Should I get a Switch to play Sword/Shield?

[Momoro]

Should I?

The only reason I haven't is because I don't have a ton of money- and, before I jump into a $200 Switch Lite, I'd like some opinions-

1) Was Pokemon Sword/Shield a good game? I mean, did it still feel like Pokemon?

2) Is Pokemon Sword/Shield worth the $60.00 from Walmart?

3) Is the Switch Lite good for Pokemon or the Switch? (Not Lite!)

Thanks for your opinions 😄

 

[Corrin]

Hi! This is better suited for the video gaming section :>

 

[gimmepie]

1. Some people will tell you SwSh was bad. I disagree with those people and find them nitpicky. There was definitely things that could have been done better, but the overall look and gaming experience you get in SwSh is plenty enjoyable and it definitely feels very Pokemon in all the right ways.

2. It's worth the $60 as much as any typical game is worth the insane amounts of money we have to pay for them.

3. A Switch Lite is fine for anything that is fine on a standard Switch as far as I know.

If you're tight on cash, I'd still wait until you can more easily afford it, but it's a good choice for gaming I think and SwSh is definitely worth playing. There's a lot of other great games available on the Switch too, if that helps.

 

[pkmin3033]

Taken at face value, the short answers to those questions are: Absolutely not, no, and yes.

Sword/Shield were disgracefully bad games, and there are plenty of reasons as to why that is. But perhaps the biggest one is that half the content was carved out of them and re-packaged as a season pass which will cost you half as much again. The games don't actually cost $60 - by the time you're done it's going to be closer to $110, with a constant drain on your resources in the form of Pokemon Home if you have Pokemon to transfer over from old games...which, by the way, you won't be able to do entirely, forcing you to either keep them on your old games or in Home, which is outrageously expensive for what it is. The base games are severely lacking in content, polish, and pretty much anything else, really. Visually they're abysmal for the Nintendo Switch, the online is dreadful - oh, and THAT requires a subscription too, so that'll set you back more money, and believe me when I say you will find no joy in these titles outside of Raid Battles if you don't buy the DLC...which was pretty much what was intended. There is nowhere near enough in the base games to justify the price tag, and what is in the base games is disgustingly poor quality.

...but in all honesty, that's exactly what Pokemon has felt like since Generation V, so if you enjoyed previous Pokemon titles, you're probably not going to notice. Like nobody else seems to, because blinders go over people's eyes when it comes to judging the quality of Pokemon titles. I am of the opinion that we should hold Pokemon games to account for their low quality and that we have every right to expect more for our money, and that they should be compared to similar titles and not solely within the bounds of the series, but I seem to be alone in this for some reason. But if this game didn't have the Pokemon name attached to it, it would be about $15 by now.

Is this any worse than what other games do? No, I could name you several games that are MUCH worse than this. But does that somehow make it more acceptable, or good? Absolutely not. I could point you in the direction of several games with no extra costs that are much more polished, satisfying, and enjoyable experiences than these steaming piles of trash. Don't be fooled into thinking that just because Game Freak did it and it's Pokemon that its OK to be conned out of your money. Especially if you're strapped for cash.

Anywho. That aside, the only reason I can think of to get a Switch over a Switch Lite is to avoid the possible aggravation of stick drift, which is a death sentence for a Switch Lite because you can't just buy a new set of Joycons...well, I suppose you CAN, but it defeats the purpose to have them separate like that, haha. There's nothing wrong with the Lite at all, and it'd play the games you want it to play just fine - although if you were getting higher end games like Witcher III you might find the visuals suffer a bit on the smaller screen for the details - but I would still advise erring on the side of caution and getting a regular Switch, because there isn't really any reason not to unless you're really strapped for cash and dying to get one. You can play on a TV if you want to, if your Joycons screw up you only have to send those in repair and not your entire console - and can buy replacements - and I believe it's fractionally bigger, too.

So yes, to reiterate: Switch good, Pokemon bad.

 

[Janp]

I agree with Dawn. Pokémon games were on decline since 3DS titles, but it just went straight to terrible with Switch games.

But to answer your first question: No, SwSh weren't good games, but they still felt like Pokémon. Like the main Pokémon loop of catching, leveling, beating other trainers and exploring the world is still there, but it's stripped to the bare minimum. You can't catch some Pokémon either because they are not in the game or because the game just forbids you to catch them for some reason. Trainers barely have more than one Pokémon and they have really poor movesets, so it's not a fun to fight against them. And some Routes are just a straight line, so there isn't really much to explore. There are also only 2 caves and I don't think there are any optional Routes.

For the second question: Once again no. The games have less features and replayability than 3DS games that cost 40$. Plus you wouldn't really pay 60$, since there are also DLC for SwSh.

And the last question: Yes, I think so. From what I've heard, Lite is fine for playing Pokémon.

 

[Nah]

Opinion on the quality of SwSh as you can see is rather divided, so you'd probably want to look into the games more and figure out if it's going to be something you think you'll like or not. People have varying things that are important/not important to them.

The Switch Lite can only be used in handheld mode, which is fine for Pokemon games since they've traditionally been on handhelds, but handheld mode is not what I'd want to use for some games. idk if that's a factor for you, but I thought I'd mention it.

 

[The Mega Champion]

I'm not going to answer all your questions one by one.

the TL;DR answer is yes. Sword was infinitely better than that shit Gen 7/Alola. I had more fun playing Sword than I did playing either Sun or Ultra Sun combined.

But apparently I'm in the minority when it comes to Gen 8/Sword/Shield. So my opinion is clearly controversial. Because that makes sense. 😐

 

[Vragon2.0]

I'm not going to answer the area related to the games since I haven't played them myself and only would offer what I would view about those games, which may or may not fall in line with how you play pokemon games so I'll just answer with this.

Don't buy a console just to play one game. Even if the game is very good, rarely does it justify an added $200+ console addition. I would look into other games you have an interest in and look up what ports are good on the switch that would give more reason to have them on the go.

Some notable examples I can think of are the before mentioned Witcher III, Kirby Star Allies (Tones of updated content that's free), Bomberman (even more free content added to it), Xenoblade 1 and 2 (if you want a good jrpg with depth to story and combat), My friend Pedro (Fun little indie game, I'd recommend getting physical due to game size compared to actual content), DK country tropical freeze, Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Mario Odessey, and Luigi's mansion 3 to name a few that don't require joy-con motion controls.

 

[faf]

If you think you will enjoy SwSh then I would recommend finding a used copy of it since 60 USD plus DLC isn't worth buying a new copy. If anything, I find RPGs like Octopath Traveler, Dragon Quest 11 S, Digimon Cybersleuth (a game I should probably play more of, oops), Final Fantasy 10, and Tales of Vesperia better than SwSh and they are also available on the Switch. SwSh may well be like a Pokémon game and feel like Pokémon games but it's riddled with numerous flaws such as a lot of the post game being locked into DLC, graphics looking worse than a PS2 game, terrible optimization (extremely noticeable with Raids), Pokedex cut, horrible online (20 minute total timer which makes 6v6 singles literally unplayable, Y-Comm being finicky, GTS removed and behind a paywall, etc), story is as shallow as ever, etc. DLC is slightly better but it honestly should have been added into the game in the first place or if the games were much more fleshed out then I would be fine paying extra. I don't think SwSh are bad games per se since I did have some fun with them, I just find them mediocre.

As for the Switch Lite, the cheaper price is appealing and can work with Pokemon but the mentioned Joycon drift means it will be a hassle to replace. It's more appealing to buy the regular one just because Joycons are replaceable as well as playing on the big screen.

 

[Starlight]

I haven't played Sword or Shield. Me and my partner own them both, but haven't had chance to play them yet. Not gonna lie, I am a bit scared to after reading this thread!!!

As for the switch, I love handhelds and so does my partner. We needed two, for Animal Crossing, Pokémon etc. and we needed at least one to connect to the TV. We argued (playfully... ish) over who would get the svelte little lite and who would be stuck with the big, clunky OG switch.

After trying them out in store, we eventually bought two "clunky" ones because they felt so, so, much better in hand.

 

[gimmepie]

Sometimes I feel like all these other people played totally different games to me lmao.

I don't understand complaints about how the game looks. It's graphically fine, consistent with Pokemon's aesthetic and often pretty to look at. I can't see why you'd want things to look different and push the Switch to its limits by making things highly detailed because then it wouldn't look like Pokemon anymore. It's supposed to be simplistic and cartoony. This is a design choice, not a failure.

I don't get the complaints about the amount of content in the games either. Max raids are plenty entertaining, there's several little mini-sidequests throughout the game and there's a reasonably long and compete story to enjoy (I'll talk about that more later). In the post-game there's the Battle Tower which is challenging and requires actual effort to succeed in as well as repeats of the tournament which never play out exactly the same. There's also additional post-game story content. There's well-and-truly enough Pokemon in the game to give it replay value too. On top of that, which is just in the base game, the Expansion Pass adds loads of additional content - especially Crown Tundra which gives you another decently long post-game story with legendary sidequests and the Max Raid Adventures which are extremely fun, especially if you play with friends. They also add more options to the tournaments you can do. I do agree that they're a bit overpriced for what they are, and I think Isle of Armour is a bit disappointing if I'm honest, but they are plenty fun overall and you're not obligated to buy them until later on.

The writing of the games has earned some justified criticism, but there was a lot of stuff story-wise that was also done extremely well that does not get enough credit. As a writer myself, this is one of the things that really irks me because I know how much work goes into some of it. Now, full disclosure, they did mess up the overarching story. They intentionally keep you at arms length for most of the game and then very abruptly throw you into it as the end. That was bad and there's no good excuse for it. But SwSh has some of the best character writing, worldbuilding and thematic through-lines of the franchise. I'm working on a daily article looking into some of that right now, so I don't want to go into pages of detail on it, but I very much wanted to draw attention to it. I can explain more if I really have to I guess, but yeah.

I don't think it's entirely fair to blame SwSh itself for Nintendo Online requiring a subscription either. That's a fair complaint to levee at Home in relation to SwSh, but a single game is not responsible for a wider problem with the company itself and I don't think that should be counted against SwSh as a game. Sword and Shield are not at all perfect: the overarching story wasn't executed as well as the character writing was and there's minor polish issues like draw distance and the infamous credits cursor that resulted from crunch time. The expansion pass offers a lot of great content, but it should be a bit cheaper than it is, definitely. But SwSh are not at all as bad as some people claim and that's not because people who liked the game have Pokemon-shaped blinders on, it's because the games did a lot right that, frankly, outweigh the negatives.

The game's overarching story is no worse than a lot of other Pokemon games, including stuff like GSE/HGSS and BW/BW2 which get lauded as being so much better despite having overarching stories that are actually kinda dumb, and it's character-centric writing is at least as good as Gen V's, if not better. The gameplay is enjoyable and marks a slight increase in difficulty from Gen 6 and Gen 7 which were (excluding Ultra Necrozma) laughably easy even for a game targeted at children. They added to it without changing it too dramatically. It's an aesthetically solid game that matches the style we should expect from Pokemon.

They're solid games and while some of the complaints people make are justified, many of the criticisms that people make of them are incredibly nitpicky and literally every other Pokemon game would have to be viewed as just as bad if not worse if held to the same standards as SwSh are for some reason. It's entirely up to you if you think the games are worth buying or not after hearing all this, but I very much wanted to provide a detailed look at it from the other side of the fence so you'd be able to make a more objective decision.

 

[Jay]

I fully agree with Gimmepie.

I judge pokémon games based purely on whether or not I had fun. I didn't have fun with Gen 7, I didn't like Gen 7. I had fun with Gen 8. The characters are entertaining, the gameplay is pokémon, it's piss easy, it always has been.

I just don't get why people are so angry about SwSh. It was fun, I had fun.

Here's the best advice I can give you about Pokémon SwSh. Don't listen to anyone's advice. Look at the game, watch gameplay, decide if you think personally it looks fun.

If it does, buy it. The game is polarizing. Pokémon fans do be salty and will always be salty, I don't trust Nintendo to advertise their game right, but I definitely don't expect pokémon fans to give you a good recommendation on a video game.

 

[pkmin3033]

Here's the best advice I can give you about Pokémon SwSh. Don't listen to anyone's advice. Look at the game, watch gameplay, decide if you think personally it looks fun.

That is actually the best advice you can give for deciding whether you should buy any game, period.

 

[bobandbill]

On the topic itself - I agree with the point that you shouldn't buy the Switch just for one game - and the Switch has a lot more to it besides SwSh that's worth playing, opinions on SwSh aside. Worth the buy imo.

I'm not going to answer all your questions one by one.

the TL;DR answer is yes. Sword was infinitely better than that shit Gen 7/Alola. I had more fun playing Sword than I did playing either Sun or Ultra Sun combined.

But apparently I'm in the minority when it comes to Gen 8/Sword/Shield. So my opinion is clearly controversial. Because that makes sense. 😐

I mean... I have enjoyed SwSh more than SM/USUM in various aspects (not all though), and certainly overall. Not 'infinitely' better, but I have enjoyed it. It has a lot of flaws imo, but it's still been fun for me to play. Mind you, part of it is the dlc.

Sometimes I feel like all these other people played totally different games to me lmao.

I don't understand complaints about how the game looks. It's graphically fine, consistent with Pokemon's aesthetic and often pretty to look at. I can't see why you'd want things to look different and push the Switch to its limits by making things highly detailed because then it wouldn't look like Pokemon anymore. It's supposed to be simplistic and cartoony. This is a design choice, not a failure.

I think some of the complaints isn't just the art style, it's the corner cutting.

Take LGPE for instance. It's even more simplistic and cartoony in style than SwSh is, imo. But it's the better game graphically in the regard that it's more polished. Battle backgrounds are one example of this - they actually reflect the area you are in properly, including the likes of Nugget Bridge, varied Gym battle backgrounds, etc. SwSh does not do this, to the point of reusing field backgrounds when not in a field, or boring voids when in a building, and very samey Gym stadium backgrounds (compare to say Colosseum, where each Colosseum, or 'stadium' had its own very distinct design and layout).

There are certainly nice parts to SwSh graphically - some attacks like Scorbunny's signature move, and Ballonlea and the end of the beginning forest area are very nice to look at especially. But it suffers in other areas, compared to the other Pokemon Switch game, and even to games from generations ago which still used Pokemon Stadium models! That's an indictment in itself. And I disagree that these assessments are truly so nitpicky - they're very easy to notice.

I do agree that the DLC content has been pretty fun, but the game is quite bare without it.

 

[Nah]

I judge pokémon games based purely on whether or not I had fun. I didn't have fun with Gen 7, I didn't like Gen 7. I had fun with Gen 8. The characters are entertaining, the gameplay is pokémon, it's piss easy, it always has been.

I just don't get why people are so angry about SwSh. It was fun, I had fun.

Is it really that hard to understand why people might not like SwSh?

I liked SwSh better than Gen 7 too, but "SwSh was better than Gen 7" and "SwSh is not a great game" are not mutually exclusive.

 

[Jay]

Is it really that hard to understand why people might not like SwSh?

I liked SwSh better than Gen 7 too, but "SwSh was better than Gen 7" and "SwSh is not a great game" are not mutually exclusive.

Bit of a strawman's argument there, I don't think it was good just because it was better than Gen 7, that was never a point I made. Though I understand if my wording came across as misleading I suppose.

I suppose in hindsight, I understand why people disliked Gen 8, sure... but it just feels so old hat at this point. Everyone, like with most of these things, rehashes the same opinions, jumps on bandwagons and continues to rant on the games like there's no tomorrow. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a stan for Sword and Shield, the games had their problems, but the mob mentality hate for them is so prevalent everywhere I look that it pissed me off enough to give the games a proper chance.

And when I did, I had fun, more fun than pokémon had given me in a while. That's where my comparison to Gen 7 came from, Gen 8 made me enjoy pokémon again. I suppllose for that reason I should thank the legion of critics because I wouldn't have bothered giving it a try otherwise.

Still, I'm rambling off topic. S/M? Bad imo. Sw/Sh? Good imo. Not mutually exclusive? Correct. The point? It wasn't.

But yeah, I agree with what Dawn said, the process is applied for any game for sure. OP if you like the look of the games for gameplay and want to experience the new pokémon generation with friends, etc. Go for the purchase. If you don't like the look of it, don't. Even if you get it and change your mind halfway through, you have a Switch now and those are awesome.