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Pokémon Sword & Pokémon Shield (2019, Switch)

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23 minutes ago, GenericAperson said:

On another note, I need to know for team planning:

 

 

  New Pokemon (Hide contents)

Does anyone know if the Galarian Stunfisk evolves?

 

All I can say is I've finished 6 gyms and I've not seen one.

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21 minutes ago, Glen-i said:

I had to see what it looked like!

EJhTDu8UYAAAz42?format=jpg&name=large

Haha, honestly I had too as well!

I have a better screenshot of it too. I'll tweet it later.

Edit: And thanks for the new Pokémon! I needed an ice type for one of the jobs..

Also, I didn't really have anything better for ice Pokémon

Edit:

 

Edited by Sméagol
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34 minutes ago, Glen-i said:

@GenericAperson, I just checked my Pokédex and Shuckle is the Pokémon right after the one you mentioned, so no, it doesn't evolve.

OK. Hopefully there's another brand new Ground type in this game that I can run on the team. For now it's on the team because I have two Pokemon that are weak to Electric and need to cover my weaknesses.

 

Currently my team are all Level 27 and I'm just out of the second Galar Mine. Yamper evolved and thankfully I like it's evolution. I have two badges and I must admit even playing under a no healing rule these gym fights haven't been too challenging so far. Hopefully the next one is a bit more challenging but given it's Fire and I chose Sobble as my starter then I suspect not.

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Spoiler

Last thing I expected was one massive Streets of Rage reference!

 

Edited by Glen-i
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I am like an hour in, so not very far at all, but I am already loving this game. It looks so damn good. 

I am also finding myself reminiscing playing Blue all those years ago, and again with B&W (the series high, IMO) years later, because it's so like those games for me. By that, I mean I knew nothing of those games. It was a new adventure with new / unknown Pokémon, so exploring the early grass and catching every Pokémon is exciting again. 

I haven't seen any news, leaks, spoilers about this game at all minus the Farfetched thing. 

So I'm going in brand new with absolutely no idea what these new Pokémon are and I absolutely love it. I love all the little improvements they've made which make people familiar with the series not have to roll their eyes or sit through unnecessary tutorials. 

Can't wait to play more. 

 

 

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Credits have rolled. Careful, I used all new Pokémon, so possible spoilers ahead.

Spoiler

EJihslRU8AA3Mb1?format=jpg&name=large

From right to left, brackets indicate nicknames.

Toxtricity (Terry) - Lv 61
Drednaw (Nibbles) - Lv 61
Obstagoon (Gene) - Lv 61
Sandaconda (Sandra) - 61
Rillaboom (Howard) - Lv 64
Inteleon (Leon) - Lv 60

I'd give my impressions, but what's the point when I'm writing the review for N-E? So I'm gonna wait until I explore the post-game a bit.

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Booted up the game this morning with the intention of renaming my new team member having finally decided on the perfect nickname for it... then I unexpectedly encountered the last Pokemon I was looking for a lot earlier than I anticipated and was able to complete my team of 6.

 

Having deposited everyone in the box to help the new team member catch up I found something pretty unexpected... a Shiny Minccino!

 

 

Now about to take on the Firey Gym but due to how today is going to go and the fact that I have yet to upload the second gym to Youtube, that will have to wait. I can however post my team going into the third gym. I tried not to level up too much this time around so hopefully won't be too overpowered but I think his ace is 4x weak to both Water and Ground which is bad news for him since those are the two Pokemon I'm planning on using.

 

EJkWg_cU4AA5I0E.jpg

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Well, that was stupidly short. I only started playing the game yesterday morning at round half 10 and the credits rolled less than 24 hours later. It wasn't as if I was just playing this all day either, as I was also playing Jedi: Fallen Order. Easily one of the shortest Pokemon campaigns I have played in recent years. I suppose the short length of the game shouldn't come as a surprise seeing as a lot of the meat from the past games ( dungeons/caves/buildings ) have been completely stripped in this game.

Spoiler

EJkUSnBUEAEpuwQ.jpg

EJkUSnCVUAAlouV.jpg

EJkUSl2UUAAnjpm.jpg

EJkUSmgU8AEdhvP.jpg

The game as a whole just feels boring, flat and at times cheap, not to mention insultingly easy. You can't go five minutes without someone healing your Pokemon or someone shoving free items into your pockets. Speaking of items, these seem to be scattered about everywhere. You'll find all sorts of stuff just lying around and most of which are things you would normally need to buy yourself. Which brings us to money. Because you get given or find so many items, outside of buying Pokeballs, money really has no purpose, well, unless you want to play Barbie/dress up and buy lots of new clothes for you character.

I find it ironic that Pokemon, a series that features evolution as a main part of the game, refuses to evolve itself. It's the same tried and tested formula that we've all seen before, with a couple of added new things/gimmicks. I honestly think Pokemon Let's Go is a better Pokemon game than this. Yes, it tried a few things that were different, such as the way you catch Pokemon or do battles, but at least it can say it tried to bring something new to the overall gameplay of the series. Not to mention that those games actually had dungeons to explore.

What has been really highlighted to me during the release period of this game is just how bias the gaming press are to certain franchises. It's something that one of the podcast I listen to frequently talks about a lot, where games get scored higher and problems dismissed purely because of nostalgia or the strength of the IP and I think that has been the case here. We have a game that has been completely stripped down of a lot of features from previous games, gameplay elements removed, shorter than a lot of the previous games, has technical issues ( as seen in the DF video ), is £15-£20 more expensive compared to previous games and yet a lot of outlets are happy to ignore all of this and score the game very highly. 

It's also been interesting to see various outlets complain about such yearly franchises like FIFA, with complaints saying that the game is pretty much the same but with an updated roster, but isn't this exactly what Pokemon has become? Same gameplay, new Pokemon/roster. Another example of this bias is with a lot of the reviews for a game called Destiny Connect. I watched and read a fair few of these because I was interested in the game and wanted to see how it was. A lot of places marked the game down for not having voice acting, stating that it felt jarring to have a RPG in this day and age without it. Fast forward a few weeks later and very few reviewers have this down as a negative for the Pokemon game.

Despite all of these negatives, there were moments that got a smile from me and some locations were beautiful to look at. Also, I really loved some of the Pokemon designs in the game, with Boltund being one of my absolute favourites.  I did enjoy it more than Sun/Moon but I don't think that is saying much given how much I dislike them. :p 

Spoiler

EJkUi06UcAE7ktJ.jpg

 

Spoiler

EJkUi07UwAAQT9K.jpg

 

Spoiler

EJkUi0nU0AIc8PN.jpg

I had a good laugh at how they got the name Pat in there. :D 

Another positive thing are the Wild Areas...but only when they actually work. The game ran like garbage yesterday afternoon while I was exploring the areas. Players were teleporting allover the place and the game was chugging along to the point where I had to disconnect from the network just so I could get through the area more smoothly. The idea i good but the execution is poor at the moment. This could be just launch issues but I guess time will tell.

It's such a shame that the game has ended up the way it has. I would like to say that Game Freak could have done better if they had more time but I really do think that they are out of their depth now that they have to deliver these games in HD and as part of a home console experience. Sadly, I don't think anything will ever change. The IP is far too big, with games and merch constantly being sold at a high level. This isn't the home console experience I wanted from the first new major Pokemon release on the Switch but it's the one i've had to settle for. :( 

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15 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

I find it ironic that Pokemon, a series that features evolution as a main part of the game, refuses to evolve itself

Well put. I really don't understand why this isn't a criticism by now. It's just mind-blowing to me how (from what I've seen of the game) we still seem to be stuck in the GB or DS era in terms of presentation, structure and gameplay.

15 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

 

  Beautiful location (Reveal hidden contents)

EJkUi07UwAAQT9K.jpg

 

That really doesn't do the game any favours from a technical pov. It looks like those mushrooms are just pasted on. Why aren't they lighting the environment more?

Edited by Ronnie

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I feel like what we have here is basically Pokemon X/Y 2. An instance where the developers made a technical jump but were time constrained when doing so and the technical jump was something that compromised every other aspect of the game. They also seemingly tried to correct the problems people had with Sun/Moon without replicating the parts that those things actually did well. They focused too much on the wrong things rather than something that actually makes a good game.

 

And let's be honest, even if Sun/Moon had "too many cutscenes" its story was a lot better written than what we have in Sword/Shield so far. I feel like if they had included some of the stuff that they put in Sword/Shield and not spoiled too many Pokemon then people would have had a lot higher opinion about Pokemon Sun and Moon. As it happens, on the third gym I find that a lot of this stuff feels like a big step back in terms of characterisation from Sun/Moon. They are leaning heavily into the idea of Pokemon Battling being a competitive sport in this region along the lines of football and going ahead with that being the motivation of your character, your character is essentially a professional sports player and the Gym Challenge is essentially a season of competitive Pokemon battling. If you compare it to something like football, people follow football on a match by match basis looking to see what happens next. The thing about that though is that every so often something really big happens in those games, so major incident that gets everyone talking. Obviously I'm not far enough in the game yet but given the gym battles, such as this one that I played earlier in the game (includes Pokemon spoiler):

 

Since they are being played out by you there's not really much room for artificial drama in said battles unless they were to specifically script said battles. Personally I feel like Pokemon and football do have similar parallels in that they both involve building a unique team so I feel like the comparison by the developers was inspired.

 

I want to address the complains about the lack of voice acting. I completely agree, it feels a bit strange to be playing a game on the Switch that doesn't have voice acting when the likes of Zelda and Xenoblade have included fully voiced scripts. However, I have a different take on the whole thing because I know that if the games did have voice acting it would be incredibly cringey. How do I know this? Who would be in charge of doing the in-game voice acting for a Pokemon game? The Pokemon Company of course. So, what kind of endevours for voice acting have the Pokemon Company been involved in... oh...

 

 

So you've got a choice between no voice acting or in my opinion bad voice acting. It may turn out alright on the Japanese side but TPCi are not great on the English voice acting side of things. I suppose having voice acting is better than having no voice acting though.

 

I'll reserve my full thoughts for after I finish the game but I can't see these games being the best in the series by any means.

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On 16/11/2019 at 8:30 AM, Glen-i said:

@Ugh first aid got a Ditto!

She caught it with a Great Ball, I use an Ultra Ball and it escapes. Which is bloody typical.

Which means we can breed all the starters for @S.C.G (and anyone else) now.

So if anyone wants the starters they don't have this evening, give me a shout of which ones you want, and I'll get you an egg of them.

I would like the fire and water starter if any of those are going. I do not really have much to offer at the moment though as i've just reached the wild area but any assistance with the starters would be appreciated. 

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50 minutes ago, Blade said:

I would like the fire and water starter if any of those are going. I do not really have much to offer at the moment though as i've just reached the wild area but any assistance with the starters would be appreciated. 

Okie dokie, I'll be available in an hour-ish and then I'll give you a shout when they're good to go. But I'm only available until 6. So make sure you're here before then.

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3 minutes ago, Glen-i said:

Awww, @S.C.G, that Double Hit miss was so unlucky!

Yeah, I really thought I had it there. :laughing:

I managed to catch that Vanillish though, so thank you to @Ugh first aid and yourself. :D

I just wanted to see what these Max Raids were all about, turns out they;re pretty fun, I think I need to level up some more though. :)

Thanks again for the starter eggs, they haven't hatched yet but I'll run around the wild area some more until they do. :peace:

Edited by S.C.G

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Would it be crazy of me to wait until a potential Ultra Sword and Ultra Shield are announced before deciding whether or not to buy this one? I’m in no great rush to play it and I was annoyed when Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon came out, which I didn’t play but I assume were much improved over the originals. Does it feel likely based on what you’ve all played so far?

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3 minutes ago, S.C.G said:

Yeah, I really thought I had it there. :laughing:

I managed to catch that Vanillish though, so thank you to @Ugh first aid and yourself. :D

I just wanted to see what these Max Raids were all about, turns out they;re pretty fun, I think I need to level up some more though. :)

Feel free to join any we start. I'm so overleveled for these, it's no big deal.

3 minutes ago, Tim B said:

Does it feel likely based on what you’ve all played so far?

Probably, give it about 2-3 years.

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7 minutes ago, Glen-i said:

Feel free to join any we start. I'm so overleveled for these, it's no big deal.

Probably, give it about 2-3 years.

Hmm, I was thinking more like next year.

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1 minute ago, Tim B said:

Hmm, I was thinking more like next year.

Very unlikely.

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4 hours ago, Clownferret said:

Is this linked to Go in any way

 

Not yet, but once Pokémon HOME comes out, you'll be able to transfer some Pokémon through that.

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Dayum! @RedShell! Nice find! I think that's a Gigantamax one!

EDIT: Argh! Didn't catch it, oh well.

Edited by Glen-i
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Dammit, didn't catch any of those last few 3 star raid battles.. Should see if I can buy better pokéballs now.

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