Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield Double Pack - Nintendo Switch

Ill put my TL:DR up here to save you guys time if you dont care to read my reasonings. Ignoring all the controversy surrounding the Pokedex, the animations, the questionable interviews, and such, I can say this game is yet another Pokemon game. The story is the same as it was 20 years ago. The Pokemon are bland and uninspired. And the leaps in innovation are nonexistent. But these games somehow have less content than even Pokemon Black and White. 1: Pokemon is formulaic by nature, and thus will always have things it repeats time and time again, but even franchises like Call of Duty mix up their stories in some fashion. Pokemon has stuck to the exact same story since Pokemon Red, Blue, and Yellow. You get a Pokemon, youre asked by the Professor to help him or her research something about Pokemon, such as Evolution energy, Attack energy, Mega Evolution, or such. To further your quest, you take on the Gym Leaders to improve your team through training, and with badges that allow you to catch and use more powerful Pokemon. Along the way you encounter a criminal team, who for some reason no one wants to deal with, so they leave the job to a 10 year old rookie. You beat the criminal team, you become the Champion, and congratulations, the game is complete. Even the surprises from 20 years ago are reused. It was interesting when it was revealed Giovanni was not only the leader of Team Rocket, but also the final Gym Leader. In Gen 2, we meet Lance, who we think is a normal trainer, but is revealed to be the Champion, and it was interesting. But then in Gen 3 we meet Steven, and surprise, hes the Champion. Then we meet Cynthia in Gen 4, and surprise, shes the Champion. But then we meet N in Gen 5, whose the leader of Team Plasma, but ALSO becomes Champion! The shock factor is gone after the 3rd time the trope was used. But GameFreak continued on, and we meet Diantha AND Lysandre in Gen 6, and surprise surprise, ones the Champion, the other is the evil team leader. Then we meet Lusamine in Gen 7, and surprise, shes evil too! Now were in Gen 8, and no prizes for guessing who the leader or leaders of the new evil team is/are. I wont spoil it as I have more respect than that, but it should be painfully obvious. 2: The Pokemon we have gotten as of late have been way overused, or blatant copies of previous Pokemon. Take for example Yamper, the Corgi Pokemon. Its another dog Pokemon thats meant to steal the hearts of young boys and girls with its cute looks. Now think back to Gen 7 when we got Rockruff, another cute dog that was meant to steal the hearts of young boys and girls. Before that in Gen 6 we got Furfrou, another cute dog. Before that was Lillipup. Thats just one example, I could easily go on with the cats, the birds, the butterflies, and so on. The amount of cute animals vastly out number less popular animals like lizards, elephants, or frogs. Thats not to say we dont have Pokemon of these types, but when compared to the cuter ones, its no contest. And when comparing Pokemon, its clear most of what we got are just copies of older ones. One example is Eldegoss, the Cotton Bloom Pokemon. Its clear the design was inspired by Whimsicott. Another would be Wooloo, which is clearly a Mareep. Mareep is known to be mild and its wool is used to make warm clothing. Wooloo is also mild, and whose wool makes warm clothing. The only difference between these two is Mareep can shock you. 3: The big innovation this time around is the ability to move the camera around while in the wild area. Not through out the entire game, just the wild area. What has been a feature in games for the past decade is something GameFreak is celebrating as new. Pokemon is so far behind they have yet to include multiple saves. 20 years ago their reasoning was it took up too much space, and they had to choose between the ability to nickname Pokemon or have multiple save slots, and of course this made sense. Its 2019, multiple save slots has been something every game publisher has included for the past decade. 4: Next, lets talk about Nintendo Switch Online. To do anything online, you need to have the subscription. Want to trade with your friends? Better pay that 20 dollars. Dont have any friends near you to help with a Max Raid? Better cough up 20 dollars. Want to transfer your prized Pokemon to these games for some reason? Get ready to whip out your credit card and pay 20 dollars. So many people have also complained about the servers right now. Being disconnected, not being able to connect at all, and so on. Remember, previous entries didnt have you pay for online functions, and they never had issues like these. 5: While Ive not encountered this personally, there people who have reported these games deleting their save files, erasing the memory on their memory cards, and even BRICKING their Switches. This is just like the Lumiose City Save Glitch all over, except now it might affect your entire console. 6: Now onto the controversial things. First off, the Pokedex cut. These games cost 50% more than previous games, yet over half the Pokemon were cut, and content wasnt increased. For those that dont know, its common practice for game developers to save game files for later use once a project is done. This allows them to reference previous work when they remaster the game at a later date. They can look at maps, characters, items, and anything else in these games, and know what to include in the remaster. In Pokemon Lets Go Pikachu and Eevee, there were over 150 Pokemon created and ready to use for future projects, and of course many attacks and animations created and ready for use as well. That means GameFreak had models and animations already created for the entirety of Gen 1 they couldve used to expedite these games, but for whatever reason you want to believe, didnt include every Pokemon they had ready, and every attack they had ready. 7: While its true Pokemon has never been known for its graphics, the graphics in these games are subpar compared to the power of the Switch. Its like if you were to buy a 70 inch 4k television just to watch Sunset Boulevard. Sure, the picture might be better, but youre still watching a black and white film on a television thats clearly overkill. These games have the quality of a 3DS game at best, but they cost 60 dollars and require a 200 dollar console to play. The only saving grace here is the Switch Lite, which is 100 dollars cheaper, but if you were one of the early adopters of the Switch, like me, you spent 300 dollars for a system that can do HD, just to play a game that was clearly meant to be released on last gen hardware. Mr Iwata was credited as the reason Pokemon Gold and Silver were so successful. He understood how to compress Gameboy games better than GameFreak did at the time, and up until Pokemon Black 2 and White 2, he was the heart and soul of Pokemon games. After his passing, we saw GameFreak didnt learn anything from him. Their games still have bugs, except now instead of a glitchy blocky thing that gives you infinite Master Balls, its frame rate drops, or the inability to use references. I wont say you shouldnt buy these games. You do you. But remember, you deserve a product with heart and soul put into it when youre paying for it. This isnt Candy Crush, or some other free mobile game. You shouldnt settle for less just because of a brand name. Youre worth more than that, treat yourself like you matter.

If you wanted both games, its certainly that. If you thought it came with a steel book, youd be wrong.

We liked that we could order in advance and it was shipped exactly when promised.

Game rock. having so much fun

None of the promo codes worked. Good job Amazon

Great game.

What can I say I got the game and its awesome

I know a lot of people are complaining about this game. I am 33 and have been playing Pokémon games since the beginning. Yes this game is different. And yes there are things like not having a national Pokédex etc etc. but looking at it as a game. I’m sorry but I love it. Especially the dynamax raids. I love the story, the open wild area. I literally spend 6 hours just wondering around. If you like Pokémon you’ll like this game. If you are more concerned about the Pokédex and all that other stuff. You’ll probably be irritated.

my nephew loved it

A great job by Game Freak and Pokemon Co to give us a great Pokemon game on the Nintendo Switch. There are a lot of negative reviews out there and I feel, personally, many of those are from adults whose ideas of games have changed as we have gotten older. I would love to have a Pokemon game with more realistic graphics to match what many other games have become over the years. However, Pokemon has been, and will always be, a childrens game, with attempts to keep the older fans somewhat happy and interested. From a childs perspective, my son has loved both Sword and Shield. As a kid, I really wanted to have both games and that never really happened for me. As a parent. I enjoy having both games and letting my son have both options. The new Pokemon in these game were pretty cool and the story was interesting to him. The paid DLC has been a fun addition to the original games. With Isle of Armor having been released just recently, it gave my son more to do in the game. Along with constant challenges and the allure of capturing different Pokemon, the game play time has stayed fairly steady for my family. We are also looking forward to the 2nd paid DLC content, Crown Tundra coming 4th quarter this year.