Pokemon Sword

Release: 2019

Developer/Publisher: Game Freak/Nintendo

Gameplay Stats: Who even knows with Switch games. I think around 30 hours

I've been pretty outspoken in the past about my critiques of Pokemon games, but a friend of mine offered to loan me his copy of the newest entry, so I might as well check it out! Probably worth noting here that I am writing this review after rolling the credits. My BIL says that there is a pretty robust post game though that I am intending on checking out a little.

Graphics: Definitely the best looking Pokemon game! It seems like all the Pokes have unique attack and idle animations which is cool. A lot of the moves are unique as well although some do share animations. The menus in the game are pretty nice even if they are a bit clunky. I think that might be because of the weird bloat inherent in the series though, I don't really have any ideas on how they could've improved them. The characters are still kind of weird and chibi looking, but most of the games go for that aesthetic so it's not particularly jarring at this point.

Audio: A lot of the music in this game is the best in the series. Some serious earworms here. I will say though that I really disliked the stadium music with the weird chanting. I get that they were going for a Scotland/soccer vibe, but the vuvuzelas seemed a little out of place. Particularly because they play from crowds with no visible vuvuzelas but the characters that blow them in your face don't make any noise at all. There are lots of occasions where the lack of voice/sound effects felt out of place. The game felt like it could've been on a previous console generation and feels really old.

Plot: Pokemon in Scotland! The generic Pokemon story is much the same as in the previous games although there isn't really a villain. They paint the Chairman as a villain towards the end of the game, but realistically he is doing things for the greater good, just being impatient about it. The game felt a bit sterile, didn't contain enough heart. Generally Nintendo games are full of heart and maybe that's why this series never really grabs me like I want it to. I think they really missed an opportunity to steer into their version of Scotland. They missed a lot of style and accent opportunities, it hardly feels different than any other version of Pokemon and I think that's a bummer.

Gameplay: Pretty much what you'd expect at this point but with two notable tweaks. The first one being that your Pokedex/Rotom actually remembers the effectiveness of your moves on enemy Pokemon! I disliked this at first, but the farther in and the more Pokemon that I was introduced to I was greatful. When there were only 250 Pokemon it wasn't necessary, but I think they're up towards 900 now so it kind of is. Point of fact though, you can't have all the Pokemon in this game. I don't know how many 'mons are excluded, but I do know that you can't "Catch 'em all". The next big improvement is the Wild Area, a huge area that you traverse several times with visible wild Pokemon that vary based on the weather. I really liked this part actually! Towards the end of my playthrough I waited a bit to catch one particular Pokemon to round out my party. The variety of pokes you can catch is really refreshing!

Overall though, I don't think this game does enough for me to really recommend it to anyone outside of hardcore fans. My wife is playing Persona 5 right now so it really highlights what they can do to make a JRPG more modern and better. I think this series is stuck in the past, much to its detriment. It would be much more interesting if the world was more fleshed out and we could actually see what it would be like living in a world with Pokemon. [5/10]