Pokemon Critical consensus:

. Pokémon Sword and Shield are finally here, and quite fittingly for the variation's monikers this time around, their arrival has come with conflict.

Sword and Shield comprise the first mainline entries in the long-running series to debut on a home console (settle down, "Switch is actually a handheld/console hybrid" pedants), and as such there are elevated (and differing) expectations around it. Some players have been upset that it lacks the "National Pokédex" that let users import hundreds of Pokémon from previous games into new installments during the franchise's run as a portable exclusive franchise. Others simply expected the series to take a larger leap forward. Plenty of others seem perfectly happy with what Sword and Shield are offering.

Those varying expectations can be seen reflected in the first wave of reviews. In her 9.3 out of 10 review for IGN, Casey DeFreitas seems perfectly pleased with how the game turned out.



"With every new game in this 23-year-old series, changes big and small are always made, but I've never been willing to declare the latest entry the new gold standard for Pokémon because they've consistently been a balance of better and worse," DeFreitas said. "But the first mainline game on the Switch has changed that: though there is still no 'perfect Pokémon game,' the 40-plus hours I've spent with Sword and Shield have left me comfortable with calling them the best Pokémon games I have ever played - and I've played 'em all."

The Wild Area gives players a taste of what an open-world Pokémon game could be
The Wild Area gives players a taste of what an open-world Pokémon game could be

One particular innovation that impressed DeFreitas (and a number of other reviewers) was the Wild Area, a semi-open-world section of the game that let players explore the Galar region with changing weather, rare Pokémon and items, and four-on-one Max Raid battles, which will be an online multiplayer option when the game launches.

"This is the same old song and dance we've seen for the past 23 years, but Sword and Shield roll out some immediate, noticeable changes that make the whole thing just... better"

Casey DeFreitas

"All of this flux and dynamic change made me want to revisit the Wild Area often, with each new day and after every new Gym Badge I earned," DeFreitas said. "This natural, voluntary urge to dive back in also meant I seamlessly leveled up appropriately on accident, not because I went out of my way to grind. It gave progression through Sword and Shield a more balanced and smooth feeling than most Pokémon games."


DeFreitas also praised a number of time-saving changes in the game, such as the ability to skip tutorials, the elimination of random encounters, and a more convenient fast travel system.

"Sword and Shield manage to fix all of these problems while leaving Pokémon's signature charm not just intact, but enhanced by the Switch's huge graphical leap over the 3DS. I never want to go back. All of this is the same old song and dance we've seen for the past 23 years, but Sword and Shield roll out some immediate, noticeable changes that make the whole thing just... better."

In her 9 out of 10 review for GameSpot, Kallie Plagge praised Sword and Shield as the best new generation of Pokémon in years, similarly highlighting the developers' streamlining efforts.

"In collecting, battling, and exploring, Sword and Shield cut out the bloat and focus on what makes these pillars of the Pokémon games so captivating in the first place," Plagge said. "You're not held back by overly complicated back-end systems or hoops to jump through; from the outset, you can start wandering the Galar region, seeing its new Pokémon, and trying out its new battle strategies with very little in your way. This leaves you free to enjoy what Pokémon is all about, and that makes for an incredibly strong showing for the series' proper debut on Switch."

The new Pokémon designs won raves from many reviewers
The new Pokémon designs won raves from many reviewers

On the other end of the spectrum, Eurogamer's Chris Tapsell called the game "a shadow of a former great" in his unscored review.


"This is a new generation of Pokémon games that promises much, with brilliant new Pokémon, a raft of intricate system-tinkering for long-term fans and a series-first stab at an 'open-world' area. But all that's new seems to have come at a cost -- and the cost is almost everything else in the game."

"...an astonishing lack of complexity, texture, and flavour in almost every place where you'd usually find it in every Pokémon game that's come before"

Chris Tapsell

While Tapsell notes the lack of a National Pokédex as an issue, he adds it is a minor one, like a lack of backward compatibility in a new console even when you likely weren't going to use the feature much anyway.

"The real problem with Pokémon Sword and Shield lies much deeper, or rather where that depth ought to be," Tapsell added. "There is far more than a whiff of troubled development to these games, brought about by an astonishing lack of complexity, texture, and flavour in almost every place where you'd usually find it in every Pokémon game that's come before."


To that end, he notes things like attention-grabbing buildings that are either inaccessible or empty, and a climactic battle sequence that lacked music.

In a 3 star (out of 5) review for VG24/7, Alex Donaldson called Sword and Shield "a game split right down the middle," with specific aspects of it impressing and disappointing in quick succession.

"Sometimes those battle scenes take place in gorgeous little dioramas that represent the areas you're in, with rolling hills and charming British-inspired architecture that really seems to take advantage of the Switch," Donaldson said. "The flip side is that many battles also take place in a sort of nightmare void - a patch of coloured ground with little to no other background detail...

The Gigantamax battle mechanic adds a new wrinkle, but is limited to certain battles
The Gigantamax battle mechanic adds a new wrinkle, but is limited to certain battles

"Some cutscenes look the best Pokémon ever has. Characters gesture, camera angles swish about - and then in others, canned animations play out in a way that looks a bit like a first draft, a version of the scene designed to set the camera blocking and little else."

Even so, Donaldson ultimately enjoyed the game quite a bit.

"Pokémon Sword & Shield is all too often a bit disappointing, and in some places actually feels a little unfinished, but it also fully provides that warm, fuzzy feeling that one expects from the series... It comes recommended almost for the Galar setting and new Pokémon alone, but with a long list of caveats indeed. With the level of fan hyperbole surrounding this release, that recommendation is worth repeating and underscoring - but this is not the revolution that was promised or hoped for, and some may prefer to wait for a sale or wait and see if an improved, definitive release is on the cards."

In a preliminary review impressions piece for USgamer, Nadia Oxford said the game was probably her favorite Pokémon game yet, even though it may disappoint anyone hoping for a significant "next-gen" leap.

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"Game Freak does its patented and baffling 'Two Steps Forward, One Step Back' approach to game development with Sword and Shield," Oxford said. "As usual, Game Freak giveth, and Game Freak taketh away, and it clearly has no big plans to upend the norm just because Pokémon's moved over to Switch. Take it or leave it."

While there wasn't much of a consensus among the critics, we can wrap this up with a sort of median assessment from Game Informer's Brian Shea and his 8.75 out of 10 review, which noted strengths and frustrations, but ultimately struck a positive tone.

"Pokémon Sword & Shield are strong first attempts for the series' full transition to consoles," Shea said. "While some frustrations hold it back from true legendary status, this new generation proves the Pokémon franchise is still great more than two decades after its debut."

Ravenprose said:

I'm tempted to pick up Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order.

Me, too.  I think I'll gift Link's Awakening to my son for Christmas and see if there is a Black Friday sale for Fallen Order.

Back because I wrote a huge post for my thoughts on Death Stranding that I turned into a review.

Punk Rebel Ecks said:

What the? I don't see my review listed under reviews...

Beat Death Stranding yesterday.

Holy shit...the ending is insanely drawn out in usual Kojima fashion. I don't know how long it was, but you can feel when you hit the ending segment, and it just keeps going & going with some really long cutscenes & story explanation parts. I just put the controller down for awhile & sat back.

The last half of the game is pretty interesting overall, & the online interaction world building stuff is the best aspect throughout. IDK how much of the studio is the former Metal Gear team, maybe it's the majority of them, or not. But it is really impressive what they did with the production values here. The game as a whole has it's share of holes & weaknesses. The idea of being this human mule delivering packages is neat, but at the same time it pretty much boils down to a lot of the same kind of back & forth tedium that you get in almost every open world game. While the world itself just doesn't have much going on.

The story is just bizarro land & doesn't make much sense in terms of reality vs fantasy, & it's tough to suspend disbelief when the game tries to straddle both. It's something that Metal Gear has always done too, but MGS is better at it. It's also weird when for some reason Monster Energy drinks somehow survived the end of the world while all else was crushed into Mars dust (other than the super high tech Bridges facilities scattered around). And if they still have these high tech labs everywhere, shouldn't they be able to come up with a better method of delivery than to have one man break his back traveling across country? This poor bastard literally has to trek the equivalent of going from Portugal to Siberia, & then back again.

Anyway, overall I give it 7 out of 10 Piss Grenades, in honor of SteelAttack. An interesting game but most people will want to wait until it's cheap.

SupremeAC said:

You know, if this was a 10 or 15 hour game, I'd definitely check it out at some point because I find it to be an intriguing game. But at 40 hours I doubt I'll ever try it out, even if it wee free on PS now or some similar service.

I don't know how many agree with me on this, but I really feel this way about most modern games. They drag them on forever with what is IMO useless filler just so they can say "See, we gave you your money's worth. Here's 50 hours of gamepay!" when in reality, most games are far better as a shorter, more focused experience. Unless you're talking about a grindy RPG or something.

The vast majority of games back in the PS1 & PS2 era were shorter games, & they were fantastic. Hell the original MGS is like a 10 hour long game the first time through, as are the Resident Evil titles. Some of my favorite games ever, & I don't regret paying full price for them at all.

I think it became a thing to pad out SP games to combat the amount of hours of play people get out of multi-player games, even though they're two very different things. And I don't think it's the right approach at all.

edgecrusher said:

Beat Death Stranding yesterday.

Holy shit...the ending is insanely drawn out in usual Kojima fashion. I don't know how long it was, but you can feel when you hit the ending segment, and it just keeps going & going with some really long cutscenes & story explanation parts. I just put the controller down for awhile & sat back.

The last half of the game is pretty interesting overall, & the online interaction world building stuff is the best aspect throughout. IDK how much of the studio is the former Metal Gear team, maybe it's the majority of them, or not. But it is really impressive what they did with the production values here. The game as a whole has it's share of holes & weaknesses. The idea of being this human mule delivering packages is neat, but at the same time it pretty much boils down to a lot of the same kind of back & forth tedium that you get in almost every open world game. While the world itself just doesn't have much going on.

The story is just bizarro land & doesn't make much sense in terms of reality vs fantasy, & it's tough to suspend disbelief when the game tries to straddle both. It's something that Metal Gear has always done too, but MGS is better at it. It's also weird when for some reason Monster Energy drinks somehow survived the end of the world while all else was crushed into Mars dust (other than the super high tech Bridges facilities scattered around). And if they still have these high tech labs everywhere, shouldn't they be able to come up with a better method of delivery than to have one man break his back traveling across country? This poor bastard literally has to trek the equivalent of going from Portugal to Siberia, & then back again.

Anyway, overall I give it 7 out of 10 Piss Grenades, in honor of SteelAttack. An interesting game but most people will want to wait until it's cheap.

Coke owns Monster's "juice" line. This is just Kojima being a prophet (what  guy!), as usual, and predicting that Coke will inevitably buy out the energy drink line as well. If the American presidency can survive the end of civilisation as we know it, then Coke won't have any problems surviving, either.

I'd expect cloned mules. For transportation through the most extreme terrain, even today, walking with sturdy four-legged beasts is still unmatched by technological advances.

All in all it sounds like a fascinating experience, if one that really drags at times.

edgecrusher said:

I don't know how many agree with me on this, but I really feel this way about most modern games. They drag them on forever with what is IMO useless filler just so they can say "See, we gave you your money's worth. Here's 50 hours of gamepay!" when in reality, most games are far better as a shorter, more focused experience. Unless you're talking about a grindy RPG or something.

The vast majority of games back in the PS1 & PS2 era were shorter games, & they were fantastic. Hell the original MGS is like a 10 hour long game the first time through, as are the Resident Evil titles. Some of my favorite games ever, & I don't regret paying full price for them at all.

I think it became a thing to pad out SP games to combat the amount of hours of play people get out of multi-player games, even though they're two very different things. And I don't think it's the right approach at all.

It depends on the game, but for the most part they're definitely getting unnecessarily bloated, while simultaneously budgets balloon; I wonder if the two might be partly related?

It definitely sucks.

Well I enjoyed Death Stranding for a fair share of the time it is insane to me that it's getting super high praise from people. 9/10?10/10? What the Christ!?