A new Pokemon game for Switch is out today!
Anyone else planning on playing? I am downloading it now, and hope to be up and running in the next few hours.
It’ll be a Christmas gift in our house, as I know our boys are looking forward to it. Maybe a Switch Lite too, depending on how things go. The Pokemon one looks pretty nice.
It arrives today.
Sooooo I’m assuming Psyduck is still the greatest character in the game?
Well, I’ve barely been able to pry it away from my kids, but so far I’m favorably impressed. I hadn’t played a Pokemon game since X/Y, and they’ve really improved the graphics and gameplay a lot since then.
Unfortunately, Psyduck is not in Pokémon Sword or Pokémon Shield.
~Max
The hell kind of bullshit game is this?
For those who aren’t familiar, traditionally a Pokémon game will include all of the monsters introduced in previous games. The latest incarnation breaks this tradition and was rightfully met with backlash from the Pokémon community (Cass, 2019). In Nintendo/GameFreak’s defense, there are currently 890 different species of Pokémon, some of which have multiple variants. Only 400 species made it into Pokémon Sword & Shield (Jones, 2019).
In another new for the Pokémon series, GameFreak will release expansion packs (“passes”). Two are already available for pre-purchase as of last week and cost $30.00 each, with release dates in June and Fall of this year. Aside from new content, it was announced that the expansion packs will be accompanied by a free patch that re-adds some 200 Pokémon species from previous games (Jackson, 2020). It is not known how many of these re-added Pokémon you can catch in-game, and how many will only be available via transfer from previous games through the upcoming $5-$10/yr Pokémon Home subscription service.
Looks like a cash grab to me, but what can I say? I still bought the game, and as far as games go, it’s pretty fun. The gameplay seems more easy-going. You always know what to do next, and there are plenty of conveniences. Pokémon Shield held my hand for a lot longer than its precursors ten years ago, especially with the plot.
One thing about the plot is that I felt like a child, because right up to the finale the characters treat you like one. It is a children’s game, after all, but I’m leaning towards this being a bad thing. The player character doesn’t really grow like in some of the previous games.
The plot is linear, but there are plenty of side-games such as camping and boutiques (dress-up) to keep you busy. The camping/cooking minigame gets monotonous after a while, but if you’re only playing for a few minutes every session it does just fine. The boutiques are fun if you are into dress-up games. Me, not so much, I just picked one plain set of clothes and stuck with it. You can play catch-'em-all to fill your Pokédex, but as mentioned above many of the Pokémon are missing from the game. There is also competitive play both online and against the computer, which is quite fun and (sans Legendary Pokémon) surprisingly balanced. Minmaxing is much easier if you want to catch and train competitive Pokémon, thanks to new conveniences like mints and the Synchronize ability. The new game also lets you “rent” battle teams that work quite well.
~Max
Cass, M. (2019, Jun 11). “Not all Pokémon will carry over to Pokémon Sword and Shield.” Polygon. Retrieved January 13, 2020 from https://www.polygon.com/e3/2019/6/11/18661587/pokemon-sword-shield-home-e3-2019-galar-pokedex-home-bank
Jackson, G. (2020, Jan 9). “Pokémon Sword and Shield Expansions Add Over 200 Existing Pokémon.” Kotaku. Retrieved January 13, 2020 from https://kotaku.com/pokemon-sword-and-shield-expansion-adds-over-200-existi-1840898163
Jones, C. (2019, Dec 5). “How many Pokemon are there in each generation as of 2019?” GameRevolution. Retrieved January 13, 2020 from https://www.gamerevolution.com/guides/621852-how-many-pokemon-are-there-in-each-generation-2019-2020-sword-and-shield
Soooooooo
200 extra Pokemon
Psyduck, right?
If there is no Charizard we riot.
I don’t know which ones are being added back in. You might have to wait until June to find out. 
~Max
I can personally confirm that players can obtain their own Charizards with only the base game.
Charizards are particularly awesome because sometimes they have the “Gigantimax” gene, which lets you go into Super Saiyan mode. You can see Champion Leon’s Charizard do so in the opening cutscene, here: https://youtu.be/JrAMJ7grdvU?t=111
Poliwag is reputedly Satoshi Tajiri’s favorite Pokémon. He created the series but even Poliwag didn’t survive “Dexit”.
~Max
Just to be clear, the “each” is each version of the game (Sword or Shield), not each of the two DLC episodes. If you have a single copy of the game, then for $30 you get both DLC packs.
The downside is that if you’re in a situation like my house, where one of my boys got Sword for Christmas and the other got Shield, they’ll each have to buy a separate $30 DLC to get the expansions.
Honestly I haven’t played a Pokémon game since the original on my old Gameboy Color (I had the “Red” version). Unless Pokémon Go counts, and I don’t generally count that as a game really, more of a pastime (and I dropped that years ago).
This makes me want a Switch. Maybe I’ll get a Nintendo console when my daughter is older, it’s hard to justify another console when I don’t have the time for my PC or Xbox. This game is tempting though. I dug the original.
I had overlooked that. Thanks!
~Max
Wailord and Rowlet survived Dexit, so I’m fine with the game.
I picked up a Switch Lite just so I could play these games. I got a Switch for my son 2 years ago, but I rarely get to touch it unless playing a co-op or party game with him, so this is my first single-player Switch game. (Played Breath of the Wild on the Wii-U)
It’s fun. I played Sword, my son did Shield. I’ve played through every main series Pokemon game starting with Platinum. While the story is a bit on the simple side (Black and White are still the most interesting games from a storytelling perspective), I felt the lower stakes and emphasis on just trying to become Champion was a nice change of pace. Heck, the villain’s (and that word is a stretch, more like misguided individual) plan felt like an afterthought.
Things I liked:
Lots of little improvements to the game play that removed a lot of the tedious grinding of say the Sinnoh and Unova eras.
[ul]
[li]Having the Name Rater, Move Deleter and Move Relearner all be the same character who can be found in any PokeCenter, instead of having each function performed by different NPCs, each of which is in a different location and there is only one on the entire game map.[/li][li]Putting the Loto-ID lottery in every PokeCenter[/li][li]Being able to access the PC boxes at any time in the game instead of only from a PokeCenter[/li][li]Last generation got rid of HM slaves and replaced with Ride Pokemon. Now we just have Ride Taxis and the water bike. Makes moving around much simpler so we can concentrate on the fun parts.[/li][/ul]
I have spent hours just exploring the Wild Area. Closest thing to an open world game we’ve seen in Pokemon so far. Hopefully next game will take the next step and let us challenge the gyms in any order.
The only disappointment so far for me:
No more Global Trading Station. It’s been part of the game since Diamond and Pearl, but appears to be no more. Sure, we still have Link trade (good if you can communicate with your trading partner in real life; klunky if you’re doing it strictly in-game with a stranger) and the random Surprise Trade (previously known as Wonder Trades). But for Pokedex filling, it was so convenient to request a specific trade and wait for a similar minded person to come along and fill it. Granted there were so many trolls clogging up the listings with impossible-to-fill requests that at times the service was unusable, but that seemed to be getting better with filtering tweaks each generation.
I enjoyed it and my son and I have both already pre-ordered the expansions.
And free, to boot! I remember relearning moves used to cost a heart scale! I spent so long fishing up Luvdiscs to steal their heart scales…
~Max