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Pokemon Sword and Shield Impressions
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Pokemon Sword and Shield Impressions
It's been over a week since the latest Pokemon game hit the market, and Garrick has been putting the new RPG through its paces. Check out his impressions so far in the latest edition of The RPG Files.
Comments
No Absol, no buy.
This game is still miles ahead of the last two games.
Frankly, the designs of the new Pokemon have been incredibly mixed for the past few entries (I'm increasingly finding it difficult to make teams of Pokemon that I like and that also aren't heavily Dark or Steel without falling baci heavily on old Pokemon - y'know the ones thag have now been Thanos snapped), and the additions of stupid mechanics like mega evolutions and dynamaxing aren't helping.
Dynamaxing and gigantamaxing was an atrocious replacement.
Personally I didn't care for mega evolutions and z-moves so I am not sad to see them go. I would have preferred instead of mega evolution they gave pokemon like Mawile and Sableye evolved forms.
Some of the typing they give were poorly thought through. Why isn't Runerigus ghost/rock (it is a wall carving), or grapploct water/fighting. Cursola should have been ghost/water. Meowth and perserker should have been steel/fighting. I just don't understand those design choices. They could have done better with some of the typing.
I do like most of the new pokemon but the starters are just terrible. Not only do their final forms look weird but monotyping for them is just boring. I get what they were going with on it but it was kind of bad. Should have been grass/dark, fire/electric, and water/psychic.
They could have done a lot more with the game. I'm not going to chide then on graphics or anything like that because it plays like a pokemon game which us what I am happy but they could have taken some liberties and it just sort of falls flat.
I love mega evolution, but I'm with you in pokemon design. Also the new villain team dumb as hell. How badly have you run out of ideas when you go with Team Yell? Bad guys who cheer people on with megaphones and pokemon battles is the dumbest one yet. I mean how bad were the other (rejected) ideas that Yell seemed like the winner? Team Nosepicker? Team Stampcollector? Team Sodomy? I'm guessing the next game will feature Team Newsies.
Stop adding fancy gimmicks and just give us the national dex, a decent and challenging region, a few new pokemon and a solid experience and we'll be happy. We don't need creative new reasons to play Pokemon, we just want a decent game.
Basically, fuck Gamefreak.
They know that a large portion of their fanbase is dedicated fans well into their 20s and 30s. They know who they can count on to buy both versions of their games every few years. They are the literal largest franchise in the world because of those fans, and we should expect better of a studio with those resources.
Just because you don't apply standards to the things you spend money on doesn't mean everyone else shouldn't.
Also, the point is "gotta catch em all." And now you literally can't.
If your way was the way of things, we'd have no quality control. At all.
People like me are trying to give you a better game. That is all. We're trying to make sure your Pokedex is complete and your Fallout 76 improves. That is something you should appreciate.
I get that a lot of despicable death threats and toxicity comes out of every gaming controversy, because there are a lot of loud brats in this world, but the vast majority of those complaining are completely reasonable and justified. And attempting to paint all criticism as entitlement only contributes to a worse product. The literal largest franchise in the world just Thanos snapped its content while charging more for the end product. That's a big deal.
Wife likes it too, though she likes Let's Go Eevee more because she enjoyed the catching without the fighting, like on Pokemon GO, which she loves.
People like me are trying to give you a better game. That is all. We're trying to make sure your Pokedex is complete and your Fallout 76 improves. That is something you should appreciate.
I'm sorry but that sentence is a bunch of crap. People who are complaining about games like fallout 76 and pokemon aren't doing it for some lofty attitude or making the gaming industry better. They are doing it because they are angry or upset because something they want is gone.
At best I would maybe collect a good 200 total of them. I already spend most of my time bypassing pokemon that don't interest me... and most of the ones I do get, I never evolve or use, but have them just to have them. I pretty much have the team I like, and focus on making it the way I'd like to make it.
I know the premise is that you "gotta catch'em all" but there is a limit... I think last I checked there were over 700 pokemon, maybe more by now, who knows.... with the variants they have and all that... I think after a while there's going to be diminishing returns on how many can be in a game and it still be considered a "good feature"... especially with the limited multiplayer aspects Pokemon games have to show off your pokedex.
And yes, they have other games. Most of which are indie-level at best. I don't begrudge them the chance to veer off of the Pokemon treadmill, but they need to do better than Little Town Hero, to be frank.
I played Ultra Sun on a PC Emulator (I do own the 3DS, but I wanted to play a difficulty mod) and Ultra Sun, rendered in 1080p looked nearly identical to Sword/Shield. This tells me they used the same models and textures as previous 3DS games. Their whole reason for downsizing the content of the game by half, was the scope of creating new models for everything, which they clearly didn't do.
Scizor and Absol are permanent staples of my team. I grew up with them. I love them, and now I can't have them for entirely arbitrary reasons. For me, the end product is inherently worse for their absence.
One can say "just make new favorites" in response to that. But frankly, Gamefreak isn't making it easy. Every gen has its bad designs, but bad designs are increasingly becoming the rule, not the exception. For fuck's sake, Sw/Sh has 4 apple Pokemon, a teacup, a teapot, and cream. I can count the number of Pokemon I like in this new generation on my fingers, and while it's enough to make a complete team (with no regards to typing variety), it kills replayability and variety for me.
I stick to this feels like fast food as just a few moments away from pretty much anything you want. No effort is truly needed. I had to stop watching one streamer as he was just checklisting where to get a pokemon and evolution requirements then spamming the XP candies to do it. It made me realize just how cheap the whole game feels to me. I don't feel love was put in the game but just the minimum work necessary for it to work.
I am with you, I dislike a lot of the new pokemon as well, though I am warming up to Golurk a bit. But finding my way through the game with new characters and exploring new pokemon is kind of exciting to me. I don't know any of these pokemon. When I run into one, sometimes I have no idea what its weaknesses are. Thats not something I've had to deal with for years. It's kind of refreshing.