Pokémon Sword and Shield Succeed Amid Massive Controversy [REVIEW]

Pokémon Sword and Shield released Nov. 15 for the Nintendo Switch amid a heap of outcry, name calling, and controversy from the fervent and devoted fan base.

What happened to cause the backlash, and is the game even good?

What happened will take some time to explain, but in short the games are fantastic.

To cover the basics of what happened in an almost insulting over simplified manner the slogan of Pokémon has been, “Gotta Catch ‘em All” for as long as I, a life-long fan, can remember. However, at E3 2019 in June Game Freak, the developer of Pokémon, announced that not all Pokémon would be obtainable or transferable in the next installment.

This announcement devastated the fan base and resulted in immediate backlash and revealed that the only thing more toxic than the attack of the same name in Pokémon is the fan base.

Backlash was objectively warranted, as Game Freak is known for having pretty terrible customer relations, which in this case only helped to stoke the anger of fans in this case. It seemed like everything that Game Freak did following the June announcement made things worse.

Among other things this was not the first time that Pokémon could not be transferred to the new generations of games and moving Pokémon forward has been a staple of the franchise for years.

Twitter wars were fought, backlash continued, and all the while Game Freak worked on its vision of how Pokémon should continue. While their vision while not perfect, it is excellent. Critical praise has helped to make these games massive commercial hits despite the best efforts of disgruntled fans.

Pokémon Sword and shield are wonderful games. They are not perfect by any means, but as far as Pokémon games go, and I have spent over 100 hours on every main series title, Sword and Shield are some of the best titles to date.

For those not entirely familiar with how Pokémon games work, Sword and Shield are more or less the same games with small difference between them. Game Freak develops and releases the two games side-by-side for… reasons.

It’s not entirely clear, but Pokémon has been a game about friendship and forming bonds with the creatures and other people. Since the series started Game Freak has released two titles with small differences at the same time I assume in an attempt to make people trade Pokémon not available in their version with their friends that have the opposite version. These Pokémon are called version exclusives.

Usually version exclusives are the legendary Pokémon on the box art of the game, and a handful of normal Pokémon. These games are no exceptions, however, Sword and Shield take things a step further and have two gyms that are different between versions.

Now this review is going up a while after the game because many people will be getting the games for the holidays, many are on the fence because the more toxic members of the fan base took it upon themselves to give 0/10 reviews in order to tank the overall score of the game without even playing the game often called review bombing, and I wait to give my review until I fully explore the games.

I have beaten both games, cleared trough the post game, and can say for certain these games are wonderful additions to the series. The story is fundamentally positive, the experience is fun, the game runs smoothly, the world is so diverse and fun, and the game functions so nicely compared to other entries in the series.

The games are not perfect. Nintendo and Game Freak still do not understand how online play should work; despite there being literally hundreds of examples of games doing online properly, and doing anything with your friends is a mess.

A lot of the new Pokémon look great, and function well in the meta, but some of the evolutions feel disconnected and visually feel out of place.

I do not care for how much of the game favors Pokémon that originated in the first and fifth generations of Pokémon.

The post game is limited. There just is not a ton to do, but what there is to do is deep. To turn a phrase some games have the breadth of the Pacific Ocean, but not deep enough to dive in. Sword and Shield is the breadth of a large puddle that you cannot easily touch the bottom of.

So in the things Game Freak did well category: they made competitive play by far the most accessible it has every been, the story and creatures are fun and vibrant, there is a massive variety of Pokémon that accommodate all kinds of play styles, made the most engaging and fun Pokémon games in years probably going back to the 2014 releases of Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire.

Game Freak came up short with: basically everything leading up to the release, overt favoritism to two specific generations of Pokémon, ONLINE PLAY, some of the shiny Pokémon are lame, and the graphics while far and away the best Pokémon has ever had are not all that impressive.

Final Verdict: 8.2/10.

By my money after logging 200 hours into these games, because I’m a nerd that’s why I’ve played 200 hours, these are the best entries in years and Game Freak did an excellent job, and the composite score from other publications on Metacritic is about right. If you love Pokémon, then you will be happy with what they have done for this new installment to the beloved series.