Pokémon Sword & Shield

This game was extremely expensive. As the graphics were awesome, I expected at least a 3 out-of 5 star game. I was wrong. There is so much talking in this game! Not even joking, one of the cutscenes with Hop was five minutes long. He says the obvious, always. Sure the customization of your character was a very nice touch, but that does not make up for the fact of the story being way too long. I might as well play Pokémon HeartGold & SoulSilver [ポケットモンスター ハートゴールド・ソウルシルバ] for as much entertainment as this game.

To say I was disappointed when this came out is an understatement. This game made me lose faith in a series I once cherished. The biggest crime this game did was just be boring. My fucking god, it's boring. There's never any challenge, or any stakes with the plot. It feels like I'm being dragged along a story I want no part in. I traded it in a few months after launch.

When this generation first started, I was somewhat caught up in the anti-hype, but I must admit it was less a concern about the so-called "Dexit" controversy, and more simply because I could not imagine this game would ever be worth the asking price of $60. It took me a while to ever buy Pokemon Sword, as I would spend about a year trying to win cheap-ish eBay bids, always losing to people who were willing to pay over $40. It was not until some curious miracle by which GameStop were allowed to cut the price down to $35 in 2020, around Black Friday I think, that I was finally able to "justify" buying the game. I played for about fifteen hours, mostly dicking around in the Wild Area, challenging higher-level roaming Pokemon, before my game and/or Switch shit itself, and I lost a few hours of progress, souring me on the game, for a period that lasted almost exactly two years (105 weeks, I think).

I'm pretty sure I hate GameFreak, and I'm pretty sure I'd rather not buy their games from "official" outlets (that is, I bought Sword preowned from GameStop, which I hope gave GameFreak less money than buying new, but anyway I got Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl [ポケットモンスター ブリリアントダイヤモンド・シャイニングパール] from some dude on eBay, which I think means GF got no profit from me, even if they did from him...). It's thus perhaps a little ironic that I jumped back into Sword because I decided newer characters and 'Mons looked too ugly to warrant spending a whole $60 on Pokémon Scarlet and Violet [ポケットモンスター スカーレット・バイオレット], only to kind of... feel like I want to buy Scarlet now to do the same shit I've been doing in Sword....

As a kid, I think I took the basic "story" in Pokemon games a bit too "seriously," by which I mean I would focus primarily on beating the eight Gym Leaders, then the Elite Four and Champion, tackling whatever post-game "story" was there (namely, the "hidden" Legendaries, Mewtwo, Raikou/Entei (in Crystal), Rayquaza, and Giratina), and... eventually starting a New Game to do the same shit again (well, only in Gens 1-3). I dropped out of Pokemon before Pokémon Black & White [ポケットモンスターブラック・ホワイト], having deemed myself "too old" for the series, only to become extremely bored in life six years later, and play "catch-up" to the series in 2016, in anticipation of Pokémon Sun & Moon [ポケットモンスター サン・ムーン] (which I bought in 2016, but did not touch until a year later, having "burned out" by playing too many Pokegames in the months before the game's release...). In this more "modern" phase of Pokeplaying, I've found myself taking the original (4kids exclusive?) catchphrase, "Gotta Catch 'em All," much more seriously than anything else, Pokemon League or competitive play, and it's through this lens that I find enjoyment in Sword despite its glaring flaws.

As I said above, I wasn't too upset about "Dexit," the idea that the game is "bad" because it does not allow access to all ~1000 Pokemon from Gen 1 and onward. Quite frankly, I've always hated the National Dex in some games. When I was twelve, I felt like I busted my ass just to see all the Regional Dex of Sinnoh (as you no longer had to catch everything for it to count), that the game opening up to a Pokedex of ~500 simply made me feel like I wasted my time, that completing one benchmark only opened the door to a nigh-impossible new standard - I no longer had Ruby or Fire Red, and I never owned Emerald, let alone Sapphire or Leaf Green, so I would not have had complete Dexes to Pal Park into Pearl. I think the thing is that it's assumed anyone who would seek to complete a National Dex in, say, Gen 4, would have completed the Dex in Gen 3, and so could easily send everything to Gen 4, then on into 5, 6, and 7, and so would somewhat-reasonably be angry when they couldn't send thousands of hours of work into Gen 8. Maybe I'm cynical, but I always hated how Pokémon FireRed & LeafGreen [ポケットモンスター ファイアレッド・リーフグリーン] made me have to catch everything I already had in Pokémon Red & Blue [ポケットモンスター 赤・緑・青] because I couldn't transfer from GBC to GBA. Maybe it's because I'm old enough to remember the disconnect between GBC and GBA that I kinda expected a disconnect between 3DS and Switch?

At the end of the day, my main concern is I vaguely desire to "catch 'em all," and it's a hell of a lot easier to do when there are only 400 guys to catch. Actually, it's even still a little annoying because I'm never going to use Stunky or Purrloin, but I felt compelled to catch them anyway. And there were a few times when I was intent on grinding some Pokemon to use once for whatever upcoming Gym, but I would enter a Route with a bunch of new things, and I kind of wouldn't feel like catching 'em all, so it felt like a chore, and maybe I should have set my Switch down to do something less, lest I risk growing to dislike the game.... But a neat thing about this game is that I've grown to like and respect 'Mons from prior games whom I might not have used. When I was about to tackle the Fire-type Gym, I made the decision to try and raise new teams to counter Gym Leaders, and so started training a Dewpider I'd Box'd a little while ago; when he became an Araquanid he started shitting on enemy Pokemon hard, and has since become one of my favorites. I had to hunt for a Hawlucha to work toward completing my Dex, but decided to use her against Bea, in which event she became another favorite, probably third-place behind fellow birds Corviknight (#2) and Sirfetch'd (#1). I think as soon as Galarian Farfetch'd, Sirfetch'd became my new favorite Pokemon overall, displacing Aegislash (who, unfortunately, I think I won't be able to have in-game for a good while), and I might even reduce my opinion of this game simply to "Pokemon Sword is enjoyable because Sirfetch'd." I don't even know if he's "good" in competitive play, but I don't give a shit because I'm too lazy to jump into complex breeding stuff right now. Maybe other players think it might be dumb to spam non-STAB Fury Cutter and watch Sirfetch'd murder everything, but it's infinitely fun to me!

As far as "playing the game the way GameFreak want me to," it's... eh. Leon's clothes make him the most stupid-looking Champion yet, so I don't empathize with Hop at all. I don't like this era of "friendly rivals who choose the Starter who is elementally weak to your choice." When I was eight, I had a tough time getting past the rival in Ruby on the Route toward Mauville. No game has recaptured that struggle. Curiously, I do think I whited out, or at least almost did, against Shauna on some bridge in Pokemon Y, which is probably embarrassing. But a second ago I couldn't even remember if Moon had a rival, which shows how shitty and weak he was. At least, in-universe Hop is weak, so it fits with gameplay. This Bede kid is supposed to be stronger, but his dumb ass sends Fairy-types against my Corviknight, who kills him with STAB Steel Wing. At the time of writing, I'm on my way to Spikemuth to fight the Dark Gym, the Leader of which is the brother of the girl Marnie, and I can't remember if I've even fought her yet, as her (Dark-type) Morpeko would have been worthless before my (Fighting-type) Sirfetch'd's mighty leek-sword (rather, I might have more likely used Fury Cutter, which is Bug, which still beats Dark...).

Gym Leaders are all pushovers as well, but a big problem is that I fucked up somewhere and somehow got the idea the fifth Gym has enemies in the low 40s, so I grinded some dudes to ~Lv45, and now I'm way too strong for the rest of the game.... That said, I have been able to use "mental gymnastics" to trick myself into viewing the Leaders' weakness as a "good thing": as a kid, I would see Misty's Starmie as a wall, having chosen Charmander as Starter, with Charmeleon being unable to face her Bubblebeam; I would have to restart the game with Bulbasaur to fare better, as I focused too much on my Starter to want to dedicate time to train other guys to fight Misty - what was I supposed to do? Raise a fucking Bellsprout from Lv5? Ridiculous! Whitney was definitely a challenge. I remember Flannery being a challenge because of Attract. Tate and Liza were insane to me. I don't remember any problems in Gen 4, though. But what I'm getting at now is that what I'm doing today is a similar concept to what I did as a kid: rather than lose to a Gym and train harder to be able to win, I'm training well before reaching the Gyms so I can kill everything in one hit. The consequence is that my view of the game is distorted a bit; it seems to me the "main game" is catching 'em all and grinding for new moves and evolutions, with the Pokemon League being a series of obstacles preventing me from grinding too hard. That is, my reason to beat the Dark Gym Leader is not to continue the storyline, but rather because I need his Badge to catch Lv55 Pokemon, and I want that roaming Glalie in Route 9 to use against Raihan, as I plan on turning the Snorunt I have into a Froslass, and don't want to have to catch and train another Snorunt when I can get that high-level Glalie...!

i really dont care that they got rid of half of the dex but they got rid of megas so this game is automatically poop

We all know that the Pokemon games are all going to be the same until the end of time, and no one expected any innovations to the brand. However, "Sword" and "Shield" are way too lazy even for a Pokemon game. Surely we don't play Pokemon for the plot, but this time we just travel from town to town with no real villains, no impediments, no dungeons, no development whatsoever. "Sun" and "Moon" had even too much plot and dialogues, but were at least rich in locations and things to do. More content is expected to come out with expansion packs, but the main game itself has really nothing memorable or worth playing other than seeing our favorite Pokemon with better graphics (a thing that we already tasted with "Let's Go" though). I appreciated the wild areas and the introduction of bigger spaces in general, even though people and things keep popping out of thin air. Random encounters and battles are more immediate, but I can't believe they are keeping the game so easy peasy in 2020 (and you know, children are actually even better at this than we are). Why do gym leaders still have incomplete parties? Fighting six Pokemons in a row could be tedious, but they could have at least have both parties battle on equal numbers. I know I will keep playing future games to keep my Pokemon collection updated, but there was really little to praise this time.

It's Pokemon!