pokémon Center has a kiosk where you
can remember a Pokémon’s forgotten moves so if you caught one late, there’s no fear
of missing out on the ideal moveset. And it’s here that I believe Pokémon Sword & Shield
shine the most. There are so many systems in place to make competitive battling easier
to get into, which is great considering that Ranked Online Battles will be available at
launch. I haven’t been able to experience it, but everything surrounding this idea seems
ready-made to create a fantastic competitive scene. Unfortunately, that’s not why I play
Pokémon.
I play the series for the main story, to see what new Pokémon I can capture, what kind
of new team will take me through the adventure, what crazy characters I might meet, visiting
the new places I can explore, and discovering how the stakes are raised as I progress. Some
might scoff at that, but I rarely bother with any Pokémon’s post-game unless there’s
some kind of story tied to it. Even something as beloved as the Battle Frontier in past
gens was just not my thing. And for players like me, there’s just not a lot to recommend
about Sword & Shield.
For one, while the story started off with lots of promise thanks to its grander Gym
Challenge and even the return of a jerk rival in the form of Bede, it never really did anything
with this promise. By the story’s midpoint, there were just no surprises to keep me invested.
And unfortunately, that’s endemic of the entire game. When I first began Sword & Shield,
I was sucked into this new world. It was familiar, but it felt like it had a different story
to tell and I was so sure it was going to be something special for Pokémon fans. What
I didn’t realize was that as I went on, there wasn’t much else to see. There are
some really great ideas here, but the ones I really cared about were rarely used.
One of the best examples of this involves the Escape Rope. In every previous Pokémon
game, these had to be bought in order to escape a dungeon or cave. They could be slogs to
get through, and if you have the wrong encounter, that Escape Rope is necessary. In Sword & Shield,
it no longer needs to be purchased. It’s a Key Item that can be used at any time. That
is a great Quality of Life improvement. The problem is, there’s barely any dungeons
and the ones that are there are too short to really necessitate an Escape Rope. It’s
a good change that’d be more effective in past games.
And this ties into exploration as well. It’s not just the caves that are too short; everything
outside of the Wild Area feels small. The cities look impressive, but none have as much
to see as Castelia City in Black & White or Lumiose City in X & Y. It feels like a front
with everything that you can see and do easily fitting into a city like Saffron or Celadon
from Gen 1. The town containing the 5th Gym has as much to see as Pallet Town. It looks
grand as I could see more buildings in the distance, but I couldn’t reach them. The
same goes for Routes with many of them only having short diversions and nothing else to
really see. It all feels like a streamlined experience dictated by the complaints that
there were too many cutscenes in Sun & Moon. But with so much of the game dedicated to
the Gym Challenge, my early excitement eventually waned, and I felt like I had seen everything
the game had to offer.
There are less trainers to battle on each route and the extra content really isn’t
all that interesting over the course of the main story. Poké Jobs mainly serve as a way
to send off your boxed Pokémon for a bit of experience and the Pokémon Camp allows
you to play with Pokémon using two different toys and by making curry. There’s a ton
of different curries to make in the game to the point that there’s an actual CurryDex,
though I couldn’t exactly tell the difference between their effectiveness outside of how
much extra experience my team earned. And these are incredibly potent as the curry can
fully heal your team, get rid of their side effects, and even revive them. I rarely bothered
to use the Camp or Poké Jobs at all in my playthrough as they often didn’t feel necessary.
That said, the game looks fantastic with some wonderfully imaginative locales and a great
sense of scale when it came to the Gym Battles. There’s still some stiffness when it comes
to the characters expressing themselves, but the faces actually react, especially those
of the player character, and it’s easily the best-looking Pokémon game to date. The
new moves are animated well though some of the classic moves are starting to look a bit
dated. There are occasional hints of slowdown when exploring the overworld but it’s rarely
too distracting, and battles ran smoothly. The soundtrack is solid with plenty of new
battle themes that incorporate the chants and cheers of a crowd into them. It helps
simulate the grandeur of the Gym Battles while the new character and town themes really popped
at times as well. Sonia’s theme in particular is a new favorite of mine. The sound effects
are the same as they’ve ever been, but overall I’m happy with the game’s sound design.
I went into Pokémon Sword & Shield with a positive outlook. I could see tons of potential
and the new Pokémon and character designs really struck a chord with me. The idea to
make Gyms so much more grand was a good one, but it needed something more. Having such
a big place to explore in the form of the Wild Area was a novel one, but the fact that
there’s so little to do there beyond Raid Battles makes the novelty wear off quick.
Galar looks beautiful, but there’s hardly ever a chance to explore beyond the Wild Area.
There’s a nominal effort here, but I ended up feeling like the game was too streamlined
for its own good.The quality of life upgrades, some of which I haven’t mentioned, are fantastic
across the board. This is one of the most competitive-friendly games in the series,
but the general adventure just felt lesser in the end. I like the game, and it’s a
good first step for Pokémon on consoles, but as a casual Pokémon player, there just
wasn’t enough for me to sink my teeth into. Hopefully, with this experience under their
belts, Game Freak can make something even better next time. Thanks for watching and
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