[Let’s Talk] What are you playing? – December 2019

A new month rolled right on in a few days ago. Now that we’re in December, we want to know what you’ve been playing.

Are you still adventuring through the Galar region in Pokemon Sword/Shield? Playing a new game from some of the holiday sales? No matter the case, let us know in the comments below.

Highlights from last week’s topic: Pokemon Sword/Shield impressions

awng782

As someone who isn’t super into Pokemon and only plays the brand new main series games every 3 years or so (i.e. whose last entry was Moon back in 2016), I’m enjoying Shield so far.

Pros:
> New designs are among best in series
> Great artstyle and soundtrack
> Wild Area is quite fun and adds some much needed difficulty
> Pokemon in the overworld makes the experience much more streamlined
> The region feels quite immersive, and gym battles feel pretty epic

Cons:
> Texture quality and pop-in can be quite bad, especially in the Wild Area
> This game needs a hard mode ala Black/White 2
> Lack of GTS (though I suppose it could end up in Pokemon Home since that will feature trading + all the Pokemon).

Overall, while the game has its flaws, I think I’m enjoying this game more than Sun/Moon and X/Y. Probably a 7-8/10 for me.

Joshua Ayala Ortiz
Breath of The Wild, Super Mario Odyssey, Fire Emblem Three Houses, Luigi’s Mansion 3, Splatoon 2, Super Smash Bros Ultimate. These are games that had previos entries and then came to the Switch and elevated their franchises to new exciting levels.

Pokémon Sword and Shield do not that.

Let’s forget for a moment about #Dexit and move on.

Good Stuff
The game had great character designs, art and the new Pokémon for the most part are really cool. New type match ups and what not over all really cool.
Towns may have weird names but the region in general is a really cool place to be in.
Gym battles evolved and taken to a whole other level where you literally feel the crowd’s excitement and the grandiose feeling of a Pokémon Battle.

Bad stuff.
The game is riddled with technical issues.
Camera bugs.
Local Wireless ALWAYS ON with NO way to turn it off. Constantly draining battery.
When trying to join local raids, constant connectivity issues.
When online frame rate drops incredibly.
No GTS.
Honestly the Y-Comm in general sucks.

Look I tried defending this game for a long time to my friends, then I got it and beat it and I’ll tell you I’m very disappointed this game doesn’t even have a story or even proper bad guys. Over all, this game feels so rushed. And as much as I love Pokémon, this game is a disappointment and to make it all worse. Half of my favorite Pokémon are going to be stuck “Home” with nothing to do until who knows when.

Yolkghost

I’ve thought about this for a while and i’ll try to quickly summarize my feelings about the game.

The best way to describe sword / shield? Rushed. It’s certainly a phenomenal game with a lot of exciting new things thrown your way such as the wild area or raid battles, which were a lot more fun than I originally anticipated. But the game takes the wrong complaints from previous entries. In SM they pushed the story too hard and railroaded you, but in SWSH they barely do anything until the last hour that isn’t exposition but somehow STILL manage to railroad you through Hop. The characters in this entry truly have good designs, but it feels like they don’t do enough – especially the “villains” of this entry. It was still a good entry in my opinion, but it has some very obvious short comings both on the story side and the technical side. I’m personally hoping that with all of the tiny pieces of story and future goals for some of the characters, that we’ll get a fully fleshed out sword / shield 2 that carves out more of the map and makes better use of the switch.

Melatelo

A pretty bad story, weak characters, dated graphics and probably the worst music in the series history? Otherwise I have been enjoying it. That’s the thing though….I always enjoy Pokémon. I do crave something a lot bigger and I wonder what improvements Game Freak might make when the next generation rolls around.