Pokemon, at its core, is really hard to mess up. Given my significant affinity for the Pokemon series, it's very rare that a Pokemon game is downright bad, given that, even just Pokemon's concept leads to so many possibilities, especially given that the mainstream games up to Pokemon Shield have been, at the very least, decent. Pokemon Shield does do some things right; some of the best-designed Pokemon (in my opinion) in the whole series, Team Yell being very funny, the addition of the Wild Area, allowing some freedom in exploration, and highly updated online features, which adds plenty of merit to replaying. But I just cannot get over how half-assed this game is. The pacing is ass, with the entire plot being shoved in just before you fight the elite four. The characters feel like the same characters we've seen in every other Pokemon game thus far; in fact, everything feels the same that has been seen in every other Pokemon game up until this point. At a fundamental level, Pokemon Shield is a fine game, but it feels so thrown together and half-assed, that one cannot help to point out its numerous flaws seen consistently throughout it.