Pokemon Sword and Shield Review

Pokemon Sword and Shield begin with a journey into the deep woods with Hop. The pair of characters follow a wooloo that has disappeared into the woods. Without any Pokemon, you wander into a dangerous, foggy area. The area becomes quite foggy, and then a large Pokemon appears. This Pokemon scares our trainers and then disappears back into the woods. Our trainers travel to the Pokemon lab, unsure as to what they say, to begin their journey as Pokemon trainers and potentially unravel the story behind the mysterious Pokemon. 

Pokemon Sword and Shield Review

Pokémon Sword/Shield is the eight installment of the main Pokémon franchise and is commonly referred to as Gen 8. As a quick overview of this game before I get into the nitty gritty areas, this game was fun and enjoyable, albeit there were some areas that I didn’t quite agree with. In general, though, this was a fun region to play through and features more Pokémon and introduces new mechanics that were fun to learn.

Now, the first thing I’m going to mention about this game is that I played the Sword version of the game. Besides some regional exclusive Pokémon and some gym leader changes, the core of the game remains the same. Without further ado, let’s get into it.

The first thing that caught my eye about this game was the method in encountering Pokémon. In previous titles, Pokémon were found in tall grass and were treated as random encounters, whereas in this game, 3D models of the Pokémon wander in the grass for your character to touch to fight. This feature is further expanded in Pokemon Scarlet, entirely changing random encounters in Pokemon. This game also has an encounter system similar to previous games where traveling in grass can make an exclamation point may appear and that encounter will be a real random encounter.

Another aspect that was removed was the use of Hidden Machines, or HMs. Although I never really liked HMs, this system helped with managing the pace of the story and presenting some difficulty. The final major change that I personally enjoyed was the Wild Area and Raids. In the Wild Area, the player has full control of the character and can move the camera. This creates a nice open area for the player to explore and catch a variety of Pokémon.

This place also holds Dens to initiate Raids. Raids are where the player fight against giant Pokémon who have been Dynamaxed. After beating these Raids, players are given a lot of resources as rewards, which includes different sizes of EXP Candies, which destroys any and all challenge in the game. This system also got me to catch more Pokémon than I usually do.

Now, onto the aspects that I didn’t enjoy as much. First off, the difficulty. For those familiar with previous games, you will understand the magnitude of this next statement. Because of the new Raid system, I was able to evolve my starter to its third stage before fighting the first gym. This sets the tone for the rest of the game because I was able to bypass all challenge by power leveling to the top. As a result, the game was very, very easy.

The other aspect that I didn’t enjoy as much was the story. It just didn’t feel all that coherent and it felt like the player was just thrust into situations just to forward the plot without any connections between the events. The post game mini story after becoming Champion does present a nice story that wraps up some of the loose ends. Besides the story, the characters felt pretty bland.

Hop, in the main story, doesn’t change at all throughout the plot. He has nice development during the post game story though. Overall, the game is still pretty fun to play. For those who like to be overpowered before every big fight and enjoy the grinding, the Raids provide the ability to do so. Seeing the Pokémon in 3D models are pretty cool as well, though I do miss the old sprites.

In general, this game felt more like an intro game for new players to get into Pokémon, however, there is still worth for veteran players to play this as well.