Originally posted December 1st, 2019. Edited and re-posted here for archival purposes.
I’ve been out of the Pokemon game for quite some time. It’s been almost 20 years since I beat Pokemon Silver – the last entry I actually completed. I’ve dabbled in some of the following games over time but never really held on for very long. I played some of Black, X, and Moon, but I usually hit the same attention wall that makes me put it down for a bit and then just simply forget about it. I wouldn’t say its an issue with the games themselves, but simply where my interests lie as well as them being portable/handheld.
I also, for some reason, tend to only play my portables when I’m over at my mom’s house or if I’m sick in bed. That generally puts the games on a lower priority I suppose. However, I’ve many fond memories of both Gen 1 and Gen 2. My sister and I used to play those together constantly, trading and battling and just always talking about them. We played a bit of Sun/Moon together, but I fell off it after a while. So, with a full-fledged console game coming up, I figured it was time to get back into it.
Before getting the games, I’d heard some rumblings here and there about things cut, not having the national dex, and re-used animations from the 3DS. I didn’t care too much, but watching people scream and wail in despair as we got closer to release was certainly amusing. I’d call myself a casual fan of Pokemon, meanwhile my younger sister is a rather hardcore fan. Quite quickly, we both agreed the way people were acting was absurd and decided to form our own opinions on the games. She grabbed Shield, I grabbed Sword, and we pretty much started playing the same night. Fast forward to yesterday and we both completed them and have the same overall thought: Sword and Shield are great.
Seeing the series in a fully fledged 3D world with Pokemon wandering about helped bring to life the Pokemon game that was in my head some twenty years ago. I’ve no qualms with the Pokemon that were cut, though that could be because some of my favorites made it. That said, some didn’t and I’m not too torn up about it. The EXP share adjustment is also appreciated as I don’t have the patience to swap my Pokemon out constantly in a fight to ensure they get the experience anymore. With the way the new system works, I found myself swapping more new Pokemon in to ensure I wasn’t over-leveled and also experimented with types and new catches that I never thought I’d bother with. I was encouraged to try more new things than I normally would as there was no real risk of losing experience.
Graphically, the game looks wonderful. It’s bright and the colors pop vividly, adding a bit more whimsy to the world while also giving it a comfortable feel and tone. Some of the animations are over the top and have a level of escalation that I greatly appreciate. The design of all the characters stand out, especially the gym leaders. Everything and everyone has a personality that is both loud and pronounced. That said I wish they at least changed the hairstyles of the random trainers. It’s a little off-putting to fight multiple characters in a row who look exactly the same. It’s even more bothersome in 2v2 battles where you’re fighting two identical grunts. I get that it’s similar to how the old games just used similar sprites, but that’s one aspect that feels like such an afterthought that its most certainly noticeable. I suppose random trainers along the way aren’t meant to be remembered, so I can see it as a “I dunno, he looked like a businessman I guess?” if ever asked.
On the aural front, the music was overall great, though the gym themes get a special nod. Throughout the world there are plenty of UK-feeling themes. At least, they feel that way to me as someone who has never been there. They’re in line with what you hear in games and movies. Plenty of horns and pipes. It makes the small towns feel a little more cozy. The gym music though really gets the blood pumping. They’re energetic, high-powered, and the way they include the crowd chants makes the entire thing feel even bigger than it already is presented as. I’m guilty of letting the gym battles run a little longer than I normally would so I could listen to the music just a bit more.
On the subject of gym battles, I mentioned before that they feel like they’re way more prominent. From my experience with past games, gyms were just a place in a town you, fight someone, and they give you a badge and that’s it. In Sword/Shield, they’re more of a spectacle, an event, and a clear past-time of the region. There are thousands of people watching from all over the region, people who cheer and shout when huge attacks go out, give belted gang chants in tune with the music, and are just constantly animated. Gyms are massive as they require a lot of room for the Dynamaxing – a new gimmick for the series along the vein of Megaevolutions and Z-Attacks.
When your Pokemon dynamax, they grow to hundreds of times their own size and the battles essentially become a clash of kaiju. Attacks change to be these huge, well-animated moves that have a hefty weight and power to them. Even the Pokemon landing and kicking up rocks and dirt with a low growl and slow sway adds to the effect of dynamaxing. While its a gimmick, I thought it was really cool and it certainly added a level of awe to the gym battles that I found to tie every fight off with quite well. Huge explosions, flying chars, meteors falling from the sky, lightning splitting the earth – it all had the over-the-top jrpg spell animations that I’ve always liked. It was all really cool and I was quite happy when my dumbest looking Pokemon (I love the stupid ones) became massive and vomited a torrent of water at a poor fire Pokemon.
Loosely related, the new Wild Area and Raid Battle system were both interesting. The Wild Area is a wild-open area where you can go anywhere within it. It’s sprawling, huge, and it has weather cycles that even affect the battles themselves. Snowstorms pelt the battlefield with hail, rain causes a damper upon the battle, and dust storms kick up sand all about. These can cause damage to your Pokemon, though I believe if you’re the same type as the storm it doesn’t really affect you. The damage was never enough to make me lose a battle, but it did wipe out a few Pokemon I was trying to catch. Additionally, when you’re in the Wild Area and you connect online, be prepared for your framerate to tank hard. The game loads in so many other players and the weather effects that you can drop down to single digits at times. It’s a real knock on the performance of an otherwise smooth game.
Even with performance issues noted, I tried to remain online as much as I could. Another little feature, before getting the to the raid battles, was the cute little twitter feed that updates with whatever your friends do. Someone caught a new Pokemon? It tells you what. Someone joined a raid? It updates that. Someone found a raid and wants people to join? Right from the menu, you just select their post and join them and boom – you’re in. Raids are essentially 4 players (actual people or AI) who all face off against a dynamaxed wild Pokemon. Depending on their star rank, they can be quite hearty so you want to use the right type and work together. Four faints on your side ends the battle as does the battle taking 10 turns. This adds just a little bit of tension to these turn-based online battles…especially when someones poorly-chosen-Pokemon gets buried by a huge attack.
Raids can be simple 1-2 turn affairs for everyone, or they can be long-running battles with shields and giant attacks that would be best evaded. The raids were fun, especially playing them side by side with my sister and having people on our friends list join. There were a lot of laughs with how we designed our characters (the fashion game is pretty strong, albeit slowly rolled out) and what we named our Pokemon. I’m glad they didn’t chicken out and use default names, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to grace people with my Sirfectch’d named Smug Bastard. After all, he certainly looks the part. On top of that, designing your own trainer cards was a really cool touch and it gave me the chance to incredibly amusing images.
Story-wise, I thought it was a pretty basic story overall which was fine coming off on how convoluted Death Stranding was. Yet it didn’t feel too barebones. You’re a kid and you have a goal. Early on, I was onboard with beating the ‘unbeatable’ champion and my personal goal was to do it in a single hit. I wanted to dismantle him in front of all of his fans, especially his little brother and my rival. There’s a lot of story that goes on around you that the adults are dealing with and you’re often just pushed forward to keep doing what you’re doing, even when you interfered. Some of it does start to bubble over into your path, but you’re usually brushed out of the way and told to stay on your path. I do wish there was a little more involvement in the sub-plot in the background. Maybe it’d help some people feel like the last parts of the story didn’t come so out-of-nowhere. I think it depends both on how much attention you’re paying and how much you actually care about whats going on.
In the end, I beat the game just north of 30 hours or so. I spent a few hours doing dynamax raids with my sister and had a blast with them. They’re worth it from the rewards alone, even if you don’t get EXP from the fight itself. You certainly get enough EXP candy to make up for it and more. Overall, I really enjoyed my time with the game. I don’t see myself completing the Pokedex simply because I have so many other games on my plate, but I think I’ll do the post-game part and get my legendary sword dog that I’m 100% certain over half of players will name “Sif.”
Pokemon Sword was a fun, charming, and whimsical run through a childhood nostalgia. It’s a simple but competent little RPG that gives you hundreds of options with your team and greatly encourages experimentation. There are a ton of quality-of-life changes that really made this entry a lot easier for me to stick with. It’s a nice game to play just kinda anywhere and it slotted nicely between other games, especially when I just needed to decompress after hours of crafting in Atelier Ryza or the hours of dialogue and exposition in Death Stranding. It was nice to have so many options available to me, especially after playing Indivisible which – upon further thought – feels less and less like an RPG at all. I won’t give it a score or anything, but I’d certainly recommend it to people who’ve been out of the loop on the games for quite some time. I felt it was a great spot to jump back in and coerce children into making their pets fight mine for money.
