Hi. Hello. I love Pokemon. Pokemon Sword/Shield is the newest installment in the Pokemon franchise. I had a ton of fun playing through Shield. This is the second game where you can see Pokemon all over the world as you explore. This makes the game more enjoyable for a couple of reasons. First, you just get to see Pokemon. You might come across very high-leveled Pokemon, but it's still a neat mechanic. It also gets rid of random encounters that Pokemon games have been built upon. In order to train your Pokemon, you have to fight other trainers, or run around in bushes and fight any Pokemon you come across in the wild. But this gets tiresome very fast if you don't need to level up any Pokemon and you still run into monsters every couple of steps. Seeing Pokemon on the screen, or rustling bushes where the Pokemon is hiding, makes it much easier to avoid encounters.
While I did enjoy exploring this new world and catching Pokemon, I did find the story to be dry. The Pokemon franchise has this problem where they usually have to follow the same formula. You play a kid who collects 8 badges and enters the Pokemon tournament, and there's some sort of sinister team trying to stop you. Team Yell is the weird team in Shield, and they weren't even interesting. Or "bad guys" like in past games. I will say that I enjoyed how the gyms were structured. They felt like real puzzles or minigames to get to the gym leaders. The road to the champion at the end was neat too. It felt like an actual tournament which anyone familiar with the tv show will be able to appreciate.
Pokemon Sword and Shield is definitely a game I plan to replay a few times. I'm not going to rate this one, but it's a fun time.
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