Become a Pokémon Trainer, embark on a new journey in the new Galar region, and unravel the mystery behind the Legendary Pokémon Zacian and Zamazenta! Explore the Wild Area, a vast expanse of land where the player can freely control the camera. And participate in Max Raid Battles in which players will face off against gigantic and super-strong Pokémon known as Dynamax Pokémon. Begin your adventure by choosing one of three new partner Pokémon: Grookey, Scorbunny, or Sobble and encounter new and familiar Pokémon as you catch, battle, and trade. Players can control the camera and explore the vast areas around them in the Wild Area. Team up with other players locally or online in the new multiplayer co-op Max Raid Battles. Trainers who possess the special item Dynamax Band can Dynamax their own Pokémon. Get ready for the next Pokémon adventure in the Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield games.
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got both played and beat Shield I think
A true low point for the series. After the roughness that was US/UM, Sw/Sh was an uphill battle day one... and it lost, badly. The game in the end was fine, but the enjoyment factor was incredibly low for me. The writing, bar maybe Hop, was incredibly lackluster, villain was not threatening and the only fun parts of the game were the DLC I paid an additional $30 for. I won't bother going over the backlash and boycotting this game recieved, but this was really a letdown of massive proportions.
Being in the Pokemon fandom, I can confirm Team Yell is an accurate depiction of a toxic fanbase
I bought the double pack solely to have singular access to both box legendaries. I played through Sword semi-normally, using some mons i'd gotten through Wonder Trade as well, and Shield i leveled up my Starter in Sword by transferring via Home.
Positives of this game is that when you're in the endgame and grinding max raid dens, getting pokemon with 4+ perfect IVs is almost guaranteed. It's one of the best QOL improvements in a while. Downsides to max raids though is the barrier system, which makes some battles next to impossible if you're only using the crappy built in AI allies.
With improvements to the Bag UI (you can now opt to give a pokemon multiple of the same item at once) and respawning hidden items in the wild areas, there's a lot of QOL advancements here that actually make this a worthwhile addition to the series.
The roughness around the edges exhibits a lack of polish reminiscent of the jump from DS to 3DS in the XY games, such as the lack of in-door battle environment backgrounds. But, like that jump, this leap also included important competitive QOL improvements (e.g. Destiny Knot breeding), this one brings similar improvements that I hope become staples of future games. Unfortunately, GameFreak has a habit of giving us great features, then taking them away, only to bring them back again for the next game. Will we ever see the return of O/Pass/Rotom powers before Gen 8 ends? We shall see.
Positives of this game is that when you're in the endgame and grinding max raid dens, getting pokemon with 4+ perfect IVs is almost guaranteed. It's one of the best QOL improvements in a while. Downsides to max raids though is the barrier system, which makes some battles next to impossible if you're only using the crappy built in AI allies.
With improvements to the Bag UI (you can now opt to give a pokemon multiple of the same item at once) and respawning hidden items in the wild areas, there's a lot of QOL advancements here that actually make this a worthwhile addition to the series.
The roughness around the edges exhibits a lack of polish reminiscent of the jump from DS to 3DS in the XY games, such as the lack of in-door battle environment backgrounds. But, like that jump, this leap also included important competitive QOL improvements (e.g. Destiny Knot breeding), this one brings similar improvements that I hope become staples of future games. Unfortunately, GameFreak has a habit of giving us great features, then taking them away, only to bring them back again for the next game. Will we ever see the return of O/Pass/Rotom powers before Gen 8 ends? We shall see.
I bought the double pack solely to have singular access to both box legendaries. I played through Sword semi-normally, using some mons i'd gotten through Wonder Trade as well, and Shield i leveled up my Starter in Sword by transferring via Home.
Positives of this game is that when you're in the endgame and grinding max raid dens, getting pokemon with 4+ perfect IVs is almost guaranteed. It's one of the best QOL improvements in a while. Downsides to max raids though is the barrier system, which makes some battles next to impossible if you're only using the crappy built in AI allies.
With improvements to the Bag UI (you can now opt to give a pokemon multiple of the same item at once) and respawning hidden items in the wild areas, there's a lot of QOL advancements here that actually make this a worthwhile addition to the series.
The roughness around the edges exhibits a lack of polish reminiscent of the jump from DS to 3DS in the XY games, such as the lack of in-door battle environment backgrounds. But, like that jump, this leap also included important competitive QOL improvements (e.g. Destiny Knot breeding), this one brings similar improvements that I hope become staples of future games. Unfortunately, GameFreak has a habit of giving us great features, then taking them away, only to bring them back again for the next game. Will we ever see the return of O/Pass/Rotom powers before Gen 8 ends? We shall see.
Positives of this game is that when you're in the endgame and grinding max raid dens, getting pokemon with 4+ perfect IVs is almost guaranteed. It's one of the best QOL improvements in a while. Downsides to max raids though is the barrier system, which makes some battles next to impossible if you're only using the crappy built in AI allies.
With improvements to the Bag UI (you can now opt to give a pokemon multiple of the same item at once) and respawning hidden items in the wild areas, there's a lot of QOL advancements here that actually make this a worthwhile addition to the series.
The roughness around the edges exhibits a lack of polish reminiscent of the jump from DS to 3DS in the XY games, such as the lack of in-door battle environment backgrounds. But, like that jump, this leap also included important competitive QOL improvements (e.g. Destiny Knot breeding), this one brings similar improvements that I hope become staples of future games. Unfortunately, GameFreak has a habit of giving us great features, then taking them away, only to bring them back again for the next game. Will we ever see the return of O/Pass/Rotom powers before Gen 8 ends? We shall see.
I'm 100% aware that this won't be an overall popular opinion, but I really love Pokemon Sword and Shield. I enjoy the Galar region as a whole, especially the two DLC areas, and the characters may be the strongest they've ever been except for maybe the original release of Pokemon Sun and Moon. Sure, not all Pokemon are included but that's not something that's ever mattered much to me, and I'd much rather judge a game based on its own merits, and Sword and Shield have, over time, grown on me more and more to the point where they might be some of my favorites in the series. I'm not going to try to convince you that they're perfect, or that it doesn't suck that the whole Dex isn't featured, but I genuinely love these games, I can't remember the last time I played through a whole Pokemon game in the span of a weekend until I returned to Pokemon Sword, and my Pokemon Shield file has my first ever completed Pokedex. Even if you're inclined to dislike these games, what they introduced has me quite excited to see what comes next from the next mainline entry in the series. Here's hoping it's something special!