Hello Everyone. I recently finished all of Pokemon Sword and its expansions and would like to write about them. This is going to be a bit more of an unstructured review compared to my normal stuff as I find it's quite hard to write about Pokemon Games and quite a long read.
To Begin, the main thing I feel Sword does well, beyond that of its predecessors, is how many quality of life and convenience improvements it adds to the series that I often miss when I replay older titles. For example, in many past games, move reminders and deleaters were often located in random towns and required something like a Heart Scale or Shards to use. It would often be quite tedious to obtain the resources to use these services. But Sword has a Move Reminder and Deleter available for free in every Pokemon Centre. I love this feature because, in addition to reusable TMs, it makes it more fun to experiment and re-spec your Pokemon's moveset without worry you're permanently overwriting useful moves. As an example, I remember playing Platinum and wanting to make a Special Attacking Infernape with Calm Mind, Flame Thrower and Grass Knot but being unwilling to give up moves like Flare Blitz and Close Combat with how tedious it is to reacquire them. But in Sword, I had my Corviknight alternate between a bulky support pivot role with U-Turn and Fake Tears, an offensive threat to certain Steel, Ice and Rock Type Raid Pokemon with Revenge + Steel Wing and either Work Up or Bulk Up, or a more balanced Steel Wing + Hone Claws + Brave Bird + Life Orb set. As another example, I also used a Togekiss for this playthrough. Typically, stone evolutions like Togekiss stop learning new moves once they evolve and miss out on many moves if they haven't learned them when pre-evolved. Which can make it quite the hassle to kit out such Pokemon. But in Sword, it's quite easy to kit out a Togekiss with Air Slash, Aura Sphere, Draining Kiss and Ancient Power as soon as it evolves. It's great having the freedom to really bring the potential out of your Pokes. And comes in quite useful in some of the game's endgame challenges like the Battle Tower.
And the game is full of these streamlining efforts that reduce the tedium. There is now an Autosave. You can access your PC anywhere in the world. HMs are still completely gone with a dedicated menu for fast travelling. An endgame Battle Tower houses resources like Hyper Training and competitive items in a single location as well as the ability download and share rented teams (the DLC expands on this with even more ways to lower the barrier for competitive play). EXP candies allow you to quickly level up team members making it much more convenient to swap out Pokemon from your current 6. Most wild Pokemon show up in the overworld with Random Encounter Patches on grass being flagged making it easier to avoid battles you don't want or find the Pokemon you do want. There is also a great variety of Pokemon available upfront through the Wild Area, including Trade Evolutions. I also really like many of the new smaller additions to the combat system such as the new items and abilities. Such as Heavy Duty Boots finally give Stealth Rock Weak Pokes a way to not be crippled by their weakness upon merely switching in and was long overdue. Or moves like Aurora Veil being level up moves for many Ice Types.
With all my praise here, there's still some work to be done though in other areas of convenience. The game is missing an easy and accurate way to see your IVs and EVs and reallocate them. The DexNav from Gen 6 that made it much easier to find the exact Pokemon you want is sadly missing. The EXP Share cannot be turned off which can make it more annoying for nuzelockes and EV training certain Pokemon.
The game splits TMs into TMs which are reusable and TRs which are single time use. I'm mixed on these. On the one hand, I kinda see the point. Some moves are kinda useless once you get a better TM. Like, you're not going to teach your Electric Type Shock Wave when you have Thunderbolt. Or use Bulldoze or Dig over Earthquake (unless your mon can't learn Earthquake). So some of the better moves being TRs means Shock Wave is always useful as a way to save your more precious Thunderbolts. In addition, it always means there's something to earn or progress. Every Watt you earn is more precious since it doesn't hurt to get duplicates of good TRs. Oh, and it makes Fling more useful. But I feel the game is more fun with just reusable TMs. I'd rather have more redundant moves and currencies if it means I can always kit my Mons out the way I want. Having TRs kinda goes against the whole streamlining Sword has been doing so far.
The multiplayer menus are really annoying and inconsistent to navigate. This is especially tragic because Gen 6 already had the perfect system when it came to interacting with other players with the Player Search System. There, it was super easy to ask a nearby player to a casual trade or battle. In Sword, when I wanted to play against my cousin's team in a battle or do a Raid Battle via local play, it was quite the hassle setting up a Link Request, hoping the other's system would pick up on it and not display a "connection error". One particular issue we ran into was that the game wouldn't let us do Raid Battles if the Pokemon was from the DLC which I had but he didn't. It wouldn't even show up for the other. We often had to double check if the Raid Pokemon I encountered here was from the DLC or not to see what the issue was. And this is something even the Gen 3 games at least told you was the issue.
The main gimmick of Gen 8 is Dynamax (and by extension, Raid Battles and the like). In a multiplayer context, I can see why it's quite contentious. This is a mechanic designed for a Doubles format (where from what I gather, it works well there. I won't comment much on this since I prefer singles to doubles). So it's no wonder that on Smogon Singles, Dynamax was banned from the OU format. A quick refresher, Dynamax operates a bit like Mega Evolution and Z Movies combined from Gen 6 and 7 where you can choose any one of the Pokemon during a battle to Dynamax into a larger form for 3 turns where they receive double the health and have their moves replaced with "Max versions". Moves that often combine multiple effects and benefits.
In Singles PVP, this can be quite difficult to take on. Imagine you are facing a Gyarados. If the Gyarados wanted to attack you with a decent move with 100% accuracy, it would have to give up a turn to use Waterfall. If it wanted to attack you with a more powerful move like Giga Impact or something with the downside of lower accuracy or worse accuracy or need to recharge, it would still need to use a turn. If it wanted to raise its attack or speed, it would have to use a turn to use Dragon Dance and thus not attack for that turn. If it wanted to set up rain, it would have to use a turn to use Rain Dance and give up a chance to attack or boost its stats. And all while this going on, that Gyrados' attacks can be blocked with Protect and still has that 4x weakness to electricity. But with Dynamax, Gyarados can turn Waterfall, a base 90 move, into Max Geyser, a Base 130 power move that sets up rain and can somewhat bypass protect. Essentially doing the job of 3-4 other moves into a single one with none of the downsides. Oh, and with double the Health, Gyrados can now even take an electric move that normally would have KO-ed it. And now consider other Pokemon with moves like Max Knuckle that do massive damage and boost your attack. Its regular counterpart, Power Up Punch, was just 60 Base Power. Even if you Dynamax soon afterwards, your Mon may not have the boosts accrued that your opponent just has and it's difficult to switch to a Mon to check it.
But despite all that, I feel that in the context of a purely singleplayer perspective, Dynamax may be the best gimmick Pokemon has had thus far. It's significantly better than Megas and Z moves.
My main criticism with Megas from Gen 6 was that they didn't significantly change or add to the experience in singleplayer. For one, even though there were some creative strategies with them, such as Mega Evolving an Aggron to drop its rock type and get better defence to better tank fighting type attacks, for the most part, you'd just be Mega Evolving the Aggron anyway for the Free stat boost rather than because it would lead to a new strat. In addition, the player is generally much smarter and more capable than the AI. So them giving their Poke a power boost to make then on par with legendaries benefits them way more than the AI which aren't that much more threatening with Megas. Essentially, Megas created a situation where things aren't that much harder if you don't use them and only let the AI use them but significantly easier if you use them.
What's more is that even though the intention of Megas was also to make some less viable Pokes more viable, I feel it had the opposite effect where it increased the power creep gap to make "the rich richer" as it were. For one, many of the Pokes that got Megas were already good to begin with. Pokemon like Rayquaza, Salamence, Tyranitar, Scizor, Gengar, Garchomp, Latias, Latios, Blaziken, Mewtwo, Mewtwo again etc weren't exactly hurting without Megas. In addition, I'd argue even when Megas worked and did add viability to a weaker Pokemon, it pigeonholed it and made similar Pokemon worse. If Both Manectric and Luxray aren't viable without Megas and Manectric gets a Mega but Luxray doesn't, then Luxray is even more outclassed and less worth using. If a Pokemon like Steelix is only worth using if its Mega Evolved, but there are much better candidates for a Mega Slot, then Steelix will only get used less. Instead of using new forms to buff or nerf mons, it would be better to just adjust their stats, movepools and abilities directly.
As for Z-Moves, I'm personally kinda OK with them. They were essentially a modified and more balanced version of Gems from Gen 5.
I like Dynamax then because it kinda avoids these issues in Singleplayer. When I play Pokemon games, I like to play on Set Move, not use Battle Items and avoid using the generational gimmick outside of "competitive modes". Which means when my opponent is using a Dynamax Pokemon against me, it's actually kinda threatening as I have to find a way to stall out the 3 turns for it turn back (which risks the opponent accruing boosts) or find a way to KO it quickly (requiring some planning beforehand). Thereby changing up how certain Gym Battles go. And when I did have to use it in places like the Battle Tower, it added more strategic options for when and whom to Dynamax.
In addition, every Pokemon can Dynamax and some get Gigantamax Forms, allowing the game to showcase new forms without excluding mons from the power up.
With that said, I'm not too fond of the game's new feature of Dynamax Raid Battles. I get the purpose of it. It's a way to showcase Dynamax and provide a new co-op style mode for players to take on. It also provides a more interesting way of obtaining distribution Pokemon and getting involved in community events. And it's occasionally nice as a break or secondary mode (kinda like contests from prior games). But I don't know. One of the things I've always loved about Pokemon's combat was that both you and your opponents were playing by the same rules. Anything your opponent could do, you could as well. If you got a Dragonite, you could go around smacking people around like you were Lance. Pokemon avoids the trope of other JRPGs where the boss character is super tough when you fight them but becomes completely different when he joins your party. In addition, you generally always have a fair amount of control over your chances of success in Pokemon games. It's not like if when you're in a double battle with AI partners, if your partner faints, you lose on the spot. These made Pokemon's combat fun when you faced a tough opponent and won because it felt like you outsmarted them using your own skills and knowledge of the game.
But I feel Dynamax Raid Battles kinda betray these ideas. I first noticed something was up with Dynamax Raid Battles when I found my
Choice Specs Imposter Ditto was doing less damage to a Drifblim even with a crit than he
was doing to me with the same non-crit and boosted Thunderbolt move.
So it seems the actual Dynamax Raid Battle is against a permanently Dynamaxed Pokemon that can use multiple moves back to back, reset your buffs and is protected from taking certain amounts of damage as the game will limit the damage you can do and then enable shields for them. As a result, battles seem to play out the same way every time. In addition, your AI partners are often liabilities, especially on higher difficulty Raids. From a Solrock that only spams Cosmic Power instead of Attacking to a Wobuffet that uses the wrong kind of attack (even assuming it gets hit in the first place) to an Eevee that is using a Focus Sash (which is a terrible setup for a situation when you a need a single Mon to be able to tank multiple hits). I never in my life ever thought I'd be glad to be partnered with a Magikarp since at least that guy is actually being useful by spamming Hydro Pump and has 55 defence. It genuinely feels like the game intentionally gives you bad partners to encourage you to partner up with other real players. Many 5 Star Raids felt impossible because even when I did everything right, I would lose because my AI partner's dumb Mon would faint 3+ times. This made some of the postgame farming for items quite tedious. On top of that, even if you do successfully defeat the Pokemon in the raid, there's a chance they may escape the Ball you throw to capture them. And you only get 1 chance to capture them! Which can really make it frustrating if you're trying to go after one specific Pokemon.
I much rather prefer doing the Battle Tower to get items since you have more control and more varied battles. And the sad thing is that Sword removed the ability to do co-op Battle Tower runs. Making Dynamax Raids the only Co-op activity 😭. As a kid, I loved doing Random Battles in the Battle Frontier with my cousins in older Pokemon games and it's a shame because with the improvements Sword makes to the combat, it would have been a blast.
With that said, how would I improve the Dynamax Raids if I could? Well one Idea would be to let the player choose their AI partners and/or bring their own Pokemon. Hell, I'd even be cool if it was just 2 of my Mons vs 2 Enemy Mons at once in a 2v2 (throwback to Gen 7 and Totem Battles) as my Corviknight and Togekiss on their own are more useful than any 4 other AI trainers).
One of the most controversial aspects of Gen 8 both prior to and during its release was "Dexit". For the first time in the series, a mainline Pokemon game would not have he National Dex present. Meaning only the Pokemon present in Galar would be obtainable in in the game. You can't even transfer from Pokemon from places like Home into Sword if they aren't in the Galar Dex.
Technically, this isn't the first time Pokemon has had a "Dexit" in some form. Gen 3 had a case where Pokemon weren't transferable from Gens 1 and 2 due to the differences in data and hardware between the gens. And if you wanted to complete the Pokedex, you had to buy multiple games and accessories across both the GBA and GameCube. But at least there, all the Pokemon at least existed in the game's code. You could trade over an "unobtainable Pokemon" and have it work just fine.
While I am not fond of this decision in Gen 8, There are some positives I can see. There are 1000+ Pokemon (including alternate forms) which would be difficult to maintain never mind improve in every single game. The reason why a game like Let's Go Pikachu/Eevee can give so many unique traversal animations to all of the Pokemon present is because it only has to account for like 160-ish Pokemon (including forms and variants). And from a competitive perspective, a smaller Pokedex resets some of the Power Creep and allows some underused Mons to shine. Sejun Park's famous Pachurichu, for example, was used because it was used in a limited Dex format where there weren't other users of Follow Me and Nuzzle. And from what I hear, in Scarlet and Violet, Murkrow is once again in the spotlight for being one of the few good Prankster users.
But I still feel the benefits of a National Dex are worth it, especially from a casual perspective. A common defence used for the National Dex is "every Pokemon is someone's favourite". Which I guess is sentimental and true but I always found this one a rather weak argument because it can be applied to anything from any game. Like "Call of Duty should carry every gun from every prior game to every new game because every gun is someone's favourite". Yeah, but some guns may not fit in with the aesthetic of a certain game and/or only add to the confusion and tedium of the Meta (see Warzone when it combined with Vanguard).
A much better argument I feel, is that without a National Dex, a Pokemon game is isolated to only being able to directly communicate with its partner game and nothing else. As a kid, I remember having Diamond and being able to battle and trade with my cousins who had Heartgold and Soulsilver. I sent over cool Sinnoh Mons they couldn't get and really wanted like Luxray, Starraptor, Gastrodon and Abomasnow. While they sent me mons they really didn't have much use for like Articuno, Ampharos and Mewtwo. A Platinum player and Soulsilver player could work together and even play through the Battle Frontier together.
Gen 8 marks the first time such a thing isn't really possible anymore. Sword and Shield can only directly communicate with Sword and Shield. Let's Go Pikachu and Eevee can only directly communicate with Let's Go Pikachu and Eevee. Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl with BDSM. Pokemon Home can act as intermediary for trading at least but all of the other multiplayer features are limited to their respective games. I feel this robs Pokemon games of a cool aspect they once had, that sense of a generation being connected.
As for the world itself, I'm quite mixed on Galar as a region. Many of the towns are aesthetically pleasing if a little barren on content (I'll talk about this more later).
The Wild Area is the game's new open world segment. And it's OK. I like that there are Pokemon physically wandering around in the overworld and you can just chill and do stuff like collect items and Watts and do Races and Raids. Gives the game a bit of a change of pace. It does get kinda bland after a while as it is really plain. A common criticism directed at the Wild Area I've heard is regards to how the weather changes erratically. Personally, I'm not that bothered by that. For one, when I was a kid living in Ireland, it was a common joke that the weather changes erratically. And Secondly, in the case of Sword, different weather houses different Pokemon. And many of the suggestions I've heard to "fix this" would cause other problems. Disconnecting weather from Pokemon Spawns makes weather no longer a useful metric for assessing the kind of Pokemon present. Making one consistent weather be present over the entire Wild Area pigeonholes the kinds of Pokemon that can spawn, reducing variety. Making a larger Wild Area so there are more "transitional areas" would only make a more diluted map. The way the Wild Area currently is, at least makes some attempt to address a criticism I've had of how some prior Pokemon games housed Pokemon. In many past Pokemon games, the kind of habitat influenced what kind of Pokemon would be present which often limited the variety of Pokemon available. For example, there aren't a lot of Ice types in Hoenn because the only place they spawn is in Shoal Cave, the designated Ice Type Area. Most of Hoenn's Fire Types are housed in Mt Pyre or Mt Chimney. Most of Hoenn's Ghost Types are isolated to Mt. Pyre. In contrast, since Hoenn is full of forests and water routes, grass, water, normal and flying types are extremely common and available all over the map rather than in specific locations. The Wild Area relying on wacky weather spread out over a somewhat large location means more rare types like Fire, Ice, Dragon and Ghost are more freely available sooner and in a more convenient area making repeat playthroughs using entirely new teams much more varied.
Also, it can be rather hilarious having a battle at night that somehow involves Psychic Terrain and "Harsh Sunlight". I love that.
A bit of a tangent but one of the things I always liked about Pokemon is how accessible its controls are. Like, you can play most older Pokemon games with just a D-Pad and 3 face buttons at minimum. I remember as a kid injuring my wrist and being unable to play any games on my DS aside from Pokemon Diamond, Spider-Man 3 and Shrek The Third. Sword is 3D now and has camera controls so I guess that minimal control scheme is no longer feasible. Sword does have "casual controls" that allow a single Joycon to control the game which works fine when in routes and towns but isn't really great for the Wild Area as it lacks camera controls. And seeing as both Legends Arceus and Scarlet/Violet introduce more action elements to the open world, I don't expect Casual Controls to get much of an improvement going forward.
The Routes and caves are much less interesting. Often being simple and straightforward paths with very little maze or varied design. This is sadly a trend Sword continues from Gen 7 as past games often did this aspect better. Compare something like Chargestone Cave in Unova or even Mt Moon in Kanto as these somewhat large and winding caves with multiple floors, to Galar Mine 1 and 2 being quite basic. Even the Victory Road in Galar is just a single straight path with some trainers.
I feel this is a shame for a few reasons. For one, it dilutes the value of exploration since instead of actually having lots of knooks and crannies where resources like TMs could be hidden, it's often a very "what you see is what you get" kinda situation. In addition, it doesn't make the Wild Area feel more unique as both it and the routes/caves are navigated the same. And it feels quite redundant since the Escape Rope and Fast Travel are now essentially permanent Key Items anyway.
Another feature you can do is interact with your Pokemon while camping with them (something you can even do indoors which is quite funny). This feature feels it intends to be a successor to Pokemon Amie from X and Y as a way the player can pet and feed 6 of their Pokemon while adventuring throughout the world with them. And there are some neat touches like how you can play Fetch with your Pokemon, different Pokemon having different walking speeds and interactions. Like my Cinderace Roaring and showing off while moving around quite fast. All while my Coalossel slowly shuffles like it's a literal pile of walking rocks. Some Pokemon even communicate and interact with each other. It is quite charming.
I do have some complaints. For one, there is a cooking minigame you can do to make some Curry that can provide free XP and HP to your team. But the minigame can get quite tedious with how much you have to quickly rotate the stick and mash buttons for the highest quality curries. And since my Joycons are already starting to get drift, it's probably not a wise inclusion. I often found it was faster to just fast travel to a Pokemon Center, heal up there and fly back than use the Minigame which is a shame because I would have really liked to use the Camping feature instead. Another issue was that there aren't that many interactions or things to do so I rarely used the the camping feature for more than like, 45 minutes tops over my entire playthrough. I suppose that's the consequence of having 400+ Pokemon present in a single game. Still, I am surprised Nintendo never released an "Nintendogs meets Pokemon" spinoff game that took this concept further with only a handful of Pokemon. Like, I imagine a game where you could pet, feed groom and play with an Eevee or Bulbasaur would probably be pretty popular but I digress.
Onto towns. And I feel Galar is generally OK in this area. As someone who lived in Dublin, Ireland for much of my childhood, I often felt a sense of nostalgia looking at some of the UK based architecture in towns. Many towns often look interesting but are somewhat limited in having things to do in them or lack any interesting lore or tidbits from the NPCs that live in them. As a result, the towns here often feel forgettable. As an example, compare Hulbury in Galar with Olivine in Johto. Both are portside towns with lighthouses. But I find Olivine more interesting because you have the whole additional quest with the Lighthouse and the Ampharous that powers the Lighthouse in addition to the Gym Fight. Whereas Hulbury just has the Gym and nothing else.
Not to say that Galar's towns are all bad. I like that some towns have small side quests that encourage you to
explore. For example, in Circhester, there's a hotel with tourists you can fight, in Motostoke, you come across 2 kids who say
they've lost their Mincino and want you to find him. They tell you "he
likes water, makes a 'mwop' sound and will come when you whistle". My
first guess was to head to the river surrounding Motostoke and look
around there. But there was nothing so I decided to just head to Stadium
to complete the Gym challenge instead. On the way, I noticed there were
2 fountains next to the stadium tucked to the side. I went to one and
there was a "bwop" speech bubble next to one. I whistled and some
policeman came out of the fountain. Said he wasn't a Mincino and gave me
a potion for my troubles. I then when to the other fountain, there was a
"mwop" speech bubble, I whistled and the Mincino did come out and head
to his trainers.
Bit of an aside. But a common criticism directed at Pokemon games by many people, especially 3D ones, is that their towns are too small physically. I don't believe that's fair.
For one, I feel this misses the point of such towns in JRPGs, of which Pokemon still is. Towns in JRPGs are made for 2 purposes, to act as a sanctuary to recover and restock after having resources drained after routes and dungeons, and to progress the story. Essentially, they are the "take a quick breather before setting out onto danger" parts of the game. Making Pokemon towns physically bigger wouldn't create more engaging gameplay, it would space out what's already there and risk making the experience more boring. That was my complaint with Dragon Quest 11. It had massive detailed towns for a JRPG, but still had the same skeleton of "use it to prepare, do some side quests and then set out". So I was quite bored during much of DQ11 as a result. Larger towns work better when the game has more complex gameplay to support it. Something like Skyrim would benefit from larger towns because the player can converse with NPCs with deep dialogue trees, break into homes, steal stuff, do stealth etc. Something like GTA would benefit since it creates more space and tools for the sandbox to play with. In Pokemon's case, historically, they are perfectly fine with smaller towns since they serve their purpose without drawing the experience. They provide a chill place to relax after dangerous routes, offer some side quests and characters to chill with before you repeat the cycle.
In Pokemon Sword, yes, the towns are small. But that's not a flaw. The Flaw is more that they don't have much in them compared to towns from something like Unova.
The Story.
Sword's base game has a similar premise to that of its predecessors. You start in a small town, you get your starter and your rival. You set out to get the Gym Badges to be able to challenge the Champion. There's an evil team and antagonist you have to stop along the way.
I have said this before, but I don't have a problem with Pokemon's basic story structure or premise. It works as a nice way to get the player out into the world and exploring. The player character doesn't need a strong personal motivation to do that. My issue with Gen 6 and onward is that they tend to "expand" the story by adding lots of cutscenes and interruptions to an otherwise brief story which I feel has the opposite effect of tanking the pacing since often no new information is revealed or progress is made. I remember this quite a bit in ORAS compared to Emerald. Emerald's "cutscenes" and dialogue boxes were quite brief. Generally getting to the point and letting you continue on. ORAS often added more dialogue such with the encounters with Steven Stone or Archie/Maxie that still gives the same information but pads it out.
Sword Sadly continues this trend with plenty of unskippable cutscenes (despite there being an option in the menu to skip cutscenes) that really didn't need to be this long. The story was at its best when it was being hands off and letting me go about the Gym Challenge and talking with people myself along the way.
Hop as a rival was decent with a surprisingly relatable story. He's a dude that spent his whole life preparing for a role. His family are already really proud of his older Brother Leon for being champion and Hop feels like he's hurting his brother's reputation with his losses so he's definitely under a lot of pressure. Hop's putting in all the effort to be the best despite not being the best. He does stuff like switching out and training up an entirely new team whenever he loses to you (I feel it would have sealed the deal if he also ditched his starter, showing his desperation). And here you are, essentially taking his life's work from him effortlessly because you are the main character. I'm reminded a little of the plot of Monsters University here with how Mike was doing his best to be a scarer but being unable to due to lacking the natural talent of other monsters. Hop is the first rival in Pokemon I really felt bad beating because I've been in his shoes before of being outclassed in something I'm passionate about and trying my best to be good at despite my flaws by someone with seemingly God given natural talent. If Sword had branching paths where if you lose to Hop he becomes Champion, I'd gladly take the L there.
That aside, one of my criticisms with Pokemon games is that despite their massive wealth of deep and intricate systems and options for combat, the games never teach you or even hint that exists. Often relying on simple "Wow, you used a Super effective move there. Good Job". Which makes the Post Game Battle Towers feel like a completely different game when the training wheels suddenly come off with no warning and make people complain the base game doesn't evolve or is too basic. When I first played Sword, I was expecting Hop to turn this "You use Super Effective Hits" around on me as a way to teach the player new things through Hop. As an example, what if in one battle, Hop goads you into using Ember on his Grookey. You do so and it turns out he had an Occo Berry or a Weakness Policy in addition Max Sp Def EV investment. Hop then brags that even though "you may know Type Matchups, I know there's more than that".
I wish Sword did something like that as stuff like this would have really improved both the story and gameplay here. For gameplay, it gives the base game more of a challenge (the base game is a bit too easy) and teaches the player more mechanics. And for story, it shows how Hop is trying to go out of his way to improve by implementing competitive strats against you. Making his loses sting even more since he couldn't even beat you despite doing cool stuff like that.
Imagine if every time you faced against Hop, he tried out a new stratgedy against you that often took advantage of you blindly just clicking super effective moves. In addition to using berries and Weakness Policy, he could have used a Zoarak with Nasty Plot to trick you into using Psychic moves against it. Or he has a really bulky team that used Trick Room to be able to turn the tables on you. It was a missed opportunity to not go all out here. I understand Pokemon is a game for children but prior games did these things before. B2W2 even had difficulty options for those who wanted more of a challenge (granted, unlocking them was convoluted but it showed these games could often be more challenging and use more of their depth).
A common criticism of Sword's story is directed towards Chairman Rose and his plotline. And I'm not going to argue against them. Rose's role in the story isn't done well. And I feel Sword is another example of how such over the top and "epic" storylines don't really work in Pokemon.
This is a bit of a long section but bear with me here. So developers of Pokemon games like Masuda have given interviews where they've talked about the world and stories of Pokemon. In particular that Pokemon's world is "a subtle version of utopia" and that "Hoenn was based on Masuda's childhood memories of going on vacation on Kyushu". Essentially, Pokemon games are generally going for a "nostalgic childhood vacation with your pets through a perfect world" feel. And the games really commit to this vibe. The Pokemon world has free healthcare. In Hoenn, we see examples of how people are concerned for the environment that places like Whismer Tunnel got shut down the moment it was clear there was ecological concerns. Gen 6 has people creating infinite reusable and clean energy with no downsides whatsoever. In Alola, you can visit a police station where the cops are kinda bored because there's nothing for them to do. There are no systemic problems in crime, housing, overpopulation, resources, energy, environmentalism etc. Hell, even food isn't a problem everyone is vegan (and they don't eat grass types). You won't even see many farms of livestock in Pokemon.
This isn't a criticism. This sort of vibe gives Pokemon games a really comfy feel. Even if there are some darker stuff in Pokedex descriptions or in the Manga, they are almost always disconnected from the games. You won't see any Drifloons stealing children or Eevees crushing people despite what their Pokedex entries say.
But this does limit the kind of stories that would work well in this kind of world. You can see an example of this in ORAS with Archie and Maxie. In a vacuum, their motivations make sense. One of them wants to expand the Earth's landmass to create more room for humans to build and expand. The other wants to return the world to a state fit for Pokemon untainted by human progress. But the problem is that the world they live in doesn't have the problems these actions would be solutions to. Hoenn doesn't have a problem with overpopulation or resources that would prompt Maxie. Nor is there such disregard for the environment to prompt Archie.
As a result, Archie and Maxie aren't great antagonists and their story is unengaging. Their motives are so disconnected from the world that there's nothing you can really latch onto. And even defeating them is unsatisfying because no progress can be made because the Status Quo is perfect anyway. It's a similar case for Cyrus, Lysandre and Rose.
This is why I feel Pokemon antagonists are at their best when they have smaller scale and more personal plans, generally related to exploiting Pokemon. Like, Team Rocket are great villains because they are essentially the mafia. They profit off stealing Pokemon. Their motive is greed. You can understand why someone would do that and they do leave behind consequences of their actions like Slowpokes missing their tails or missing Pokemon. So taking them down actually "fixes something that is broken". Same with Ghetsis and Co in Gen 5.
Back to Pokemon Sword, this is the main reason why I feel Rose's story falls flat. Like Archie and Maxie, Rose is concerned about a problem disconnected from the Utopian world of Pokemon. And one that was already solved in prior games. In order to make Rose's story work, you'd either need to put cracks in that Utopia, such as Galar actually having energy and sustainability issues, or change Rose's motivations.
One idea I have to do the latter is to kinda take inspiration from the Isle of Armour DLC. Why not have Rose and Leon in cahoots as the antagonists? Have Rose be the one fixing Leon's matches so he remains the unbeatable champion. You can have Leon either be in on this and have him cheat against the player (which would create an interesting dynamic for Hop to go through) or have Leon be oblivious and join your side so he can have a proper fight as a proper champion. This would shift the conflict to something more connected to the Pokemon world.
Switching topics but this is why I like Team Yell in Sword. They are just Marnie's rabid fans which justifies their status as jobber grunts. The rest of the story with Bede, the other Gym Leaders and even Swordbert and Shieldbert, I enjoyed.
As Galar is based on the UK, I really like how the Pokemon League here resembles more of an official spectator sport. And the game does a neat job with this idea from the stadiums and crowds and official League Cards and merch, to more subtle things like how Gym Leaders deal with their fame as essentially professional athletes. Like, you have Leon and Raihan that are show offs and play to the crowd. You have Alaster that is a lot more shy and scared of the attention he gets as a Gym Leader. You have Opal that's "been in the game so long" that she's past all the formalities. You have Kabu and Bede that take the competitive side more seriously. It's neat.
The DLC
Isle of Armour
Unlike past Pokemon games which often had a new version or re-release come out with features that should have been in the base game, Sword instead has 2 expansion packs that do that instead. On the one hand, I do feel this is the more consumer friendly option as it improves your base game and retains your progress instead of requiring you to buy a new game and play through familiar content again. On the other hand, there is no real "Complete Edition" of the game for sale. You kinda have to buy the base game and DLC separately at full price even if you're a late adopter like me.
Onto the first expansion, The Isle of Armour which takes place on an island away from Galar. It introduces a new Wild Area with around a 100 returning Pokemon, items like Max Soup to allow any compatible Pokemon to Gigantamax, a new campaign, and a way to spend your Watts to get more items easily and more stuff.
This expansion is...... alright. I like the story of Klara cheating to become a poison type gym leader. The Dojo and Mustard are cool. The new Wild Area with this expansion kinda feels like more of the same so it wasn't really that fun to navigate. I honestly felt a bit bored going through this.
I was excited for the Towers challenge. You have to bring a single Kubfu through a gauntlet of a 5 floor tower in order to evolve it into Urshifu. The game hypes this up as being this gauntlet and recommends your Kubfu is at least level 70 before entering. Since this is post game and is paid, I was expecting a real gauntlet. That the game would go all out here with like asking me to perform a Solo Elite 4 run or something like that. I prepared by having my Kubfu ready with Leftovers, Choice Band, Life Orb and a few Focus Sashes on hand to swap as the fights progressed. Ready for whatever challenge the tower had....But you just fight one easy mon per floor and move on. I chose the Tower of Waters and had to fight such absolute monsters like...... Krabby and Psyduck 🙁.
I feel this is a real missed opportunity here to make obtaining Urshifu special. The whole point of this story beat is for the player to bond with Kubfu, make him more confident and conquer their flaws to become worthy of evolving. Plus, this is a paid DLC that requires you to beat the base game in order to even be here. I'm not asking for full on competitive teams here to 6v1 me (though that would be cool) but at least a 3v1 every floor with Mons Kubfu would struggle against like Jellicent or Swoobat. This would make both the story and gameplay in synch here as you have to succeed with a Kubfu against a stacked deck, showing your resolve, skill and bond (or overlevel like crazy which is at least something).
Once you complete 99% of this DLC does the DLC finally get good. You have a challenging battle against Mustard which is really fun. Completing that unlocks a new Battle Tower-esque mode called "Restricted Sparring" where you have to enter 3 Pokemon of a certain type to get at least a 5 win streak and win BP along the way. The Catch being that any damage sustained is preserved between rounds and you only get 2 heals total. I love this mode because of how it impacts team building and playstyles. Normally in these Battle Tower-esque modes, I tend to play it safe with a Suicide Lead and a Setup sweeper. But the added restraints of a single type + limited heals really mix it up. For my first run, I decided to try and get the 5 win streak with Flying Types since I already had 3 good ones in reserve in the PC. I decided to lead with Choice Specs Togekiss EV-ed with HP and Special Attack with Draining Kiss, Air Slash, Aura Sphere and Ancient Power. The main tactic being that Draining Kiss would hopefully keep Togekiss healthy and do decent damage. Leftovers Corviknight EV-ed with Defense and HP with U-Turn, Hone Claws, Brave Bird and Steel Wing as a bulky pivot and something I could switch into Rock and Steel Types (stuff poor Togekiss would struggle against). My 3rd Mon was Shell Bell Gyarados EV-ed with Attack and Speed with Dragon Dance, Waterfall, Ice Fang and Bulldoze since I couldn't use duplicate items and needed a physical attacker.
Honestly, I could see myself coming back to this mode to get the 5 win streak for all the other types. It's that fun. It's just a shame that such a cool mode is the endgame for a rather mid DLC.
-The Crown Tundra
The second expansion for Sword takes the player to the south of Galar which consists of a quiet, snowy area and more typical forest-y plain areas reminiscent of the Wild Area. It's also just Ok. The overall level design is a bit tighter with more items hidden around and more things to explore but it's still relatively plain. I would have loved something more like Snowpoint City from Sinnoh where you have these long routes blanketed by snow and extreme weather. Perhaps even have deep snow you can trudge through slowly, fly over or "burrow through" each with their own pros and cons. Instead it plays more like the Wild Areas of main Galar and the Isle of Armour. One rather odd thing I noticed in both DLCs is how few trainer battles there are. Like, if I recall correctly, the only mandatory trainer battle in the Crown Tundra is the one you have with Peony when you arrive for the first time. There aren't any more. Not even regular trainers hanging around in the new Wild Are. It's odd.
I found the story here sorta engaging. I love Peony as this fun dad who just wants to have a fun vacation with their kid who doesn't want to be with him so you join him instead. I love how he puts so much into this adventure with his crayon drawings of clues he got from watching TV and his dad jokes. Like, when he gives you the quest to go to the Legendary Tree so you can start to hunt down Moltres, Zapdos and Articuno, you have both this terrible crayon drawing of the tree and this extremely cheesy and low quality MS Paint style text that pops up and says "The Legendary Tree of the Legendary Three". I love that. Number #1 Dad Right there.
I do wish the story was more this "vacation with a fun dad" affair. Caleryx is ok but I didn't find his interactions as engaging as Peony's. And after a certain point, Peony just goes back to the house and doesn't really come up as much in any of the expeditions. It's a shame. Still, I love you can talk to him about the Legendaries you catch and he gives his opinion on them. Like how Registeel looks like a Bowling Ball or how Regirock is shaped like the Gym Leader Milo. That was funny.
In terms of gameplay, there are a few new additions. The Crown Tundra reintroduces Roaming Legendaries. When the game did this, I groaned since I never liked this as past Pokemon games often made this process quite annoying and tedious. It wasn't fun having my Crobat Fly all over Jotho/Hoenn/Sinnoh to check specific grass patches/dive spots/caves for an Entei/Raikou/Latios/Latais/Mesprit/Uxie that would immediately flee. Assuming they were even there in the first place and didn't relocate during the Fast Travel. And while some games did provide some tools to make this easier (like Sinnoh providing their locations on the map, or moves like Mean Look trapping them or using a repel trick to avoid needing to Fast Travel), it wasn't ever really enjoyable. To my surprise, Crown Tundra makes this quite enjoyable. The game tells you upfront where each of the Legendaries went. When you are near them, you can hear their cry. And you can physically see them in the overworld and have to chase them down. You don't need to trap them as they won't flee when a battle starts. And you can reset the chase if you lose them.
Zapdos in particular had quite a fun chase that had me weaving through tall grass and other overworld Pokemon and trying to cut off and intercept his route. I am glad I did a few races and got those bike upgrades earlier. I wouldn't even mind if a new regular Pokes had a few chases like this in order to battle them. Like, imagine needing to chase down a Liepard or Miltank to catch them.
I do have a criticism of accessibility here. My hearing isn't the best so I appreciate it when games provide alternatives to audio cues. I have been playing Far Cry 6 recently and that game has an option for the subtitles to both caption events like explosions and gunfire as well as provide their direction and distance from you. I wish more games had something like this.
The only one I felt was annoying was Articuno. Articuno's gimmick here is that it only spawns randomly at locations. Once you approach it, it splits into 3 clones with one of them being the real one. It then spins around really quickly. If you select the wrong clone, Aritcuno flies away and can be really tricky to find. If you pick the correct clone, then you battle it like normal. This took me a lot of retries. I feel a better version would have been if you picked the wrong clone, you still fight Articuno but it gets an Omni-boost or something.
Also, Bit of an aside, but what is the lore reason for there being Galarian versions of Kanto Legendaries with different typings and appearances? Aren't there only supposed to be one of each Legendary as that's why they are Legendary in the first place?
The other main legendaries you can obtain as part of the main story are the Regis. Regirock, Regice and Registeel, along with a choice of either newcomers Regieleki or Regidrago (you can get Regiggas if you have all 5 Regis in your party first). You need to find certain temples hidden in the Crown Tundra and solve a puzzle to be able to access them. The puzzles and temples are a lot easier than they were in Hoenn games. There's no braille to decipher here, or really obtuse and unintuitve answers like "Dig Here", "walk in a specific way" or "bring a Wailord and Relicanth in your first and last party slots". Instead it's "whistle", "bring a Cryagonal (that spawns nearby anyway)", and "hold an Everstone". Not exactly as challenging.
I'm mixed on this approach. I like that Hoenn had these super obtuse requirements for obtaining the Regis. Really made them feel more mysterious and unique. It added to that "playground rumour" aspect of Pokemon and really made you go "oh S@$t" when it did end up working. And it made kids barely a year off gaining sentience learn braille.
On the other hand, I can see the value in making it easier. At this point in Sword, the player has access to at at least 2 legendaries as part of the main story (one of whom is broken enough to be in the "Anything Goes Tier" twice). And has 10+ legendaries minimum to catch as part of the DLCs. Almost all of whom are more useful in competitive than the Regis (minus Regieleki whose speed stat makes it amazing in VGC). It would be rather annoying to have to go through an obtuse set of systems to catch legendaries that even regular Pokes can outdo in PVP. Plus, we have the internet now so any mystery would be solved near instantly anyway.
The other main gameplay feature are these new Max Raid Dens called Dynamax Adventures. And remember 1000 pages ago when I criticized regular Dynamax Raids? Dynamax Adventures corrects many of them. It's set up where instead of bringing your own Pokemon, you choose Rental Pokemon and Team up with either other players or NPCs and battle through a series of 3 Dynamax Raid Battles. Before Every Battle, you have a choice of which pathway to go down. Each Pathway is marked with what type of Pokemon you'd have to battle and what items or help is present. Damage Sustained is carried over between Battles and you can only heal depending on what Items or Help you find along pathways. Once you complete a Raid Battle, you can choose to capture the defeated Pokemon and swap them out with your current rented Pokemon. And unlike regular Raid Battles, every catch is guaranteed (I got some good use out of my 30x Nest Balls here). Once you get to the final Raid Battle, it's against a Legendary Pokemon. You lose if your team suffers 4 KOs total at any point throughout the adventure. So if you get 3KOs on the first Battle and 1 on the second one, that attempt is finished. What's cool is that if you make it to the end and lose against the legendary, you can choose to note down that legendary and challenge for that one again immediately instead of needing to wait for the RNG to select it. Which is good because I needed 4 attempts in a row to get Landorus. Each attempt also gives you Dynite Ore which can be used to purchase some really useful items like Vitamins and Ability Pills.
This approach does address many of the issues with regular Dynamax Raids. Damage Persisting between fights, the multiple pathways and being able to have some control give the experience more fun and challenge in planning out how to complete a run. For example, if you know the Final Legendary at the end of a run will be a Dragon Type, the challenge then becomes trying to select pathways that give you a good matchup against that Legendary. And then selecting which pathways will get you to those pathways given your current team. If your current Rented Mon gets low on health, it might be better to replace him with one you got from a Battle that has full health to preserve your Lives for the run. And Losses aren't as frustrating given how you can Note and rechallenge Legendaries. So this is the best implementation of Raid Battles.
I do have some criticisms. Firstly, while your team is much improved (nobody is bringing an absolute dead tier Mon), many of your starting choices aren't exactly ideal. Some of them are really good. Like a Drifblim that knows Will-O-Wisp, Psychic, Tailwind and Thunderbolt. That's a good set that lets it provide some nice team support, debuff a physical attacker and has decent coverage. Others don't really make much sense and you won't really know what moves or ability that Pokemon has until you select it. Such as an Abomasnow with the Ability Soundproof, not Snow Warning, and the moves Aurora Veil (which it can't immediately use since it doesn't have Snow Warning), Grassy Glide (which doesn't reliably guarantee the increased priority since you don't have a reliable way of immediately setting up Grassy Terrain), Avalanche (A -4 priority Ice Move with 60 Base Power), and Round (a base 60 power normal type move). Like, what is this moveset?! It doesn't play to Abomasnow's strengths in any way. Like seriously, give Abomasnow Snow Warning so it can instantly use Aurora Veil. Then give it Blizzard so it can fire 100% Accurate Blizzards and do some serious damage. If you want to give it a physical Ice Type Move, give it either Ice Shard so at least it always gets priority or Ice Punch for the raw power and neutral priority over Avalanche. Grassy Glide is ok but I feel that without a reliable way to get recovery (and the fact that the opposing Dynamax Pokemon will probably outspeed and set up many buffs anyway or overide the terrain), a better option would be Giga Drain or Seed Bomb. And instead of Round, which isn't really useful for coverage, give it Earthquake, or Brick Break or Bulldoze or Earth Power or Giga Impact or Leach Seed or Outrage or Rock Slide or Toxic. Any of these moves would be an improvement.
Generally, you do usually at least get a Mon with a couple decent moves but lack coverage that play to their strengths. Like you can get an Absol with Night Slash and Slash, not bad physical moves that Absol can use well with its 130 Base Attack...... and Special Moves like Fire Blast and Blizzard coming off a 75 Special Attack. Or a Crawduant with Lash Out, Swords Dance and Facade ...... and Muddy Water instead of Waterfall.
My guess is that since the player needs to defeat these mons first in order to use them, they didn't want to make the mons too hard to beat? But given that some mons do have good movesets, it's an inconsistent answer. Maybe there could have been a few "temporary TMs" you could find to customize some of these Mons during a run.
A bigger issue is that if you're playing with NPCs, you can't communicate or order them on what to use. And they love swapping mons even if it's the wrong decision. So it's not uncommon for a team that starts strong to have a less useful team by the final battle.
Still, it is mostly fun and enjoyable.
-Other Stuff
I really like the Gym Leaders and their challenges.
The Soundtrack is really good. The Battle Tower Theme in particular goes hard. With the exception of the Wild Battle Theme. I absolutely hated that one and would mute my Switch whenever I went into a wild battle.
I wish the Poke Jobs feature was faster. It gets boring sitting through all the animations and selecting stuff. I also wish I could send more Mons at once. Perhaps even make it like a version of the day care where you can leave them as long as you want and when they come back, you get a proportional amount of rewards.
I wish this game had a NG+ feature where you could replay the story (hopefully be able to skip cutscenes) ) but every trainer is now level 70+ using more powerful Mons. Would have been a great way to replay the game using a new team.
-Conclusion.
I don't love Sword + its DLC as much as I wanted to. But I do really like Sword + its DLC. I love the additions to the combat, the Gyms, the aesthetic of Galar and the Post-game content of the DLCs. The game's quality of life and streamlining make it hard to play older Pokemon games after playing Sword. I plan on one day coming back to the game to complete some of the post game content. But the game is bogged down by an occasionally tedious story, a rather bland world at times, and odd mix where some of its best content is either chopped into odd places, missing entirely, behind more tedium or behind poorly executed content. The fact you have to buy the DLC to get a proper experience makes it harder to recommend. At times, Sword is close being the best Pokemon game ever made with the heights it can reach. It rarely becomes terrible or a pain to play but but tends to average out to more of a C+ to a B experience. At the very least, I will say this is the best Pokemon game on Switch as of right now.
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