@kyleforrester87 Glad it wasn't just me, then! I felt a bit bad for not warming to it, since I like to consider myself a well-versed gamer and know what Pokémon is all about, so wasn't exactly going in blind. I know there was controversy surrounding its pokédex, but we didn't even get far enough to notice that part!
Hope you get more fun from Xenoblade Chronicles this coming weekend!
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
@RogerRoger The only owl I can think of is Hoothoot, but that's an old one from the the GameBoy Color games.
Anyway, yeah, the games are pretty bad. Something can be said about the ''open world'' Wild Area, but let's be honest, open world games from 10 years ago were more detailed than what is present in Sword and Shield. I wouldn't say the games are downright bad (apart from the horrible pop-in in the overworld), but it's just all very disappointing and mediocre. Especially if you consider what the franchise could be.
Whilst the game does have some QOL improvements over the older games, it's also more restrictive in some ways. One step forward, one step back. Like how your whole party get experience no matter what, whereas in previous games this was an item you could equip or not (effectively easy and hard mode). Or how they have an ''open world'' section in the game, but rest feels more restricted and linear than any previous entry.
At least the competitive side is still intact. And I actually like the fact that they cut a bunch of Pokemon, because there are a ton of OP Pokemon that used to rule the competitive scene. However, they are planning to bring all those legendaries back with the new DLC, which will completely undo the one positive thing I have to say about this game.
@RogerRoger There's something slightly "off" about Sword and Shield. Aside from all the obvious issues, it feels like they are missing something almost intangible. These are very by-the-numbers experiences, perhaps designed by committee, and rushed out the door as quickly as possible. There are still some good things in there, and it's not like they are fundamentally terrible games, but while playing the whole experience just felt a little hollow. I've still yet to finish it and likely won't until after Xenoblade DE - which says a lot because prior to Sun and Moon Pokémon games kept me hooked.
I also wasn't too impressed with Sword and Shield. It was rather underwhelming for me, which was disappointing since I had been a big fan of the series up to then. There's also a lot of minor things that annoyed me about it, but I don't want to get into a big rant right now.
I am keeping an eye on the upcoming DLC for now though. It'll likely just be more of the same, but who knows. Perhaps it'll be excellent and won't feature many of the problems that the base game had.
@KratosMD you didn’t need to build up a strong team and evolve your Pokemon because you just trampled everyone and everything you came up against with your starter, zero thought required. Just a cumbersome, slow, uninvolved turn based battle system.
The only other Pokemon I played was Blue, and I remember that being pretty challenging at times.
@KratosMD The lack of any difficulty makes it hard for me to enjoy the main game as it is. And IMO, none of that excuses them to have a mediocre presentation and storyline, just because the gameplay loop is good. I mean, sure, but it was always good. It's just the same as it is in other entries, so why not focus on the rest of the game for once?
The main game and competitive play are like day and night.
I'm normally not too annoyed by the lack of voice acting, but when one of your main characters is supposed to be a musician, it's very awkward watching a ''concert'' without an actual sound coming out of his mouth. The forgettable background music didn't help either.
The more advanced the presentation of this series gets, the weirder it becomes when you don't hear any sounds leaving the mouths of your characters.
Anyway, I don't mind calling Sword/Shield bad games. They are. They completely gimped the trading features in order to drive people to a paid mobile service, making it the worst set of Pokemon games to try and play with other people since the GBA titles. The difficulty balancing, as usual, is completely wack, and you have to actively handicap yourself to make it even the slightest bit interesting (nothing new, but a lot of previous games weren't quite THIS easy). There's next to no story. No interesting characters. No exploration, outside of those horrible, empty Wild Areas that drop frames like crazy. And, sorry, the raid battles suck. They're a dumb gimmick, and add very little to the game for me.
@KratosMD I might not have played many Pokemon games but I really doubt you can beat the game using just your starter in Blue without a hell of a lot of grinding. I mean, if you managed that, well done! I played one on 3DS and that too was really easy, so maybe that's a thing in common with modern Pokemon games.
My experience playing about half of Shield is theirs no point catching and leveling up Pokemon of different types, because your starter can deal with everything. At most I had to change to a second Pokemon during the same battle, and I don't recall having to worry about using the correct types in any scenario, though I probably did try and use the right Mon for the job because...why not.
Yes you can make it harder for yourself by rotating a team of Pokemon, not using healing items, only using a certain type of Pokemon or whatever but when that's a play style that's largely encouraged to make the experience more involving I think there is something wrong with the core game.
At least let us turn experience share off!
Upshot is, unless you care about catching em all, there is not much game here to enjoy. But I understand that's enough for some people.
For me there are a billion way more interesting RPG's out there!
@kyleforrester87 Eh, he's right that you can barrel through most Pokemon games, including the GB/GBC ones, with just your starter most of the time if you deliberately overleveled it. They're not hard games. But this one is so inordinately easy that, even if you create a balanced team, you still chew through everything if you have type advantage. One of the biggest problems is the xp balancing. In previous games, you had to really grind to overlevel your Pokemon. But you get so much xp for catching and battling Pokemon that you have to almost constantly rotate new ones in order to keep them from being massively overleveled in every new area you come across, even if you're going out of your way to avoid needless wild battles. Why am I gaining full xp for catching Pokemon anyway? It made sense in the (also sort of dreadful) Let's Go games, considering wild Pokemon battles didn't exist, but here it just throws what little difficulty there is into the dumpster.
Pokemon has always been approachable if you know what to do. But, until now, it was never braindead.
Sw/Sh is the Shantae: Half-Genie Hero, Final Fantasy XIII, or Layton's Mystery Journey of its respective series: a sequel that, presentation aside, does almost everything wrong, exacerbating small problems from previous games and introducing new problems along the way, and removes a huge element of the series' core appeal in the process.
I really needed Sword and Shield to be a revolution to the franchise to get me interested in the Pokemon games again, and it's anything but that. I used to adore the DS ones, I put hundreds of hours into Heart Gold, but X and Y were thoroughly meh, and I didn't really enjoy Omega Ruby either. I went to take a break from the franchise and hoped my enthusiasm would renew over time, but in fact I'm somehow even more drained on the series!
It's a huge shame, because Sword and Shield had an excellent opportunity to be a breath of fresh air in the franchise. Zelda, Mario, Fire Emblem, Luigi's Mansion, Animal Crossing and more all have their best entry on the switch, with most of them being huge updates to the franchise, and you can feel all the love and care that's gone into them. Sword and Shield just feel lazy. I wish they didn't sell as well as they have, as that would provide a clear message about just how much they need to step up their game, but alas, this has clearly shown that even with minimal effort, these games sell like hotcakes.
@Ralizah hmm I remember having a bit of a hard time with some of the gym leaders in Blue, to the point I had to do a bit of grinding. But I didn’t have to do any of that in Shield and still destroyed everything I came up against. I guess that’s all I wanted, a little bit of a challenge and a sense of accomplishment when I beat a gym leader.
@kyleforrester87 Here's how I would describe it:
In older Pokemon games, if you knew what you were doing, you could fairly easily stomp through them. But it took some level of foreknowledge grinding, and/or overleveling certain OP Pokemon to properly accomplish this.
In Sw/Sh, you have to go WAY out of your way to NOT stomp through everything you encounter in the game.
Imo, Pokemon’s been a slow burning car crash since X and Y. They got incredibly easy very quickly and the gimmicks haven’t been interesting in the slightest. The DS games were brilliant but they’ve been going backwards despite making the jump to home consoles.
@KratosMD@Ralizah I don't think it's entirely on experience. I replay the older games from time to time, and they're definitely harder. If you avoid most of the wild battles (like I did in SWSH), some gym challenges can be quite challenging. Whitney's Miltank in GSC is notorious, but Scyther, Gengar and Kingdra are quite challenging as well. Norman with two Slakings in RSE can still be tough fight, even if you know what to expect.
This problem also applies to the 3DS games; and maybe to the series as a whole. But difficulty is just one of the problems. The games are an insult compared to any other current gen RPG.
@Octane Oh lord, even in HeartGold when I prepare, Whitney’s Miltank throws a spanner in the works on occasion. The games back then were just tighter and the 2D graphics suited it more imo.
This is what the The Witcher 3 looks like. ON A HANDHELD SYSTEM.
I never want to hear people make any excuses about the poor developers making poorly performing games on weak hardware.
LOOK AT THIS.
Does it look rougher than my 1080p PC version on Ultra settings that runs at 60fps? Sure.
BUT LOOK AT IT.
A HANDHELD. WTF.
There are no excuses anymore when THIS is possible.
@nessisonett I liked X and Y. It was a bit easier than I would have liked, but the initial transition into 3D was such a massive leap for the series. Also, Lumiose City was and still is the biggest and most interesting urban environment in the series. How is it that we get sweeping views of a huge city in a 3DS game, but in Sw/Sh all we get are tiny places with only a few buildings to enter.
Also, I feel the need to point out that X and Y have the best multiplayer features in the entire series. The PSS was SO robust and user-friendly.
Not the best entries in the series, but I think they were very solid Pokemon games.
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