![]() ![]() Pokémon’s mainline Switch debut is responsible for some of the best moments I’ve had with the series in years. Almost.Īt times, Pokémon Sword and Shield is great. ![]() It’s almost as bad as the slowdown you’d see in Pokémon’s first 3D battles back in X/Y. Navigation through routes becomes frustrating as hail or sand obscures your vision, and then a tree or a rock will pop-in out of nowhere, bringing your bike – and its clumsy controls – screeching to a halt.įor the most part, the incredible art style and some of the most detailed animation I’ve ever seen in a Pokémon game soaks up these technical issues, and you can overlook them as you gawk at Trainers flinging their Pokéballs into battle with pizazz, or fawn over the way a new Galarian fox-thing swishes its gorgeous tail.īut in the moment-to-moment of gameplay, you can find yourself getting annoyed at the technical side of things. Trainers and wild Pokémon will pop onto the screen from about five steps away from your character, sometimes triggering an encounter you didn’t want to engage in. The cities and rural areas you visit reveal themselves to be really quite shallow – lacking any of the depth or intrigue of Unova (Black/White) urban areas, and stripped of the variety and imagination that went into Sinnoh’s (Diamond/Pearl) routes.Īdd some dodgy hardware optimisation to this, and you’ve got a game that feels more draining than exciting in the closing hours. You see yourself shunted into short, linear routes. That freedom actually evaporates as you progress. ![]() It’s the Pokémon fantasy I’ve craved for years, and it feels like it’s building to something phenomenal as I slowly climb my way up the ranks of Galar’s most powerful Gym Leaders.īut then, nothing. Game Freak’s problematic handholding from the past few generations seems to have relaxed in Sword and Shield – you’re free to explore, free to learn about this world, cook all the curries you want in camps with your Pokémon and go at your own pace. It's one of the game's best new features, and leverages the 'collect 'em all' mentality of the game to great effect. The addition of the CurryDex, which encourages you to collect as many berries and ingredients as possible so you can camp and cook with your team and earn their trust, feels like it was focus-tested squarely at me. Very early on, you enter the Wild Area – a place where gigantic Pokémon can manifest in dens (though their appearance is seemingly capped at a certain amount per day) and where rare, high-levelled spawns give you the opportunity to power-level with ease. ![]()
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