My team, in the order of when i acquired/caught the Pokemon
Cinderace (Pyro Ball | Flame Charge | Double Kick | Bounce)
The starter provided to me from Leon. Carrot from One Piece definitely influenced my decision on choosing Scorbunny lol. Overall pretty fun to use (my strongest beatstick) with Pyro Ball and his speed stats are really nice. Also tanked a shitload of attacks in my battle with Zamazenta and I was able to catch him with no fainted pokemon or even having to use any heals for that matter (I did have to for Eternatus though). I wish the game would have give a (small) chance to get his hidden ability Libero.
Corviknight (Steel Wing | Brave Bird | Power Trip | Hone Claws)
My first wild pokemon caught, and the only one besides Impidimp as a wild pokemon on my team (everyone else on my team was acquired through Surprise Trade). I used him a lot as a battle lead with great Defense stats and he does really well after using 2-3 Hone Claws, so much that I barely had to switch pokemon most times (Charizard or Torkoal runs all over him unfortunately, and his speed is not great). Still trying to look for the TR Iron Head as a replacement to Steel Wing, which has been a pain to look for.
Dragapult (Phantom Force | Infestation | Dragon Darts | Dragon Dance)
My first pokemon acquired through Surprise Trade at Lv. 1. Usually I would catch all my pokemon on the teams I use but looking up where this pokemon appeared in the wild, it would have taken me near the final few gyms to be able to get one in the wild. I wanted to use this pokemon as soon as I found it through leaks. Other than a clean sweep on the first battle against Bede, I had to keep Dreepy as a reserve until it evolved into Drakloak (50) and finally Dragapult (60) since it kept dying to any wild pokemon (one-shot)as dreepy. After it evolved though, very solid attacker and my fastest member by a large margin even more than Scorbunny and Inteleon. Still super frail to any super-effective moves taken though so she's usually fucked if the opposing pokemon tanks his attacks. Infestation is used when I try to whittle down HP of wild pokemon, but once i get a Gallade I might change it to Hex.
Toxtricity (Low Key) (Boomburst | Overdrive | Toxic | Poison Jab)
2nd pokemon I got through Surprise Trade; I didn't realize he was obtainable in the game until I had hit the above mark of 37:52 (its taking me over 2 weeks to type all of this but I finally got the guaranteed one). Like Dreepy, Toxel was kinda weak before it evolution (nearly lost to Nessa because of that), but after that has become one of my strongest members. I usually send her out when Cinderace/Corviknight can't deal with a certain pokemon (Charizard, Inteleon), and has helped me sweep 3rd - 7th gym without using anyone else; Speed can be a problem sometimes and I usually have to be careful around Gardevoir or Gallade (thank god Mewtwo is not in this game). Will probably change Poison Jab to Sludge Bomb if I can get the TR through a Raid or Watt Trader.
Inteleon ( U-Turn | Snipe Shot | Hydro Pump | Blizzard)
My 3rd pokemon through Surprise Trade on my team. Actually I was going to use Barraskewda who I already caught (its pre-evolution Arrokuda) before I got a Lv. 1 Sobble but I wanted to have another Special Attacker besides Toxtricity so I opted to use my Sobble instead. I don't like him as much as Cinderace but I enjoy using him a lot (his running sprite in Camp is kinda adorable). I don't use him too much but when I do he does very well, notably one-shotting Leon's G-Max Charizard. I kinda want to replace Blizzard with Ice Beam since it only has 70% accuracy but it lets me use a stronger Ice G-Max move.
Grimmsnarl (Motostoke Outskirts - 5% chance) (Spirit Break | False Surrender | Play Rough | Foul Play)
The 2nd pokemon on my team i caught in the wild. Like Dragapult, I wanted to use this pokemon as soon as I saw the leaks (also was intruiged by Impidimp in the early trailers). I wanted to get one from Surprise Trade but after 3-4 days (about 100 new pokemon) not a single one was an Impidimp. Since I was already at Motostoke Outskirts after the 4th Gym(despite its low spawn rate of 5%) I tried to catch it there and it would be at a lower level and easier to catch. It took me 4 hours to find one but my Corviknight accidentally killed it with a critical hit. Same thing happened 2 hours later on a 2nd one. Finally caught the 3rd one after switching to dreepy and using Infestation instead of straight attacking. Has a similar role to Inteleon on my team and like Inteleon does very well when I needed to use him, most notably on Raihan's pokemon (minus Duraludon) and on the battle with raged Zacian; Like Toxtricity, speed can be a problem for Grimmsnarl and so can any pokemon with steel or fairy moves. Will probably change Play Rough to Bulk Up so that he can tank more hits.
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While i formatted the categories like a review, its more of a personal thoughts/opinion piece on the game (Shield
)
Gameplay (15/20)
Surprisingly fun despite the blatant exclusion of the National Dex in terms of collecting/battling Pokemon.
Graphics and visuals were obviously better with the upgrade to the Switch from the 3DS but nothing super mindblowing.
I kinda miss being able to actually pet your Pokemon like Amie and Refresh (especially being able to cure status conditions on the fly) did but Camp is surprisingly pleasant since you get to cook and eat with your Pokemon (I also like eating all sorts of Curry irl so that was also a positive factor). Not to mention pokemon within your team can finally interact with one another, which I personally had a lot of fun with.
I personally enjoyed the new style of Wild Pokemon spawns, resembling a lot like what Pokemon GO has done since 2016 and now I don't have to worry about getting a bs wild encounter when I'm not expecting it or not in the position to (low health, status conditions, etc). They also another layer of development on this feature now that wild pokemon can interact/react to your actions or movement, and it is sometimes amusing (Perserker) or scary when wild pokemon chase you around (Rotom being faster than a bike, Liepard being faster than running characters).
Raid Battles like the new Wild pokemon features are similar to what Pokemon GO did being able to since you can team up with 3 other people (online, unlike GO not having to meet up with people irl to team up or cpu, which I don't suggest unless a last resort) to go up against Raid pokemon from 1-5 stars (difficulty), some in their regular forms or others in the feature exclusive Gigantamax Pokemon. Internet connection is sometimes iffy when trying to find support on raids or joining in since I sometimes get something like 'communication with the server was interrupted' or 'entry session of participants has closed' (or it could be that some people are jerks and just don't want to let me join in, I keep getting this everytime I try to join in a G-Max Charizard raid)The only gripe I have is that I would like to get multiple opportunities to catch the Raid Pokemon instead of just 1 pokeball; I've beaten 10 5-Star G-Max Snorlaxes and they've all come out of Ultra Balls on the first shake (even the 3 stars come out on the first shake as well smfh).
In terms of battle difficulty, Main Story battles were a bit harder than Sun/Moon (had some faints to wild pokemon that had the move Counter; Nessa was kinda difficult since I chose Scorbunny and my Toxel couldn't evolve until much later on so I had to use all my other pokemon as sacrificial lambs on Drednaw until i could safely G-Max Toxel, who still almost got one shotted as my final pokemon) but not as hard as Ultra Sun/Moon (which i can say I had to most unpleasant time going through the story and I only have ~20:00 hours of game time since it came out in 2017 and I don't intend to touch it again, and its not just Ultra Necrozma).
Other than Nessa and bs wild pokemon (Greedent) that had Counter I pretty much swept through the entire game without any fainting pokemon (1 faint on my Intelleon on the Final Hop battle because he missed Blizzard on Rillaboom, and was the only time in my entire gameplay up to even now that it missed and got almost one shotted; it actually tanked Drum Beating but it got outsped the next turn and died).
Also Battle Tower Leon is SIGNIFICANTLY harder than Champions' Cup Leon (pre a d post story). In the Champion's Cup, I didn't have a single fainted pokemon other than Corviknight at 15% HP to Aegislash in the beginning; I nearly sweeped with Corviknight (other than G-Max Charizard ofc) in the rematch right after I finally beat him the first time in Battle Tower. In the Battle Tower, I ended up losing to him there 5 straight times because all his pokemon especially his G-Max Charizard, [Libero] Cinderace and Inteleon (with only 1 base speed difference) somehow outsped my Choice Scarf Cinderace (Hasty Nature) and even my Jolly nature Dragapult (and this is before Charizard even uses Max Airstream), and not suprisingly one-shotted my entire team; probably my worst set of losses in years since losing to May and her Grovyle at Rustboro at the age of 6 (i literally cried when I beat her after the 18th attempt, I still remember even now lol), and I almost wanted to kill Leon. Then again I should have stopped using my Corviknight in my team as a lead since it kept getting raped by Charizard and kept getting flinched by every other pokemon of Leon's team (somehow 5 fucking straight flinches to Dragon Rush without a miss and getting outsped by Rhyperior), probably would have won the first time if I used my Toxtricity or Inteleon instead. Finally beat him on the 6th try after Corviknight finally beat one of Leon's pokemon which was a Rillaboom, Dragapult finally was able to outlast G-Max Charizard' turns with Phantom Force and his last pokemon was luckily Mr. Rime instead of an Inteleon. All in all, I nearly smashed my Switch battling Beginner Cup Battle Tower Leon; I'll probably use a different team next time I face him.
Pokemon (15/20)
Sword/Shield featured 81 region-exclusive pokemon + 13 region variant pokemon, totaling 94 new Pokemon in Galar. Though I still wish for a new region with 100+ new pokemon (the last one with that amount was Unova almost 10 years ago), I liked most of the new pokemon for the most part (many of them appearing cranky/quirky), with some new typings like Dark/Fairy and Poison/Electric and will probably grow on me over time; Besides the ones I used for my main story team, the ones that I'm a big fan of right now is Yamper, Hatterene, Obstagoon (no longer a TM slave), Barraskewda, Perserker, Sirfetch'd, Sandaconda & Mr. Rime (reminds me a lot of Charlie Chaplin). I also appreciated all of the starters this gen having decent speed base stats (the lowest being only an 80, and the highest at 119/120), compared to Alola where they all hovered around 60.
I'd put it at an 17, around the same rating as SM/USUM but the omission of the National Dex kinda left a bitter impression on me, though not as far as I had reacted when it was first announced. So far only 3 legitimate Galar legendaries are in the game which I hope expands through special events or a sequel game, Zacian/Zamazenta/Eternatus are pretty cool but I'd be disappointed if that's all Galar offers. I still dearly miss Mega Evolutions (and they might never bring it back), and unfortunately I don't love Gigantamax Pokemon as much (Butterfree, Corviknight, Grimmsnarl, Toxtricity and Duraludon are the only ones I like so far).
Also I FUCKING hate Greedent (not only for its looks) or any wild pokemon that has the move Counter; I had a fucking Lv. 76 Cinderace die to a Lv. 44 Greedent from picking berries that somehow tanked a Charcoal buffed Pyro Ball with ~15% HP and one-shotted me with a Counter, I almost considered chucking my switch everytime this happened which fortunately was only a bunch of times (2 on Cinderace from Greedent 😠, 1 on Grimmsnarl from Piers' Obstagoon, and 1 on my Corviknight with a 38 level difference on Pheobus' Torkoal). I had no trouble dealing with wild pokemon besides this particular issue, Zamazenta didn't even get a single pokemon on my team at or below 50% HP.
Characters (14/20)
For most of characters for this gen, I either wanted to date/marry, straight up beat to a pulp (in battle), or I simply forgot they existed. Just to let you know, if Sonia and Marnie wasn't a part of this game I would have given this category a 5 - 6 instead.
I didn't think much of Leon other than his cool pose and well put together Pokemon team. The older-younger brother dynamic with Hop was interesting but nothing I haven't seen before, so I wasn't super crazy about him beyond that.
Hop is a nice guy and all but everytime I battled him, I just thought about kicking his ass and I always felt bad at the end every time he did the "Arthur (triggered)" grip when he would lose to me; I still liked Hau more as a rival. The only thing that I'm jealous about Hop is that he gets to hang out with Sonia in the foreseeable future, that lucky bastard 😞.
Speaking of Sonia, if not for me discovering Nami and One Piece a few years ago I would have called her my definite Best Girl, she's so damn pretty with a bit of sass as well (and those hair twirls) 😍. Within the Poke-verse, I would have put her up there with Karen (Johto Elite 4), currently my #1 babe in the poke-verse, shame she never made it into the anime; Nessa isn't far behind either.
Beside her really cute looks, she's actually pretty competent as an upcoming professor and quite considerate giving me all those revives everytime i finished a battle; her adorable Yamper was also great to see whenever we met. I wish my character wasn't 10 yrs old -_-.
Magnolia seemed pretty insighful and knowledgeable as the region's professor but I never saw her enough to get much of an admiration.
To keep it short, I'll describe each Gym Leader (before the Champion's Cup) in one sentence.
Milo looks a lot like the mascot character in Fallout, and also Mirio Togata from BnHA.
Nessa is very pretty and also the only gym leader I almost lost to in the game down to my final pokemon.
I felt bad for Kabu when I sweeped his team with my Drizzile.
Allister's mask reminds me a lot of Shy Guy.
Never got to see Bea but I'd imagine she knows Maylene well.
Opal's pretty funny (and hyper) for an 118 yr old lady.
I wish Shield would have featured Gordie beyond just the Trainer Card tidbits.
Melony is thicc asf and also considering how old Gordie is a milf as well.
Piers is awesome especially as the somehow first Dark type gym leader in Pokemon history.
Raihan is a much cooler version of Hop (in the sense that he always gets his butt whooped by Leon)
Fuck Shielbert and Sordward. Oleana too. Rose is a bit delusional in his 'goals' (and also has a potbelly), but not super crazy evil or nasty like Ghetsis or Lysandre.
Marnie is too damn adorable, and one big sweetheart and her relationship with older brother Piers was nice as well ( I wish i could hug her irl lol). I felt bad defeating her more than I did Hop actually but her team was nice. Her Morpeko is also somehow adorable as well, and her team is pretty competent as well. I don't have anything bad to say about her. This scene almost melted my heart -
https://images.app.goo.gl/ZpV8nd1Dov7bweuc
7
Bede is... interesting. If anything he pissed me off the most among all the trainers I battled and I wanted nothing more than to completely crush his soul; so in a sense, he was the only "rival" I cared about beating. Opal made him a little less despicable though later on. His childhood around Leon was kinda iffy, since he was basically used to gather Wishing Stars (for a secret purpose he wasn't really aware of).
Plot (11/20)
I did enjoy the folklore surrounding the Galar region and 2 heroes/king to the sword/shield, a bit better than XY. Besides that though, Definitely not of the best in the series, especially since it lacks much of a post game (besides the Zacian/Zamazenta storyline). Also there wasn't a true "evil" villain like the other games besides Eternatus and Chairman Rose (more of oblivious than malicious) so there wasn't that much sense of danger throughout. Team Yell at least to me was kind of a meme-ish presence once Marnie came. After doing the final battle, there's not much to do other than the standard champion rematches, battle tower and shiny hunting (also Raid/Gigantamax battles).
Music (17/20)
All in all very enjoyable. I especially liked the techno themed music and also the crowd cheers during gym battles (sounding a lot like what you hear at soccer/football games). Never felt like muting the sound during gameplay at any point thus far; Galar Champion theme still doesn't beat out SM Champion's theme though. The OST(s) that stands out the most for me is Sonia's Theme, Bede's Theme, Slumbering Weald, VS Eternatus Dynamax, VS Macro Cosmos Chairman Rose and VS Zacian/Zamazenta.
OVERALL: 72/100
Definitely not the worst Pokemon game out there but certainly not the best one either. The price jump and (essentially) pressuring by Nintendo from the 3DS to the Switch was and still is a hard sell for me. Still I enjoyed playing it overall with no urges to quit (storyline/folklore), and I just hope they make future improvements (National Dex) for Pokemon games on the Switch that can justify the $60 price tag. Also please do a Sinnoh Remake (i doubt they will on the upcoming Nintendo Direct but one can dream)