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Lucas-Rio on 03 February 2022
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Vodacixi said:

No dungeons, incredibly linear routes (even more than in Sun and Moon), towns/citys with an outrageous amount of buildings that seem important but are just there as visual decoration, a town with literally just a Poké Center on it, a story that intentionally and with no respect to the player importance constantly keeps him away from the action just to tell him what amazing things happened off screen, a story that never really gives the player any sense of urgency until the very end of the game (and by that point I just didn't care), a journey that is all about going from town to town and collect badges without any kind of bigger event going in the background like in the previous games, an hour and a half "postgame" about flying to previous towns to beat the crap out of weak Dynamax Pokémon and two guys no one cares about, the true post game is behind a 30 dollars paywall (and even with the DLC the game is not worth it), a Wild Area that gets very old after 20 minutes and with an online system that makes the whole place a graphical mess (not to mention how unreliable the online Raid system is)... and many things I'm probably forgetting.

The huge problem for me is that Sword and Shield is a horrible, HORRIBLE Pokémon journey. The adventure factor is terribly designed. It's not about the National Dex. Is not about the animations. Is not about the lies. Is not about the trees. It's about how bad Sword and Shield fail to make you feel part of a big journey that is not just about being the very best and catch them all, but exploring a new region, getting lost, finding stuff, and facing a greater threat that is constantly present and trying to opose you. Previous entries like S/M and X/Y were already weaker in this regard, but not even close to what Sword and Shield brought to the table.

As a Pokémon adventure, Sword and Shield are without a doubt the worst mainline Pokémon game.

Great sum up. It's exactly how I have felt about Pokemon Sword/Shield. It has nothing to do with graphics or animations.

That whole world, that whole map feels lifeless and pointless. There is nothing to explore and there is nothing interesting in it. The Wild areas are boring and useless. There are no big caves, there are no big moutains, deserts, there are no cruise ships, there are stand ou areas like the big castle of X/Y. Even Sun/Moon which was already very linear was more interesting to travel. The lack of anything that looks like a dungeon or areas to explore and battle is a huge letdowns. Just halls and small linerar roads with no standout cities.

Galar is awful, empty, boring and uninteresting. Everything is small, shallow, handed on a plate.