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It's about time. I've been itching to write about the newest Pokemon, and I'm two months late but goddamn I finished Shield in Five days and sixty hours so we're on this s**t.

Also, I watched the Pokemon Direct and I will share my feelings on that as well.

Quick Review

7/10

It's good. I like it but I'm hard-pressed to ignore the problems that came with this newest installment.

Long Review

Pokemon Sword and Shield are the newest installments in the Pokemon series and they're grrrreat! Except when they aren't. I'll get through the positives and move along to my very real frustrations and disappointments.

Big note here. It's not about the National Dex. I knew they weren't going to add all the new Pokemon unless they incentivised it. And they kind of did with the expansion pass but I'll get back to that. My original guess for the dex in Galar was about 300. I was a hundred Pokemon off. For me, it just made sense to test the waters first.

I liked the region of Galar. It was pretty, the graphics were nice, not great or anything, just nice. I felt like the scenery could have benefited from a little more time on design, but on the bright side, SwSh does not suffer from the same kind of frame issues that Let's Go did. I'm very thankful for that. Galar is nice but I also find for the first time it lacks personality and culture.
And a big problem of that stems from the Wilds Area, it takes up so much of the map that they sacrificed a little of the tradition route system seen in previous games.

Why does this bother me?
Too much of the old unmeshed with the new. What's the point of lambasting players with a massive open world area right in the beginning of the game if you kept route designs for later? What's the point? Was it too keep some of the story elements in place, was it to railroad players for the gyms? Personally, the addition of the Wilds was a great idea. Keeping with routes on a linear path ANYWAY is just dumb.

The Wilds is great. This massive, open area filled with Pokemon and hidden items and dens with dynamaxed pokemon is just incredible. I really loved it. I loved it so much I spent 22 hours straight in there, fighting, leveling, capturing, hoarding and meandering. I mean, it was great until I continued with the story because guess what happened?
I began the story about 22 levels ahead of every single trainer in the world. By the end of the game, and even in post game, I continued to cruise at a comfortable 15 levels ahead of every single trainer with no extra training.

That's not really fun. I one shotted every single trainer, and I have to say, leveling has never been this easy. I didn't even realize I had trained my Pokemon up so much until I destroyed the first Gym Challenge. In XY, I have this awesome exploit at the Battle Chateau that lets me get sick cash and raise my starters level significantly, but it wasn't THIS easy.

I started the actual game with 1 million in spare cash. It was nuts. They made this game too easy, and you could say 'noooo, it's the nostalgia, you were young and stupid, the games only seemed hard!' And I'd say tell that to Whitney's Miltank. The thing is, I just replayed Blue, Yellow, Emerald, White 2 and X. They were never this easy, there was the grind involved, there was strategy besides super effective moves. Money and resource management were very important. NOW? ******** it, go gucci, you'll find about a million nuggets on the floor by this magikarp den.

I really love the new Pokemon they added. I used an exclusively new team until I made it to the end of the game and needed a fire user, so I switched in Salazzle. I'm not a huge fan of Inteleon or Cinderace, but RillaBoom is ******** incredible. They just don't have the same presence prior starters did. Out of the new generation. Greninja is STILL an absolute tank with water type moves, dark moves and even psychic moves, they were unstoppable. Even so, the Galarian variants and the new evolutions are neat! But Meowth can stay in a dumpster where they belong.

Having the Wilds so early really made it easy to break the game, and instead of having this area near the end of your adventure, they start you here! Your poor starter Pokemon at level 8 running face first into a level 50 Pokemon because you weren't looking at the screen. I find this pacing cut the game right in half. There's story, and then there's chaos. But you can't continue the chaos UNTIL you get a gym badge that allows you to catch higher level Pokemon. I know this barrier was put in place for people like me, but honestly, it's a very stupid stipulation. People were already going to wreck the main story, catching a steelix 20 levels ahead wasn't exactly going to give that one advantage for victory.

Speaking of Gym Badges. Let's talk about the Galar Pokemon League. I think it's absolutely fascinating that they treat it like an actual sporting event. They have stadiums, and crowds and uniforms and endorsements. It's cool.

Why the ******** is your uniform so goddamn plain? Why couldn't you unlock options to make your uniform at least slightly tolerable, instead of being stuck with a trainee uniform AT THE CHAMPIONSHIP BATTLE? Even the cycling outfit is just ******** hideous. Why give clothing options, but like, not clothing options. That makes NO SENSE. Also, this is being rectified in the DLC but we're talking about the here and now. In terms of fashion, XY still has the best clothing options, they were very chic and yeah you couldn't take your hat off but s**t, it was better than this. Both Alola and Galar had some nice clothing options, but they're very much meant for a younger, more hip group.

I liked the Gym Leader's designs. Though I am bummed that they ruined the mystique so quickly, right out the bat you see every gym leader. Also, I don't understand why they did version exclusive gym leaders. That just irritates me because like... are we in separate universes? Once again, a difference that literally means nothing.

The gym challenge was fun. They were neat distractions but I still feel like it took away from the Gym Leaders aesthetic. On top of that, No Elite Four. This is, perhaps, my biggest gripe in the game. The Elite Four has frequently been the best gauntlet in any video game, not to mention some of Pokemon's best character designs went here. They were strong, and had an infinite supply of Full Restores and Hyper Potions, and instead, we get the Gym Leaders in a tournament who are slightly stronger than before. Lame. It's so ******** lame. I'm actually sitting here physically grousing about it.

And I guess I have to talk about the plot. What a load of s**t. And EVERYONE told me there was no story, it's mindless, it's a lark. we're having fun.

Well, they were almost right about that. Who didn't guess that Chairman Rose was gonna be an a*****e? Like, they acted like they broke the mold by not actually having an evil Team, but they DID. Sure Team Yell were a bunch of ******** idiots, but they were just red herrings to Oleana and Rose. There was still a doomsday, there was still a legendary Pokemon, you still had to save the world. Don't fool yourselves. Just because you copy and paste your formula in different spots doesn't mean you changed anything, the same story is here just like every other game.

Also, Chairman Rose is just Lysandre with nicer hair! We're getting the same villains now, too. And you're right, Rose isn't necessarily a villain, but he plays the part well enough and did try to cause a catastrophe to get his way for preservation. I've never heard that one before. Rose was a joke, I was hoping that he wasn't going to be the one I had to battle but like... he did it anyway, and for a reason that was just ******** stupid. Thinking a thousand years in the future? That's his motivation? It's even weaker than Archie's and Maxie's reasons for causing the end of the world! Another Pokemon villain who took an first year economics and thought they figured out the world.

I miss Giovanni, man.

Guess we made it here. Gotta talk about Hop. You know, before this, I hated Hugh from BW2. I felt he was very pretentious and whiny and super irritating. Well, guess who's pretentious, whiny and super irritating. Hop. What... an annoyance. I'm ragging on a 12 year old but he's a fictional character written by ADULTS so I'm going to tear this ******** apart.

He was annoying. He was viciously annoying. I was hoping there'd be so much more between Leon and Hop but there's nothing of substance! It's just Hop lamenting that he keeps losing and he won't be Champion. AND OH MY GOD HE SUCKS SOMETHING AWFUL. Having Hop as a Battle partner was infuriating. The kid always comments about how I'm so good at super effective moves but REFUSES to switch out Dubwool under any circumstance and instead of ever helping me, he would literally go through his entire team for one trainer while I OHKO'd everything else. I have literally never had an AI partner as bad as Hop. He did nothing and he ******** reveled in it.

There's something about the way they wrote him that made him seem so selfish and entitled, and even when he lost, he still lamented how he wasn't going to reach Leon, when it's very clear he didn't have the maturity to handle his first road block, and he doesn't grow out of this. Even when I'm Champion, he doesn't change, he just becomes irritating in new ways. It was exhausting having to deal with Hop, he stops you every ten minutes and every half hour its a battle.

Bede was annoying but he was thankfully shortlived and Marnie's actually kinda cool. I like her design, I like her attitude. She was a good addition to the rival set. I really wish we had a heavier focus on Marnie through the entire main game, and not just post game. She deserved to be the main rival, and we haven't had a serious female rival yet that wasn't the female counterpart. As much as this game changed, a lot of it is still very much the same.

I did like Leon, I loved how involved he was the entire time. I was annoyed with the Unbeatable title because repeating something like that so often should MEAN something, like you lose to him. That part was also a little annoying, implying that the other Champions were not hot shots like him? Also, I personally thought Red deserved that title way more than Leon does.

And Sonia and Professor Magnolia... Professor Magnolia had no presence, and Sonia, well, she's very one dimensional. She gets put on a project and becomes a professor. Rip professor sycamore, you're youngest professor title has been rescinded. This also makes me question the credentials of becoming a professor. Sonia didn't seem all that focused and then she's a professor? I got questions, man.

A lesser gripe I have is the menu and interface. It's very soulless and bland. Red, white and black. One of the reasons I hated ORAS was the interface. It was such a dumb ******** I couldn't get over how they released the game like this. SwSh has a very simple interface, but it lacks personality.

Also, post game was a joke. I don't really get why they hid the Legendaries on the box for post game. That doesn't make sense to me. And the 'villains' who show up are people who try to take s**t for themselves in the name of preservation, I s2g. Get a ******** hobby.

Even so, the direct came out today and it seems to want to rectify all my issues. New rivals, new trainer gear and clothing, new bike outfit! For some reason Ghetsis's monocle and Lysandre's visor are clothing options now? Interesting. I like what they showed off, I like the apparent Galarian forms of the Bird Trio from Kanto, but I feel if Game Freak continues down this path with multiple variants, Pokemon really will become unsustainable.

I know I complained a lot, but I really like the game. I have 3 shiny Pokemon, my teams level a hundred, like I'm just working on the dex now. I finished the game at 250 Pokemon in the dex and I didn't even begin evolving any of the ones I had. I'm impressed how many I captured during my time. It's a good game, but it feels like a lot of old ideas are getting in the way of new ideas. The strongest part of SwSh are the whole new pieces, the things that drag the title down are the pieces they refuse to let go. An entire game based in the Wilds Area would have gotten my money and far more painless.

I was wondering if Game Freak was going to release a new game, and seeing Mystery Dungeon, I'm kind of excited. It's never a good idea to do this, because s**t like this tapers off sales for prior entries. The Mystery Dungeon series has always been fantastic, though. And I'm looking forward to it.