Pokemon Sword/Shield Official Metacritic Score/Review Thread. (80)

[Runa216]

10 hours in now and I have to say...when it comes to actually playing the game, there's no significant downgrades. I get that a lot of people are upset about Dexit and all, but there are so many improvements that I don't even care. 400 Pokemon is still a lot (Seriously, it's so much), and I can honestly say I haven't been THIS into Pokemon since Gen 5 (Black and White). why is that? Because this is the first time since Gen 5 I haven't been able to trade my pokemon forward and had to treat the game as its own, unique entity.

Things like the removal of random battles, the integration of the box link, the controls, the wild area/zone, the feeling of adventure, the simple but refined story, the well-developed world, etc...all of that help the game while dexit has, so far, had zero effect on me personally. To me, that was just eliminating a bunch of redundancy. Best I can tell, this is the Skyrim of the Pokemon series; sure, a bunch of the features and options/pokemon were pared down, but what is left is more refined and a lot more fun and functional.

IT's still way too early to know for absolute certain, but this might be my 3rd favourite gen, with 5 and 1 still edging it out.

For the life of me, I do not understand the hate. I get that people are upset about not being able to use Ekans or Hidden Power, but the things we got in exchange are just so, so much better. Sheer Volume of pokemon does not make a game good, especially if it means there's a bunch of redundancy. 400 is still a LOT of pokemon, and while there will always be some of your favourites that don't transfer forward (I lost my precious Garchomp), people need to stop thinking of Pokemon games as an expansion and start thinking of them as their own games, with each game picking and chosing from a list of Pokemon.

If no pokemon game ever has more than 500 again, I'd be happy with that. That said, I think if we got this game and a DLC pack with the remaining pokemon, it'd be the best game in the series, I just don't think it's necessary.