[Sword & Shield] What did you think of the story/writing?

[Sheep]

Probably a good discussion to be had, given the mixed reactions I've heard online over SwSh's story.

In your personal opinion - was the story/writing good? What did you like and not like? What would you improve?

 

[Iceshadow3317]

I liked the tournament, but that is about all. Everything else has been VERY WEAK. Compared to Unova and Kalos, the story was just.... meh. I just wasn't interested at all. Marnie had nothing... literally every character except Prof. Magnolia had more screen time than her. It was so very annoying.

There was no connection to other regions. Eternatus was yet another thing that came from a meteor. Just how many meteors freaking hit the Pokemon World? It is just so annoying that they keep rehashing to that idea. Apparently everything came from a meteor. And then we have the Twin Brothers, which has literally been used the last 3 generations.

 

[Elite Overlord LeSabre™]

The writing was a hot mess, even when you consider this is Pokemon It's at least better than the 7th gen disasters, but that's not saying much at all. I wrote an essay-length blog entry about this, but to sum it up:

The "leave everything up to the adults" stance isn't bad in and of itself, but it causes the Rose/Eternatus plot at the end to feel rushed and tacked on at the last minute. There's very little build-up. As bad as the X/Y plot is, at least Team Flare was causing trouble throughout the game and didn't suddenly appear as the main antagonists halfway through the Elite Four.

The justification for storming Rose Tower is a very flimsy "Leon is late!" excuse. That's... not a good reason to commit breaking and entering.

Was there any harm in helping Rose out with Eternatus and then holding the Championship match? What, it would be maybe a one or two delay of the battle at worst? On the flip side, was there any harm in letting the Championship match go as planned, and then getting either Leon or your character (the new Champion) assist with Eternatus? Rose basically went off the deep end simply because both he and Leon were too hardheaded and impatient to come to a compromise. Which made the whole Eternatus crisis thing come off as weak, as it could have been completely avoided if either party demonstrated some semblance of common sense.

And of course Hop is a terribly written character whose minimal "development" doesn't matter in the long haul since a) it's a minimal change (he's still annoying and clingy and has the brother complex), and b) he'd annoyed me to the point where I didn't care whether he developed or got hit by a truck. And frankly, I would have preferred the latter option.

 

[Ranko]

I liked it overall. I've been rather critical of the series since after Black and White, but Sword and Shield really brought me back, and I haven't really enjoyed the story of a Pokémon game in a while! I think they've set-up a lot of fantastic concepts, made some really strong characters (BEST Gym leaders), set-up amazing world-building through the League Challenge, and I personally think Hop is one of the best rivals we've ever gotten.

I really like everyone else too, but my biggest issue with the writing is the pacing. Unfortunately, the game's story is definitely extremely rushed, and I felt like they weren't able to tell every single bit of the story that they wanted to tell. Like, I think everything they set-up was initially pretty good, but the big story moments fall flat when they're built and and put down so quickly at the same time. It's very easy to notice how quickly all story events go after around the 5th Gym (All rival arcs besides Hop, Spikemuth, and Macro Cosmos are the biggest offenders) and it really gives off a feeling of a rushed game :/. I think the dialogue itself is kind of annoying but not bad, and while I love Hop, he could be less "on the nose". They just missed a lot of opportunities to do more, and that's probably the big thing I wanna mention.

I think the specifically the epilogue was really well done (some genuinely cute moments and people finally finding themselves), and honestly, they're going in a good direction overall if they keep it up and... take a bit more time.

 

[Nanusmightyena]

The story is trash. It's just the same cookie cutter trash they've been using for years. Gen 7 had a fantastic story and basically got me back into Pokémon after not being remotely interested for 6 years or so. So, my expectations were a little high from gen 7. I was definitely let down as I was really looking forward to this game. From the story to the starters to the NPCs Gamefreak pulled the whole game outta their asses.

 

[Kieran]

I think the last part was so rushed, everything was like a breeze and nothing happened but everything just happened all of the sudden and get squeezed altogether; Plus you can't even participate when things first happened but only joined in when things went haywired.

 

[Yvejuzul]

Absolutely lackluster, and that's being generous.

 

[Zeiro]

It's a decent story but very bad execution.

[SPOILERS] So you're literally halfway through the Championship Tournament, then you, Leon, and Hop go out for dinner. Leon doesn't show and Hop is all like "omg he's never late something must be wrong!!". Oleana says they're in a meeting and hides the key to get there, so they're like "omg she's evil!!!!1!!". You go to the top of the tower, and apparently Chairman Rose is "plotting" something, despite never showing any symptoms of being evil (other than being manipulative which was alluded to with Bede)

You get to the top of the tower and Oleana is all like "how DARE you disturb the Chairman", you beat her and she's basically like "well it's too late now, everything has already been done he can't be stopped". Leon and Rose are talking and Rose is like "We must destroy the current Galar as we know it" and Leon is all like "Come on man lemme finish my Championship match, what's one more day going to do?" and Rose is all like "yeah sure" and then you go have dinner as originally planned??


...and that's just the start of it. It just comes out of nowhere

 

[pkmin3033]

It was Gen 3's again with everything evil-team/Legendary related crammed in during the league the same way it was in Gen 5. Basically. There was absolutely nothing new about it.

But I think this is the first time since Gen V that I've been annoyed by the narrative in a Pokemon game. Being told not to worry about world events and to "let the adults handle it" was condescending and infuriating. I got the distinct impression that they wanted to recycle the standard plot but didn't want to draw attention to the fact that they were recycling the standard plot, so they funnelled you down the Gyms instead...either that, or the plot got cut along with over half the Pokedex, the town that had the seventh Gym, 85% of the scenery of the Wild Area, and the few hundred moves they decided to take out. The plot matched the rest of the game, really - it was threadbare and frustratingly mediocre.

It's funny, though. I got absolutely fed up with Lillie taking my hand in an iron grip and guiding me around Alola in Gen VII with the most banal crap imaginable. They take all that out and somehow the games are even MORE banal than they were with it in there because there's nothing to replace it!