Pokemon Sword/Shield catches console growing pains

While not next-level, the experience delivers what fans expected.

By Will Harrison / Special to The Blade
Thu, 05 Dec 2019 11:30:00 GMT

link -- with images

Pokemon has the glory and burden of being the biggest, most recognized franchise in the world.

Literally. The game franchise spans more than 20 years; scores of successful games, films, television shows, and more. Pokemon sits at the top of the highest-grossing media franchises of all-time list with 92 billion dollars. Higher than Mickey Mouse, Hello Kitty, Star Wars, Mario, and more.

That’s a lot to live up to. In regards to the video games that means Pokemon has to be all things to all people or at least try as much as it can. It needs to all at once be a child’s first introduction into role-playing games, a challenging modern experience for core gamers, and a nostalgia bomb for those such as myself who grew up with Pikachu and friends.

But as any good marriage counselor will tell you, you can’t be all things to the people you love the most. Something always gives, and in the case of Pokemon Sword/Shield, the thing that gave this time around was a cogent story, a semblance of difficulty, and a sense of reinvention.

Billed as the first true, traditional Pokemon game on console, Sword/​Shield is a deja vu of an experience that has new ideas but lacks execution on said ideas at every turn. New inclusions such as multiplayer raid battles against gigantic, powerful Dynamax pokemon, or the MMORPG-inspired wild areas are concepts that give the impression that the franchise is moving forward.

Yet, a caveat appears along with each new feature that makes the entire affair either feel rushed, poorly implemented, or both.

The raid battles are visually impressive and it’s great to have a team-based, friendly multiplayer experience in Pokemon, but the battles are rudimentary and easy to break. The rewards from these fights also break the leveling of your team in unexpected ways. Pokemon has always been a game about balancing a team around types, potential evolutions, and sheer power. The candy received from the raid battles nullifies any need for leveling and thus leaves the player over-leveled throughout the 20 or so hours it will take to complete the main story.

The same goes for the wild areas, a new take on the traditional “go to a new town, fight a gym leader, rinse, and repeat” Pokemon formula. While a cool idea to run around wide-open fields and run into powerful Pokemon, the execution breaks core aspects of the game such as leveling and attack types.

This is more than faulting Sword/​Shield for not being difficult. After all, Pokemon is a franchise aimed at a younger audience and I’m not going to stand before you as a grown adult and complain that the pocket monster game is too easy. But I will hold fire to the fact that the core loop of the game is circumvented in a way that changes how the game is approached.

I also might be focusing on the over-leveling thing because I need a distraction from how awful the story is in Sword/​Shield.

It would be one thing if it was the standard zero-to-hero, “I want to be the very best like no one ever was” tale that Pokemon is known for. Yet, the story in Sword/​Shield is one that holds the player by the hand, creating an experience that’s more like a guided tour of the Galar region and less like an adventure.

Which is a shame, because the Galar region is gorgeous and contains some of the most original art design in a Pokemon game to date. The new creatures are thoughtfully designed to reflect the based-on-Britain Galar region and towns range from a mushroom-laden fairy village to icy hot springs.

But there’s nothing to do in any of these amazing towns. No side-quests, no reason to stop and smell the flowers. The guided tour stops for nothing and Pokemon Sword/​Shield wastes so much in the name of just being a backdrop to yet another boilerplate Pokemon tale.

Yet, at the end of the day, none of this hardly matters, does it? It’s still a core Pokemon game and with that comes a finely-honed experience that slips on like your most comfortable pair of sneakers. All these complaints withstanding, I still had fun catching what are the best Pokemon designs to date and just living in this magical world, no matter how empty it may be.

Pokemon is still Pokemon. Nothing less, nothing more. That’s the burden of being the biggest game franchise in existence. Rarely does it get to experiment, and when it does and bumps up against failure, it’ll always be easier to just go back to what works.

While not the next level, console experience fans expected, Pokemon Sword/Shield is still the same Pokemon that enraptures fans all over the world, year after year. Its flaws are many and sometimes too large to ignore, but that feeling of magic that Pokemon Red/​Blue created all those years ago still exists within Sword/​Shield.

Maybe we’re all just catching feelings instead of catching ‘em all. That’s fine. Pokemon is still the gaming equivalent of mom’s home cooking. It’s comforting, reliable, and perhaps, unable to be modified without ruining what makes it work.

Contact William Harrison at: DoubleUHarrison@gmail.com or on Twitter @DoubleUHarrison.

link