Pokemon Sword

 Switch
User Score
4.7

Generally unfavorable reviews- based on 5909 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1,997 out of 5909
  2. Mixed: 852 out of 5909
  3. Negative: 3,060 out of 5909
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  1. chronogaming8
    Dec 15, 2019
    7
    Pokémon Sword is a good game, nothing more. It has everything that any player expects to find in a Pokémon game: a lot of creatures to catch and train, beautiful graphics but not spectacular, an acceptable story, many different environments to go, a soundtrack quite good but not spectacular ...

    And that is the big problem of this game. Being the first Pokémon game on Nintendo Switch,    Pokémon Sword is a good game, nothing more. It has everything that any player expects to find in a Pokémon game: a lot of creatures to catch and train, beautiful graphics but not spectacular, an acceptable story, many different environments to go, a soundtrack quite good but not spectacular ...

    And that is the big problem of this game. Being the first Pokémon game on Nintendo Switch, developers should have risked a little more. Playing Pokémon Sword feels like a good experience, but nothing innovative. The Dynamax Pokémon are an interesting addition, but they do not compensate for the things that have been left behind: the Mega-evolutions, the Z-Moves, about 500 Pokémon that do not appear in the game, the simplification of many mechanics ...

    I spent hundreds of hours playing each of the previous games in this franchise, including Sun and Moon. In 35 hours I have finished Pokémon Sword, post-game included, and I am not hooked enough to continue dedicating hours.    … Expand
  2. FlyingPiloswine
    Nov 17, 2019
    3
    Its Death by a Thousand Cuts in this entry. That is to say, although I do feel the original magic of Pokemon in this entry, it is marred by an endless slog of annoying and downirght insulting design choices. I am going to just cut right to the chase:
    -If your pokemon are even 1 level lower than the wild pokemon, it's catch rate artificially plummets. It will cost you 8-10 pokeballs to    Its Death by a Thousand Cuts in this entry. That is to say, although I do feel the original magic of Pokemon in this entry, it is marred by an endless slog of annoying and downirght insulting design choices. I am going to just cut right to the chase:
    -If your pokemon are even 1 level lower than the wild pokemon, it's catch rate artificially plummets. It will cost you 8-10 pokeballs to catch a level 18 with red HP and a status condition if all your pokemon are level 17. If that same pokemon was level 16, it would take 1-2 pokeballs. This has been confirmed by a few online news outlets, as well as my own experience.
    -The route design is absolute garbage. Its just straight alleyways with some scenery. There is no exploration. Even fan-made games have more complex and interesting level design (*cough* Prism *cough*).
    -EXP Share is impossible to turn off. You can use one pokemon the whole time, and all your pokemon will level up at practically the same rate. There is no incentive to train any of them individually.
    -Dynamax offers no strategic value. Your pokemon becomes so OP that it basically guarantees you 3 KO's on the enemy team. (one for each turn of Dynamax)
    -There is no GTS. The online trading functionality is utterly broken. The only way to trade is to: know someone personally; contact them through call or text; somehow decide which pokemon to trade without being able to share your collections or your intentions in-game;schedule an exact time to trade;share a 4 digit password with eachother, which someone could accidentally use as well because its only 4 digits long.
    -The characters and story is a total bore. I was excited at first because it has some My Hero Academia vibes, but there is no depth. The rival has two lines that he repeats ad nauseum: "I want to be the best, and type matchups."
    -Your rival picks the TYPE DISADVANTAGE POKEMON. Which means you will just steam roll him without even trying. I picked Grass, he picked Water. What an absolute joke.
    -The wild area has multiple forms of "invisible walls". You just literally are not allowed to throw a pokeball at certain levels of pokemon, and you are not allowed to cross a bridge until you have X number of badges.
    -There is no fast travel cutscene. You don't need HMs anymore, but the replacement for "fly" doesn't even have the courtesy of showing you a tiny cutscene like literally every pokemon game since the dawn of time.
    -You are still wearing ridiculous safety gear when you ride a bike even though thousands of games rated E for Everyone never do this.
    -You can't wear hats with certain haristyles, even though there are only about 10 hairstyles in the entire game. I am a game developer. I know how easy and simple this is to do. Its just a mesh variant. Completely asinine how I can't wear a hat with medium length hair.

    There are plenty other small gripes and things that made me sad throughout my time. I played about 10 hours until all of this together made enjoying the game too difficult. Its a dang shame because the world is awesome, and so are most of the pokemon designs. Its just all of these things that come together to show that Gamefreak doesnt really care about players who want even the tiniest fraction of challenge in their experience.    … Expand
  3. Cafe_8bits
    Dec 26, 2019
    5
    Pokémon SwSh really did surprised me. I thought it would be another forgetful and unpolished adventure, like every title since XY. But hey, they really tried to put some nice things at the table here. Many new mechanics are very nice, and the plot and themes of the game are the best ones in the series so far, but... The game is really unbalanced, and inconsistent. Many gym battles werePokémon SwSh really did surprised me. I thought it would be another forgetful and unpolished adventure, like every title since XY. But hey, they really tried to put some nice things at the table here. Many new mechanics are very nice, and the plot and themes of the game are the best ones in the series so far, but... The game is really unbalanced, and inconsistent. Many gym battles were challenging, but other important fights were a piece of cake by nature. Galar its a nice region, ton of mons to catch and places to explore, but the wild area kinda sucks. But in the end its surely better than its 2 predecessors, i think if they had just ONE more year to finish this games, they could be oneof the best Pokémon games. Too bad Masuda´s team can´t do it because they are busy with next year´s game, because that´s what Pokémon became.
    This game made me sad, because my once favorite franchise is stuck in a cycle of mediocrity in its main line games, and it does not seems that will stop soon. But yeah, kinda fun game. I made nice memories with it, but don´t buy it, your money deserves better.    … Expand
  4. Litten92
    Nov 16, 2019
    6
    This is what you get when you develop something in a hurry. There are problems and limitations in this game that are unacceptable from GameFreak. This game is mediocre in many different ways that are already well known. I really hope GameFreak will change its current strategy and fix things out.
  5. Shaydows
    Mar 2, 2020
    0
    Even though this was a rushed mess, I would have given this at most a 2/10. However, Gamefreak lied to the entire fanbase about why it's so bad and not a complete game. That combined with my original score makes this a easy 0/10, I wish it could be lower.
  6. kannalo
    Nov 15, 2019
    5
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Good
    - Still has the standard pokemon feel
    - Cutscenes are not as annoying as in sumo
    - Bede as a character is a good rival
    - Some of the new pokemon are designed well
    - Customization
    The customization is really good I like the variety of clothes and haircuts you can get for your character
    Bad
    -Animations
    Some of the new animations do look really good but they are overshadowed by other animations which dont fit right like still using the static jump animation for moves. This is confusing for cinderace especially he uses the jump anims for double kick but has a kick animation
    - bad pacing
    - exp share
    I wish they would have kept the toggle to turn exp share on/off or give it to a single pokemon as it would be the equivalent of being able to select a difficulty. It causes over levelling which makes the game easy. I found the 1st and 2nd gym extremely easy because i was levelled quite a lot higher than the trainers and leaders so after that I skipped a lot of the trainer battles and wild pokemon battles I was only a few levels under in the rest of the game but it added a bit of challenge. I'm sure if i went around catching all the mon and doing every single battle like i would normally do the game would have been too easy

    -Plot
    I know the pokemon games have never really had extremely in depth plots but this game doesn't really have one you get vague hints of the legendary pokemon and then not much else happens until near the end of the game when the chairmans plan happens. Team yell add nothing story wise other than a bit of back story for marnie. It makes the game feel a bit aimless like yes you have the gyms as your opbjective but you dont have another objective like with the bad team coming in and messing things up in places/ doing bad things every once in a while where you need to go and stop them. There isn't really any buildup to the chairmans plan and it just happens.

    Overall it is still enjoyable but it feels like a huge step back in a lot of places. I was expecting a lot more from this game and I think many others were to
    - Wild area/raid battles
    while a big area is good I cant help but feel like it was just pushed into the game as a marketing tactic to make sales. It feels like they needed them to make up for a lack of content in the rest of the game

    - Dex cut

    - Hop
    He is hau

    -Maps/Routes
    The routes in this game are extremely short    … Expand
  7. Mikilike
    Nov 22, 2019
    1
    Graficos anticuados, lineal hasta decir basta, solo 400 pokemon, los nuevos pokemon son cutres, es una basura gigante
  8. Swordt
    Nov 17, 2019
    0
    Very disappointing game for a home console. Pokemon have so much potential, but Gamefreak is overwhelmed. Thats it for me. X and Y were not bad, but then the games are getting worse and worse. For me its only a RIP Off. :(
  9. ssammyblue
    Nov 16, 2019
    6
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. I've played over 50 hours. IMO the game overall does not FEEL like a $60 console game: maybe it could be a considered 10/10 if it was a launch title for the Dreamcast back in 1999, but not in 2019, when compared to other more fleshed out titles like the Witcher 3 running on the same hardware.

    I had fun and enjoyed the QOL improvements like the air taxis, XP system, and being able to change pokemon anytime from the menu, but the game felt rushed towards the end ( Spikemuth City just felt like a long hallway with nothing to see or do and I always expected there would be more places to catch pokemon; there area handful of routes, but only two large expanses of wild areas where you're expected to catch 75% of all pokemon (the one between wedgehurst and motostoke, and the one between motostoke and hammerlocke). I love pokemon so I could have bumped my score up all the way to 8/10 if there was a second Island, but overall the game feels lazy and past games have offered more content    … Expand
  10. Matiija
    Nov 16, 2019
    5
    This game is a very mixed generation for me, I've been a Pokemon Fan for as long as I can remember. Pokemon Sword and Shield was a very exciting game for me at first, but as I learned more about the game I discovered flaw after flaw. There is good in this game, but I feel like a lot that has been taken out such as more than half of the total pokedex is not something I wanted to happen to aThis game is a very mixed generation for me, I've been a Pokemon Fan for as long as I can remember. Pokemon Sword and Shield was a very exciting game for me at first, but as I learned more about the game I discovered flaw after flaw. There is good in this game, but I feel like a lot that has been taken out such as more than half of the total pokedex is not something I wanted to happen to a Pokemon game. This game also comes with lies, stating that they removed all those Pokemon for better, improved animations when in the end they only copy and pasted from the previous generation on the 3DS. The game feels pretty empty, not sure if its due to the lack of FOV but it certainly doesn't feel lively enough. It feels a lot was rushed, and doesn't feel like a complete Pokemon game to me, once again there are positives in this game, but the bad just out weighs it for me.… Expand
  11. Sunmellows
    Nov 16, 2019
    5
    I really wanted to like this game. But the piss poor optimization with the constant slowdown, frame drops, and pop in absolutely kill the immersion constantly. The game is even more hand holdy than the first part of Sun and moon, and Hop won't ever leave you the hell alone. The routes are extremely linear,and the game is extremely short, being beatable within 16ish hours. Not helping isI really wanted to like this game. But the piss poor optimization with the constant slowdown, frame drops, and pop in absolutely kill the immersion constantly. The game is even more hand holdy than the first part of Sun and moon, and Hop won't ever leave you the hell alone. The routes are extremely linear,and the game is extremely short, being beatable within 16ish hours. Not helping is the fact that the game is insultingly easy. I never once lost a battle, and my team was constantly around 5 levels over most trainers. I wasn't too big on the music either. I despise the gym leader theme, and everything else besides Marnies theme is meh to me. Overall, this game definitely is not worth $60 in the slightest. I like some of the new Pokemon but the amount of things holding it back is too much to bare. I was willing to go softer on XY since it was the series first true jump to 3d and at least tried some new things, but this game is absolutely bare bones, and I find that inexcusable after Sun and Moon… Expand
  12. Ekkonick
    Nov 17, 2019
    4
    Bad animations,bad modeling,bad starter evolution,bad legendery pokemon,bad textures and lier gamefreak
  13. Silvallymadeit
    Nov 17, 2019
    3
    My copy of Sword and Shield came in the mail a bit early yesterday, and while Sword and Shield are pretty cute games, I have to admit there are some glaring problems that make this game feels like it was needed to bake in the oven a tad bit longer. For starters, I just want to say I never cared for the controversy surrounding these games about not being able to transfer all of yourMy copy of Sword and Shield came in the mail a bit early yesterday, and while Sword and Shield are pretty cute games, I have to admit there are some glaring problems that make this game feels like it was needed to bake in the oven a tad bit longer. For starters, I just want to say I never cared for the controversy surrounding these games about not being able to transfer all of your pokemon, so this review is in no way biased towards that. There are, however, other issues that did drag down the experience for me. I often ran into performance issues. Frame drops, trees or objects randomly popping up in view; and while at times the game does seem beautiful and comfy, at other points the game almost seemed sloppily put together.
    The games are far too easy to the point of boredom, even for a Pokemon game. I felt myself being overleveled very quickly. I was often taking down opponents only in one singular attack, despite not going out of my way to fight many monsters. The new EXP share, which spreads experience across your whole party, seems to amplify this problem. It seems as if the game was not balanced with this feature in mind, as my entire team were several levels ahead of our opponents for most of- if not, the entire game. The adventure lasted roughly about 12 hours for me to complete, which is awfully short for an RPG, and there isn't much you can do after the journey is over. Might I add this game only has 10 routes, previous entries having about 30ish.    … Expand
  14. DimasC21
    Nov 17, 2019
    4
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. honest opinion, this game was great if you playing it as an innocent child who love pokemon, but as a fan from red and blue, and i go trough every main line pokemon games
    this game is really disappointing...

    positive about this game

    - Character Design: Although the character developments was shallow, but i really love this game character design, they just feels like came out of the fairytale, and the detail in the design is so good, they look hilarious and Great

    -Customization: okay, you can custom your main character from the early town you reach, with bunch of selections that you can use
    and dont forget now our character have an expressions lol

    Music: the music was badass man, i can play it over an over, and keep feels the excitement


    Now the Negative

    Dynamax & Gigantmax: they feels off, maybe some people will like it, but not me, the design was so-so (except toxitricity, and garbodor) they feels ridiculous, better than a z-move but worse than a mega evolution

    Gameplay: its was too easy, the game give so much confidence to the player, and that bad for me, we got no difficulties in beating this game, and the mintz? exp share? cmon i need more challenge

    pokemon: not about the dexit, but 60% of the pokemon dont feels like a pokemon, okay when i said this, lets talk about what should pokemon look like "pokemon can be cute, or can be scary, or cool but they must look like a monster that you can befriends with" i hear it from some interview, and look at the design, who want to befriend with eternatus?? or orbettle?? or the five ball thing??
    they didnt looj friendly to me...

    Story: Meh, i dont feels like playing pokemon

    4/10
    Great games yet very disappointing

    i hope they can make a greater pokemon games next time    … Expand
  15. newgamessuck
    Nov 17, 2019
    4
    As a father who's seen many people make bad life choices based on pop culture advice, I take away one point for the old guy on Route 3 telling kids to "live how you want" I have known a lot of people who would still be here or would be much happier if they hadn't listened to bad advice like that. As a gamer I take away one point for Hop, the most obnoxious game character since Cait Sith.As a father who's seen many people make bad life choices based on pop culture advice, I take away one point for the old guy on Route 3 telling kids to "live how you want" I have known a lot of people who would still be here or would be much happier if they hadn't listened to bad advice like that. As a gamer I take away one point for Hop, the most obnoxious game character since Cait Sith. Minus one point for atrocious and clunky pacing and all around bad storytelling. Minus one point for hideous art-design choices, in particular, the weird, solid yet bouncy gelatin hair. I have to take one more point for hiding the earbuds on a random N.P.C. in Motostoke rather than being allowed to turn off Pokemon voices in options from the beginning. I would like to take a point for choosing the skip movies option not skipping completely unnecessary in game exposition sequences that tell people thing even younger kids could tell through inference but I won't because I don't know if skipping in-game sequences was possible.
    I do like the max raid battles in the wild area, even though I would have liked to have seen another wild area in a different sort of environment I can understand technical limitations preventing that from happening, considering how bad the draw distances are and and how confusing the layout of just one area is(minus another point). While I don't particularly like or even remember any of it after playing(other than one riff from Hop's theme which reminds me strongly of "Kaze Wo Tsukinukete" and Michael Jackson's famous "Black or White") it isn't bad enough to lose any points from me.
    On the good side; in addition to having a nice local co-op endgame, in the form of Max Raid Battles that I can enjoy with my whole family, I do also appreciate the option to change clothes and hairstyles to make our character appearances more tolerable than they could have been.
    I also like the camping and curry making.
    In conclusion (T.L.D.R:):
    The game is too bad to recommend buying or opening, if still unopened, but not so bad that, having opened it, I would trade it in for what little I would get for it versus doing the max raid battles whenever a new Pokemon shows up on the schedule.    … Expand
  16. palhum
    Nov 17, 2019
    3
    This is a 3DS game up-scaled, yet it has less content than the 3DS games. It offers way less content than its predecessors, and it's generally a downgrade to everything this franchise ever contained. The game has a short length, a minimum amount of content to do, a dumbed down nonadjustable difficulty, and poor graphics for what the console can do. It cuts off mechanics to dumb down theThis is a 3DS game up-scaled, yet it has less content than the 3DS games. It offers way less content than its predecessors, and it's generally a downgrade to everything this franchise ever contained. The game has a short length, a minimum amount of content to do, a dumbed down nonadjustable difficulty, and poor graphics for what the console can do. It cuts off mechanics to dumb down the already simple game play, offering little to no variety in competitive play.… Expand
  17. JIN2344
    Nov 17, 2019
    0
    Really? Waiting for 3 years? Nintendo you just blow my mind:( that might be the worst Pokemon series ever.
  18. Speedwagon55
    Nov 17, 2019
    3
    Playing Pokemon Sword and Shield was a refreshing experience tbh. I liked the region, the new pokemon, the refreshing arena challenge system, the idea behind the wild area and the new characters. And u also dont even notice the dex being cut. Nonetheless, this doesnt change the fact that this game is a technical MESS. I won't complain about the underwhelming graphics, but running throughPlaying Pokemon Sword and Shield was a refreshing experience tbh. I liked the region, the new pokemon, the refreshing arena challenge system, the idea behind the wild area and the new characters. And u also dont even notice the dex being cut. Nonetheless, this doesnt change the fact that this game is a technical MESS. I won't complain about the underwhelming graphics, but running through the wild areas with stormy or snowy weather feels like watching a power point presentation, thanks to permanent lags and short freezes. Its so bad, that it literally HURTS MY EYES after a while. Permanent input lags and bugs make the controlls really annoying, exspecially after leaving the loading screen or fights. (i tried it out with multiple controllers) Those thing will be exspecially annoying after you finished the game. I really try to keep having fun completing the pokedex, but those technical issues make it impossible. I simply have no motivation to keep searching for the left pokemon, because running through the wild areas for hours is simply a simply unbearable experience. And completing the dex by trading pokemons online is NOT an option. The online functionalitys are partially unuseable, exspecially the like trading funtion. You'll just get matched with a random stranger and have no way of communicating with each other. You cant even express which pokemon you would like to have. You'll simply randomly offer pokemon that aren't even equal in rarity or strenght until someone quits the process. And if you are lucky enough to find someone who is actually willing to trade pokemon that are beyond lvl 5, you'll never be able to trade od fight with him ever again. Simply because you cant add strangers as a friend. There is no option to add friends ingame or to your nintendo account.

    I don't like the hate this game is getting, because its mostly directed towards the #dexit or the graphics and not towards the ACTUAL problems the game has.
    Nonetheless, this game is trash, a disgrace for the whole franchise and an insult towards the fanbase. That's simply my unbiased opinion.    … Expand
  19. rob778899
    Nov 17, 2019
    0
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Game Freak needs to get their act together. The sheer lack of effort that was inputted into these games is absurdly palpable. Pokemon Sword and Shield in no way amount to the quality expected of a true home console Pokemon game. Us Pokemon fans deserve better than this. I sincerely hope Pokemon Sword and Shield flop, and that Game Freak learns their lesson from this whole debacle. The Pokemon community will not tolerate laziness on behalf of Game Freak. We demand quality. Otherwise, Pokemon may as well have no future.… Expand
  20. ZacharyMe
    Nov 17, 2019
    3
    As a lifelong Pokemon fan, I can not say I am fan of where this series is going. The #1 highest grossing multimedia franchise shouldn't have to lie to their consumers based on important details. The cutting of over half of the current pokedex is a big deal, no other way to spin that.
  21. Commiekiller
    Nov 17, 2019
    0
    Half-assed game with below 3DS graphics, awful in-game campaign, no post-game content, the animations are so bad not even a beginner would commit such gaffes. The national Dex was wrongfully cut in more than half of what it should be in the name of "quality" and "balance", but the game lacks either of them. This deserves a nice 0.
  22. Trey1616
    Nov 17, 2019
    3
    Honestly disappointing.
    Here’s to hoping they listen to their community for the next game....though I doubt it.
  23. Caim-Horus
    Nov 17, 2019
    4
    Too little game content for $ 60 2019.
    Graphics even for the switch is outdated. Online chips do not work correctly, and in fact battles and raids that are essentially not really needed.
  24. Theco
    Nov 17, 2019
    1
    Jogo inacabado, cortaram metade da dex, modelos de Sun and moon, animações horríveis
  25. mightgal
    Nov 17, 2019
    4
    This game is completely mediocre. There are a lot of bugs and the price is very high. The good parts do not outweigh the bad parts. You might even have fun with it, but you will still be throwing your money in the trash, and next year GF releases a full version of this game for the same amount. By the way, no cuts you made for this game are justifiable.
  26. rykuo
    Nov 17, 2019
    0
    PURE GARBAGE.

    Please HELP POKEMON: DO NOT BUY THIS GAME!

    SHORTEST POKEMON GAME EVER and $60!! DISASTER!!
  27. Franlord1500
    Nov 17, 2019
    4
    Tengo el Pokemon Sol y luna en mi repisa y no se porque disfrute mal este, quizá porque ese fue hecho con amor, con pasion, se esforzaron (quiza) en lograr que este videojuego sea uno de mis favoritos, no se porque tengo que tolerar las mentiras, no me importa los recortes (aunque me duelan que existan en una consola como la Switch con SMB Ultimate y Breath of The Wild), a mi me molestaTengo el Pokemon Sol y luna en mi repisa y no se porque disfrute mal este, quizá porque ese fue hecho con amor, con pasion, se esforzaron (quiza) en lograr que este videojuego sea uno de mis favoritos, no se porque tengo que tolerar las mentiras, no me importa los recortes (aunque me duelan que existan en una consola como la Switch con SMB Ultimate y Breath of The Wild), a mi me molesta que se me mienta, que se me diga que este videojuego sea la hostia y se me llame toxico, porque este juego cuesta lo mismo que SMB Ultimate, Mario Odyssey, TLOZ BOTW y Three Houses, videojuegos que fueron hechos con amor… Expand
  28. Maynardewm
    Nov 17, 2019
    0
    I’ve never rated a game before, but for this I had to. I couldn’t get past the first 10 minutes the game was so bad. I started to worry with the first step, where my character flew across the screen at lightning speed inside a tiny house. I could seriously move from one side of the house to the other in less than a second. It’s like they set the character run speed for a much much largerI’ve never rated a game before, but for this I had to. I couldn’t get past the first 10 minutes the game was so bad. I started to worry with the first step, where my character flew across the screen at lightning speed inside a tiny house. I could seriously move from one side of the house to the other in less than a second. It’s like they set the character run speed for a much much larger and open environment, and kept it the same for the indoor spaces. The dialogue had so many grammar mistakes and was so childish. I had to keep reading sentences over and over, and often I was just like “this sentence is so poorly worded it doesn’t make any sense”.

    The constant blank loading screens!!! You take three steps and it’s another loading screen. One dialogue scene and another loading screen. What the heck???

    The music is horrendous... I couldn’t believe it. It is like terrible MIDI music from the 90s. The menus and UI are jittery and insanely poorly animated. The characters are poorly animated. What is this mega gigantic Pokémon form? Huh??? Why... how... for what purpose? I literally yelled out loud in laughter when your rival says to the sheep to stop tackling the gate, says “that’s better”, and then the sheep keeps just tackling the gate. “I thought it was done!” I yelled. If within the first ten minutes of the game you present to the user poor graphics, poor character movement, bad grammar, bad music, bugs, half of the time you’re in a loading screen, and a completely nonsensical storyline, all I wanted to do was return it.    … Expand
  29. Aniki-rin
    Nov 17, 2019
    0
    This is a unfinished, unpolished game for the full price. Lies were told about removing mechanics and Pokémon for the sake of game quality and yet the final product is worst than the handheld games. Not worth the price or the critic bought reviews.
  30. Lucashomem
    Nov 17, 2019
    4
    Lazy design, feels like a port from the 3DS, story is boring and rushed, characters are not charismatic.
Page:

Awards & Rankings

79
#79 Best Switch Game of 2019
1
#1 Most Discussed Switch Game of 2019

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
80

Generally favorable reviews - based on 87 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 66 out of 87
  2. Mixed: 21 out of 87
  3. Negative: 0 out of 87
  1. Nintendo Force Magazine
    Apr 30, 2020
    80
    Sword & Shield stumble in a few areas and history may not be kind to them, but they're setting up a future that I'm excited to see. [Issue #44 – January/February 2020, p. 73]
  2. GameCritics
    Feb 6, 2020
    75
    I enjoyed my time with Pokemon Sword and Shield, but I ended feeling conflicted. I appreciate many of the changes and felt that it generally respected my time, but I almost felt like a passive participant. The more complex gym challenges had a meatier role, but the narrative shouldn’t have been shoved to the side. Overall, I would recommend it to players who want to have a Pokemon experience, but this one won’t stick with me the way the older ones have.
    Read full review
  3. Game World Navigator Magazine
    Jan 14, 2020
    78
    Pokemon Sword/Shield is uncharacteristically user-friendly: now there’s no need to backtrack half across the world to heal your entire team of pokemon or to get to a particular city, for example. [Issue#242, p.66]
See all critic reviews »