Pokemon Sword and Shield - A Retrospective
Available in video form here
With Pokemon Scarlet and Violet just around the corner, now looked like a good time to look back on one of the most divisive games in the history of the franchise, Pokemon Sword and Shield.
Lets go back to the start, on the 27th of February 2019 we got our first glimpse of the titles, with them being announced in a Nintendo Direct. The initial hype was massive. This would be the first main-line pokemon title on a home console. The promise of the franchise taking that next step to true 3d was a massive draw to long time and new fans alike. Things quickly went downhill from here.
The more that information came out, the more hate the games got. From the graphics, the animations, and of course Dexit. In an Post E3 interview, it got confirmed that not all pokemon will be obtainable within the games. The backlash to this was huge. The internet exploded in anger as the possibility of not using their favourite pokemon became a massibe talking point. The franchise has always been about building relationships with your partner pokemon, fighting side by side as you overcome evil and attempt to become the champion. It felt like the franchise was ripping this away, after 25 years, and telling you that you could only do this with pokemon they decide. As more information came out, people stayed angry. A petition to boycott the franchise was even made. That petition went so well that the games became the fastest selling titles on the switch.... Okay maybe it didn't go that well.
So, was the game good? Well that's a complicated question and everyone will have a different answer. But let's look back at the games and see how it holds up.
The first thing I want to look at is the new Pokemon added to the game. Removing old ones is already controversial, but they could recover if the new ones are well received. The Starter pokemon didn't get off to a great start. Cinderace is like marmite, its either loved or hate it. Personally I'm not a fan because of its humanistion. However it is a strong Pokemon that sees a lot of competitive play. Inteleon... well the less said about it the better. Some people like it sure, every Pokemon has it's fans but it seems to be widely disliked. Rillaboom however, I love Rillaboom. Most people do. The general consensus is that it is the best designed starter this generation. My main issue is why does it have this drum? There is a theme in the Galar region of Pokemon being based on music, specifically rock. The two best examples of this are with Toxricity and Obstagoon. Toxtricity is a smart design, it has a guitar built into its body. The same is true for Obstagoon, this is the singer of the Pokemon band and that
is reflected in it's design. I get that Rilaboom is the drummer, so it has a drum. That being said it is also a gorilla, an animal that is known for beating it's chest, so why didn't the drum in it's chest as part of the design? This feels like a missed opportunity.
That's a phrase that can be used a lot when talking about Sword and Shield. Missed opportunity. The thought was there, you can see where they wanted to go with it, but not everything is done as well as it could have been. Another prime example of this is with the fossil Pokemon. The idea of the fossils being mismatched and thus put together and reborn wrong is a great one and something that does reflect what happens in real life.
Some critics say that the 4 fossil pokemon are ugly, which is the whole point, they are abominations of two pokemon put together. The missed opportunity here is not also giving us the pokemon if they were correctly placed together.
This would have made for not only amazing design, but also some great in world lore. Again though Gamefreak went 75% of the way with a great idea.
This 'almost there' design plagues the game in many ways, and its easiest to see in the actual routes/roads. So mant areas look nice, but just have nothing in them. The biggest culprit for this is the Glimwood Tangle. A fairy inhabited forest that's full of charm and wonder. So why is it so small? Viridian Forest is bigger and easier to get lost in, and that was designed for the gameboy. Every route in the game suffers from this, it is all just straight lines. The caves in Pokemon are known for their multi-levelled approaches that leave them full of secrets and gives you reasons to backtrack as you unlock new abilities such as surf or rock smash. In Sword and Sheild the entire route is unlocked from the first time you get there, but it doesn't take long to discover it all. You have one clearly laid out main path, and MAYBE a smaller path down one side that leads to a something like a TM. Thats it. The lack of exploration really kills that adventure feeling the previous games have provided.
It's not all bad though, we have to praise the Wild Area. it has it's flaws for sure. Pokemon popping in and out, and the graphical look of it compared to the rest of the game isn't great. But that's about all it has in terms of issues.
For me the Wild Area is the single biggest advancement pokemon has made since the Special/Physical split. The Wild Area allows for the first time for everyone to truly have a unique experience. Sure previous games people do have different teams. I might have a Pidgey, my friend a Spearow but both are available to us at the same time, all the time. That's not the case here. The wild area changes daily, in every section. When I first played the game and got here, the pokemon I came across was the likes of Snorunt. While my friends had Tyrogue. My brother sent me a picture of him having a Riolu as the first thing hes caught. While mine was a Duskull. This variety offers so much replayabilty and a level of team building that no pokemon game before has been able to offer. It served as a base of Legends:Arceus and hopefully Scarlet and Violet.
So what about the Story? Well to be honest, it wasn't very good. To be fair Pokemon rarely has good stories, that is saved for the spin offs. This one felt slow, with a constant stop start feel due to how many times Hop and co interrupt your progress for no reason a lot of the time. The game tried to add a twist in terms of the villain but it was easy to see coming. The evil team of the game, if you can call them that, are just fans of a rival trainer and offer nothing to the story. The lack of any side story happening is also a disappointment. In previous games the legendary trio/quad have had something happening in the background. Sword and Sheild doesn't offer any kind of side legendary which in turn weakens the story. This lack of a secondary legendary trio also adds onto the lack of exploration. Previous games allowed you to find them by going off the beaten track and solving puzzles. We have none of this here.
We should also look at the gimmick of the game, Dynamaxing. Pokemon become big for 3 turns, and get access to special moves, with some pokemon able to go another level and Gigantamax which is the same thing with a different sprite.
As a concept on it's own is weak. Better than Z-Moves, worse than Megas. The implementation to it was fantastic though, but not for the reasons you may be thinking. Dynamax allowed us to have raids. Raids are one of the most fun things to do in this game, and it's something that the other gimmicks wouldn't have been able to provide. They offer you a chance to play cooperatively with friends, which is something we will come back to soon.
Sword and Shield did a lot of firsts for the franchise, one of these was DLC. Previously we have received updated versions of the titles, or sequels. This time it was DLC and this is where the game shines. The base game has a distinct lack of post game content. While the DLC offers the most replayability of any pokemon game ever. First it added it more pokemon, over 100 of them brought back from the death of dexit. We got 2 new side legendaries in the form of regional bird legendaries and 2 new regis. We also got the swords of justice. On top of this there was a whole quest line based around another trio of Calyrix and its 2 horses. The game went form no side story or post game content, to having 4 new legendary groups that are huntable/in the story. Suddenly a lot of the issues were resolved.
To add to this, lets go back to what I said about raids being a coop feature and look at the Dynamax Adventures. In my opinion the single best thing in Pokemon history. You can team up with 3 friends and take down a wave of powerful pokemon in a dungeon crawler like mini game, and at the end fight and capture a legendary. The beauty of this game mode though is that you don't use your own Pokemon. It would be easy to come in with 4 Mewtwos and 1 hit kill everything.
Instead you get given a random pokemon. It's one thing having 4 Mewtwos to take out a Rayquaza. It's another when you have a Mr Mime, Tauros, Vikavolt and a Qwilfish. It's so much fun, me and my friends have put countless hours into it
alone. To top it all off, it also offers massive shiny odds. 1/100 with the shiny charm, making shiny hunting fun and easy, especially for legendaries.
Overall I think Sword and Shield are decent games. The hate it got before release was understandable, but the wild area's ability to make so many pokemon available really made Dexit not as big of an issue as it appeared to be. The DLC fixed a lot of the issues with the story and offered a lot of replayability. It's not a perfect game. The story is boring, the characters forgettable, some design choices are strange. But it's fun, its extremely fun. It sets a good foundation for Gamefreak to develop 3D pokemon from and in the future I think it will be looked back on as flawed but impactful.
