swsh by an absolute hair. and i say this as someone who's favourite region is sinnoh. i have the Unpopular Opinion that max raids are actually kinda nice; dynamax adventures, while the most annoying shiny hunt method, can be fun sometimes depending on if you're doing it with friends and whatnot. idk, the whole experience of swsh is nice and the only reason i'm not really regularly playing swsh like that these days is that bdsp is still the shiny new game on the block and i've still yet to get bored of that.
i suppose if i had to do a pros and cons list:
swsh:
+ raids, raids and more raids!
+ more character customization options than bdsp by a lot, felt like ilca could've done more here
+ arguably better climax in the story and better osts (really though i havent heard
an ost go this hard in a long time)
+ isle of armor and crown tundra are interesting expansions
+ hop is a rival with more depth than barry and i say this as someone who loves barry's "im fining you $1,000,000" antics
- base game kinda lame and it's clear it's "incomplete"
- the above also means the base game wild area is kinda...idk, ugly is a strong word, but less developed than the wild areas of ioa and ct. it's clear that game freak cares about the visual presentation here and puts work into improving the wild area
- i had a moment of "really?" as soon as i finished ioa's story. as a stopgap sort of to ct, it was kind of a let down. i kinda wish there was more to ioa than urshifu.
- i dont like the decision of not letting the player use their own pokemon in dynamax adventures. if the mewtwo max raid was indicative of anything, game freak could very well have made legendaries more or less challenging without relying on rental pokemon and random npcs that don't always (more often than not, really) make the best decisions
- a vast majority of the game is easy except for maybe leon depending on your team. if you come into swsh expecting difficulty, don't expect a whole lot here (excluding raids). that said, the rematches are pretty fun, so there's that!
bdsp:
+ i
love the chibi aesthetic and i think pokemon should probably follow this route if not some chibi-esque aesthetic in the future. it's an aesthetic that perfectly captures what pokemon is all about; instead of being realistic, it's fantasy and child-like as it should be. sure, it clashes with some elements that are supposed to be dark like cyrus (which is actually hilarious to me), but i think as a whole it's cute as it's supposed to be.
+ to add to the above, has anyone seen how amazingly stunning the water is?? using surf and waterfall is incredible to look at. idk, maybe i pay too close attention to move animations but it's clear some of them are done quite well!
+/- faithful remake. had to include it here, which means no distortion world. there is a distortion
area which houses giratina-o, but i guess i liked exploring the world proper. this also means no battle frontier, and while people may call this overrated, i find the gimmicks to be the main reason why the frontier is enjoyable
+ actually pretty damn challenging. while one might think having the exp share on permanently may make the game a cakewalk, i was in my early-mid 70s and still having issues with the elite four. there's definitely a discussion to be had about proper level scaling with the exp share on as the exp share itself doesn't seem to be an issue, it's the level scaling
+ turns out, much like swsh, it's actually pretty damn easy to get multiples of a tm, assuming one puts in work for it
+/- lots of glitches to exploit, apparently. i'm including this as a matter of both depending on personal preference. for me? i don't personally care
+ pokemon hideaways are pretty nice
+ you can play w/other players in grand underground which is nice; i've been wanting something like this for a long time!
- i think they made it so you dont get individual points for defeating trainers in battle tower anymore, which is lame. 1 bp for every win is how it should be. it just makes grinding for bp an annoyance
- post-game basically being battle tower and catching legendaries means that those who have no real love for battling don't have a whole lot to do after they beat the e4 (as far as im aware?). as someone who has been in a similar predicament but in different games, i can see how much this feeling sucks
- the fact that there's only one clothing shop ever is annoying. i don't see anything wrong with including more customization options, but im glad it exists, so idk if this is a "beggars can't be choosers" scenario
- secret bases are lame, and the statues' efficacy is not easily noticeable. as a method of shiny hunting i'm unsure how this compares to pokeradar chaining, but i see a LOT more people getting results with the latter which probably says a lot.
--
a lot of what's important to me in a pokemon game is longevity. i want to play the game past the main story. i want the post-game to be the
real thing. swsh keeps me shiny hunting as it's easy to do so while bdsp keeps me battling with battle tower, but eventually the latter is going to get boring unless i team up with one of my friends to do it (dunno if that's even possible). the underground keeps me stuck while the same can be said for dynamax adventures. really though, it can go either way easily for me but i like shiny hunting so swsh edges out.
