It’s just as wholesome and accessible as ever during the campaign, but hidden stat mechanics and a “secret” end-game of breeding and battling perfect Pokemon give those of us who want to get hardcore with it nearly limitless depth to explore. As always, the deep turn-based combat benefits from the crazy variety of these elemental Pokemon, from their vastly different and shamelessly bizarre appearances to the huge selection of moves they learn to the stats they inherently have. Sword and Shield are extremely familiar and comfortable thanks to a pretty traditional setup: you pick one of three starter Pokemon and then head off across the Galar region to capture and train more, defeat eight unique and exciting gym challenges, and become a Pokemon master over the course of about 40 hours. Sword and Shield manage to fix all of these problems while leaving Pokemon’s signature charm not just intact, but enhanced by the Switch’s huge graphical leap over the 3DS. All throughout, Sword and Shield feels like it respects your time. And perhaps most overdue of all, Sword and Shield have killed the sacred cow of the traditional random encounters that have all too often made exploring feel like a slog. Likewise, travel across the map has been made fast and convenient, and even connecting with other people is as simple as pressing the Y button. Just tell the NPC you know what’s up and they’ll get out of the way and let you get down to the business of catching and training – you can even catch Pokemon without being told how, and doing so automatically skips the tutorial.
#Pokemon sword and shield pokedex bulbapedia series#
While this series has always been great about introducing new players with thorough tutorials, it seems crazy that experienced players have never been able to skip them until now. But the first mainline game on the Switch has changed that: though there is still no “perfect Pokemon game,” the 40-plus hours I’ve spent with Sword and Shield have left me comfortable with calling them the best Pokemon games I have ever played – and I’ve played ‘em all.Įxperiencing the avalanche of improvements made me realize just how complacent I’d become with Pokemon mechanics that were, in hindsight, less than ideal. With every new game in this 23-year-old series, changes big and small are always made, but I’ve never been willing to declare the latest entry the new gold standard for Pokemon because they’ve consistently been a balance of better and worse. The elated surprise of not knowing what’s coming is something this series does extremely well if you can manage to play it relatively unspoiled (fear not, this review won’t deprive you of that), and I’m glad that sense of wonder is still alive and kicking in Sword and Shield. Very few things in life can make me as happy as a great Pokemon RPG, and Sword and Shield repeatedly left me in a state of pure, child-like joy.