cashew | Monday, November 8th, 2021

So, after playing more of Pokemon Sword, I've come to the conclusion that raids actually do in fact suck. Also, the main plot progression is way too simplistic.

Raids - revised opinion:
Previously, I was ambivalent about raids. As I unlocked more gym badges and thus increased the star level of raids, my feelings have changed. Raids are now solidly in the "do not like" camp.

So, in higher level raids, the situation has certainly gotten harder, but not in a way that is fun. Instead, higher level raids places a damage cap on the player's Pokemon, and after dealing ~1/3 of HP damage to the boss-mon, the boss-mon will raise a shield with multiple bars that require attacks to break, while receiving no damage while the shield is up. Also, multi-hit strikes don't remove multiple bars. Passive damage is negated. Leech seed barely leeches anything. In other words, short of smack Pokemon really hard, there are no alternative strategies.

Oh, and the NPC Pokemon keeps dying in one shot, thus causing the raid to fail despite my Pokemon being over-leveled for the raid.

In essence, what we have is a classic case of AI is a cheating cheat and raid mechanics disincentivizes the player from playing creatively. This is really obnoxious, and it makes the Raid battles drag on for much longer than it needs to while not being in anyway engaging. Overall, a very failed attempt.

Plot progression:
One of Pokemon's core engagement is finding the nooks and crannies hidden in the dungeons and towns. There's always a secret path or a blocked off path that needs a new mode of travel to explore in the previous Pokemon games. In Sword&Shield, only the first two or so towns have anything resembling secret passage ways. The most egregious offender was town #7, where the entire map consists of walking from left of screen to right of screen in a straight path with no exploration whatsoever.

I know this "lack of exploration" often gets levied at modern JRPGs (thinking FF13 here) and often the critics seem to miss that the linearity serves a story function. However, in Pokemon's case, the franchise is hardly known for its epic storytelling, and Sword&Shield stripped the already pretty excuse-plot bare bones story of Pokemon down to even more excuse plot. In such a game, the lack of branching roads, side-quests, and general exploration is detrimental to the overall immersion.

In conclusion:
While it's true that Pokemon has been made with little kids in mind, it doesn't mean little kids need a boring game. Even the Pokemon Red/Blue didn't have this much linearity and simplification. Furthermore, if the game was about streamlining the experience, then what ought to have gotten stripped was the tedium of leveling Pokemon, not the strategy of finding the right combination of moves to defeat the obstacle. By forcibly stripping viable outside-the-box strategies like leech seed, toxic, endeavor, etc. from raids, Pokemon has forced an unacceptably stupid game onto its players, one that is focused only on levels and absolute power, instead of a game focused on move synergies.

So, I had my reservations of how bad gen VIII could have been, but now I have to admit that the game is a complete let down. The competitive scene will always adapt and it continues to be fun to watch, but the in-game experience is sadly lacking.

I guess the only positive here is that I will finally live out my dream of cake-walking the elite four with a team of cute rodent Pokemon.