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. ULTIMTE
    Nov 15, 2019
    10
    I realy love this version I have wait version like this so long I never play pokemon with other player this version make me feel about battle together or battle between player
  2. Robert95
    Nov 15, 2019
    4
    Literally an incomplete game, this game had too much potential to be the first mainline games on switch
  3. Gakson
    Nov 15, 2019
    0
    So much has been sacrificed, and not really replaced by anything exciting. Over half the pokemon have been cut, along with over 100 moves. Mega evolutions and Z moves no longer exist, and dynamaxing feels plain cheesy. Gamefreak has really put minimal effort into these games and it shows.
  4. mlauriigoi
    Nov 15, 2019
    0
    Worst gameplay in the whole series. It’s not like a game made in 2019 completely.
    Only dressing my trainer can make me happy but the clothing is soooooooooooooooooo expensive.
  5. UmmBelievable
    Nov 15, 2019
    0
    Game Freak does not deserve a fair and honest review from me. If they are going to lie about quality assurance and be dishonest, then why should [I] be honest? It's only fitting.
  6. SoYuri
    Nov 15, 2019
    4
    Game is Nice, the game until it ends, bit the post game os terrible don't have nothin to do, and the competitive is bad cause the National dex problem.
    And, could had more New pokémon :(
  7. Eddieddie
    Nov 15, 2019
    0
    This is the first Pokemon game I hate with all my heart, and this hurts me so much. This game is by far the worst game, I deeply hate it. Returning it tomorrow and getting some Pokemon merchandise maybe
  8. Yuddy022
    Nov 15, 2019
    9
    after 3 hours of play, i can say that i really love it. Yeah it could be better, but i think they put a lot of effort to get it done. Nice battle effect. The cons is Hop, i cant like him.
  9. soybirthinghips
    Nov 15, 2019
    0
    its not even meh, its woefully bad. literally every single thing about it is just terrible. graphics, story, new pokemon design, game length, difficulty, post game content, MUSIC, amount of new pokemon, no national dex, gigantimax being the lamest, most boring **** thing in existance.
  10. CureMilky
    Nov 15, 2019
    10
    Pokemon SWSH teached me to not listen to people who didn't even play the game.

    If you are one of those weird people who play pokemon for the main story, you might not enjoy it but if you play like a normal person and love to catch a lot of pokemon and try to get good natures etc. , you will spend countless hours in the wild area!
  11. CaptainLongstar
    Nov 15, 2019
    4
    There can be no excuse for such a mediocre product especially when a company claims they put their heart and soul into it. If Nintendo really had over 100 people working on this title it still shouldn’t look or play the way it does. So, what problems does this game have beyond the pokedex and the copy and paste models claims.

    1. Dynamax feature is absurd and took too many resources that    There can be no excuse for such a mediocre product especially when a company claims they put their heart and soul into it. If Nintendo really had over 100 people working on this title it still shouldn’t look or play the way it does. So, what problems does this game have beyond the pokedex and the copy and paste models claims.

    1. Dynamax feature is absurd and took too many resources that could have been put into the gameplay of the pokemon.
    2. Time of game competition is shorter than all previous games
    3. New Pokemon designs are worse than Generation 6
    4. 144 moves have been removed and if you try to transfer a Pokemon with a move that cannot be used in the game they can’t use it.
    5. The visuals and graphics are subpar for such an advanced console
    6. No character personality and move animations
    7. Removing trading with other players in order to force players to pay a subscription fee for it.
    A feature that’s core to the game.
    8. My biggest complaint is that since the franchise release in September 1998 which is about 21 years the Pokemon still have the same mechanical noises instead of their actual anime ones.

    I think gamefreak is either lazy or the reason might be PokemonGO. According to App Annie, Pokémon Go grossed an estimated $950 million in 2016. A report from SuperData Research ranked Pokémon Go as the 9th highest grossing mobile game of 2017, estimating its revenue throughout 2017 to be $890 million.Bloomberg estimated that Pokémon Go generated up to $2 billion in total revenue by late 2017. Two years from its initial launch, analyst firm Sensor Tower estimated the game had grossed over $1.8 billion from in-app purchases, reporting that players around the world continue to spend $2 million each day. SuperData Research estimated that, in May 2018, Pokémon Go grossed $104 million in monthly revenue and had 147 million monthly active players, its highest since Summer 2016. In July 2018, Pokémon Go was the top-grossing mobile app of the month. Since the introduction of trading and friends features, Sensor Tower has reported that players spend an average of $2.5 million per day. Apptopia reported that, by September 2018, the game had grossed over $2 billion from in-app purchases; the top five countries where it has received the most revenue are Japan ($670 million), the United States ($550 million), Germany ($88 million), the United Kingdom ($86 million), and Australia ($52 million). It was the fourth highest-grossing game of 2018, with $1.3 billion, bringing the game's total revenue to over $3 billion.

    This is the main Nintendo is not trying to create a great pokemon game because they know a subpar mobile version makes millions more. So why even try and waste man hours. In addition, Nintendo knows that they could get away with even more because people are sheep and will buy anything they release no matter what’s removed. Just imagine a kid getting this game on Christmas and cant trade with his friend or transfer or catch past pokemon. A warning that these two things should be on a box. Wouldn't you think?

    So if people care about this franchise and desire a great pokemon game you need to tell everyone you know (including yourself) who plays PokemonGo to stop playing it and uninstall it. If not, we are either going to get more of the same or less in the next game.

    The same thing is going to happen with Mario Kart just wait and see. Mobile game is a disease that is ruining the gaming industry and franchises. People need to wake up and stop playing these games.    … Expand
  12. Ashkvtchem
    Nov 15, 2019
    1
    Gamefreak could’ve held off on this game to make it better. It’s just so subpar and so hand holdy
  13. wildeyes2
    Nov 15, 2019
    0
    Simply unacceptable, half baked game by incompetent developers. Gone are the days of actual innovation and pushing the hardware. Instead they would rather cash out on their cash cow.
  14. Badalight
    Nov 15, 2019
    0
    Let's address the elephant in the room; the national dex controversy.

    Personally, I don't find the idea of cutting the national dex to be problematic. I know others take issue with it, and that's perfectly okay, but it doesn't affect me. I always use the new Pokemon in every game, and I have never in my life transferred a Pokemon from an older game to a newer one. I've never cared about    Let's address the elephant in the room; the national dex controversy.

    Personally, I don't find the idea of cutting the national dex to be problematic. I know others take issue with it, and that's perfectly okay, but it doesn't affect me. I always use the new Pokemon in every game, and I have never in my life transferred a Pokemon from an older game to a newer one. I've never cared about "catching them all". I just want to enjoy the ride up through the elite 4 and champion battle.

    That being said... I don't understand why their decision was made now. I knew it would happen eventually, but it doesn't make any sense to do it for Sword and Shield. They already have the models and animations from X/Y, so there's no excuse for not including all of them this time around. Not even all of the original 150 made the cut despite the fact that Let's Go Evee/Pikachu were released last year. At the very least, THOSE Pokemon should be ready. I'm not a "gen-wunner", but there's no reason they shouldn't have been included.

    Then, there's the fact that Gamefreak blatantly lied to their fans. They said they created the models from scratch which is demonstrably false. Perhaps even worse, they never announced the national dex cut to their Japanese audience. Another excuse for the cut was for "higher quality animations". Yet, almost all of the animations in this game are taken from older games. The few new animations that do exist are hardly noteworthy, and there are plenty of instances of missing animations. We are in 2019 and the Pokemon DON'T HAVE TURNING ANIMATIONS. What is this, the ps1? Why do the Pokemon and even Human characters pivot at sharp 90 degree angles to turn?

    Lastly, Pokemon is the most successful entertainment franchise in the history of the world. Is there a real reason they can't afford to include all of the Pokemon? Yokai Watch is a less successful series by an order of multiple magnitudes that has 600+ monsters with far more animations than Pokemon. Digimon Cyber Sleuth has 300+ again with far more animations. Gamefreak is a small studio and the budget for these games is really small. They sell astronomically well, which leads to large profit margins. But even if they lost money by selling the games, 90% of the Pokemon revenue comes from merchandising and the card game. They can easily afford to hire more employees and give these games a higher budget. Hell, just outsource the animations and models like they did back in X/Y. When they made X/Y the did 600+ 3D models plus animations from scratch. This time, they only had to do less than 100 new models, and a few new animations for each Pokemon. In fact, they didn't even need to make new animations. The national dex is something you get post game, anyway. Those Pokemon could exist without any new animations because they wouldn't be found in the wild areas.

    -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Now that we have that out of the way, there are plenty of other things I really disliked about this game.

    WHY did they remove the option to turn off EXP share? These games are laughably easy as it is. There is no reason to remove options from the player. I understand these are kids games and they don't need to be super difficult, but at least in the past I had the option to make it slightly harder for myself. In X/Y I turned off exp share. I didn't grind at all. I didn't focus on one pokemon and making them over powered, I spread out the exp evenly. When a Pokemon got too strong, I'd switch them out for a lower leveled one from my box. I never once used a potion or any other consumable in the game. Despite that, I never lost a single battle in X/Y. Sword and Shield are even easier because of the exp share...

    There's more too. Cutscenes are slow and awkward. The game still has framerate issues despite not being a graphical power house. The game looks bad because it's using assets from a 6 year old 3DS game (and the models looked bad even back then). Battle arenas don't always match up to the environments you're in. Dynamax is the laziest gimmick so far, and you can only do it sparingly throughout the game! Mega forms and Z moves are gone. Over 100 regular moves have been cut. The game is shorter than any other mainline Pokemon game. There is essentially no post game content. The legendaries are probably the ugliest I've ever seen. You can't catch Pokemon that are too high of a level; the game just removes that option. Sound options are tied to an in-game item instead of just being accessible from the menu. The wild areas are massive disappointments as Pokemon just randomly pop up from the ground. Why is there a Machamp hiding underground waiting for me to get close? It makes no sense.

    I could go on forever, but I've made my point. This is the worst game in the series, and that's saying something because X/Y and Sun/Moon were very problematic in their own ways. At best, this is a massive disappointment.    … Expand
  15. aljirik1992
    Nov 15, 2019
    4
    REBUS FOR THE PLAYERS!!! SWORD SHIELD ... (LD) =T ; (S) = ( ) ; R_L_D

    Вот знаете, закидайте меня покеболами... Если с POKEMON LETSGO я был более-менее мягок, благодаря чумовому девайсу, что и придало игре шарма, то ситуацию с "мечом и щитом", кроме как мировым дерьмом не назовёшь!    REBUS FOR THE PLAYERS!!! SWORD SHIELD ... (LD) =T ; (S) = ( ) ; R_L_D

    Вот знаете, закидайте меня покеболами... Если с POKEMON LETSGO я был более-менее мягок, благодаря чумовому девайсу, что и придало игре шарма, то ситуацию с "мечом и щитом", кроме как мировым дерьмом не назовёшь!
  16. gigabarto
    Nov 15, 2019
    1
    You want a good 3D pokémon game? play sun and moon, you want a switch pokémon game? play let's go.
    Even if I can't research professionally how fluid is the game, I can emphasize that the game doesn’t show constant FPS drops as seen in other entries of the franchise (It would have been annoying those problems still persisted). But in handheld mode there are minor FPS drops in zones like    You want a good 3D pokémon game? play sun and moon, you want a switch pokémon game? play let's go.
    Even if I can't research professionally how fluid is the game, I can emphasize that the game doesn’t show constant FPS drops as seen in other entries of the franchise (It would have been annoying those problems still persisted). But in handheld mode there are minor FPS drops in zones like the Wild Area, those which don't occur in docked mode until you explore them on bike, and in both cases they are notorious (again) in double battles, but only when there are climates like sandstorm and some terrain.
    The game is fun, but if you came from playing at 7th generation, it's exactly the same but shorter, with less content and more expensive.
    It doesn't represent the series and it doesn't use the new features the Switch has over the 3DS.
    I appreciate the constant fps rates most of the time. but the map gives the impression of being really big when it really is small, I don't see those 10 GB of space in any place.
    The gyms are the best things because they have various challenges, but they’re kinda short
    I never used the curry thing, it's the most useless feature of the game.
    Is it worth it? Yes! if it was $30 USD, Is an must buy for Switch users? Not really, there are better games for the same launch price.    … Expand
  17. fairyfairyfairy
    Nov 15, 2019
    0
    Lazy uninspired ugly boring GARBAGE. not visually attractive not fun to play. Zero effort was put into this “game”.
  18. CaptTanuki
    Nov 15, 2019
    1
    Less than an 2 gameplay hours in and I've already had 3 system errors causing me to lose an accumulated time of 1 hour playtime. Combined with all the other pre-release news, this game is not up to Game Freaks standard.
  19. Crumb3
    Nov 15, 2019
    2
    I've been playing Pokemon games since Gen 1 - Pokemon Red was my first game and I've been hooked since then. So when I heard the franchise was coming to the Switch, I could hardly contain my excitement. I am a die-hard Pokemon fan.

    But because I'm a fan, I have to be critical here. I'd hate to put my fanboy glasses on and plead ignorance to the glaring problems with this game. For the    I've been playing Pokemon games since Gen 1 - Pokemon Red was my first game and I've been hooked since then. So when I heard the franchise was coming to the Switch, I could hardly contain my excitement. I am a die-hard Pokemon fan.

    But because I'm a fan, I have to be critical here. I'd hate to put my fanboy glasses on and plead ignorance to the glaring problems with this game. For the record, I've played through the complete game already, and it was only downloaded this morning. So here goes...

    1. Game Length
    When you pay £60 for a game, you expect it to be a decent length. Unfortunately for this game, it can be completed in 15 hours. Sure, there are people saying it took them 40-50 hours to finish, but that's only if you spend 25-35 hours running around the Wild Area (I'll come onto that shortly). I've played £15 indie games that lasted longer than this.

    2. Wild Area
    This was hyped up in the trailer and press conferences beyond belief. But ultimately, it's a relatively small, bare, open space with not much going on. There are Pokemon wandering around, but the load distance it so poor that you'll be running along a path and a Pokemon will just pop up out of the ground right in front of you. And they literally do "pop out of the ground" - it's so un-immersive. Oh, and there're frame rate drops. No idea why because the hardware's not being pushed to it's limit or anything.

    3. Dynamaxing
    This mechanic is actually quite a cool one, and I kinda like it. Although I don't usually like to agree with IGN, it's a really good balance between Z-Moves and Mega Evolutions. You can Dynamax any Pokemon, which is great, but the "Mega Evolution"-esque part comes from Gigantamaxing - this is basically Dynamaxing, but when used on certain Pokemon it also changes their forms. Now, the part about this that frustrates me is that it's a HUGE missed opportunity. I won't tell you exactly how many Pokemon can Gigantamax, but if you want to figure it out for yourself it's only 2% of the roster. What they should have done is made it so that all Pokemon that could Mega Evolve from the previous games be able to Gigantamax into a giant version of their Mega Evolution forms in this one. That would have been awesome! But as I say, this was a BIG missed opportunity (no pun intended).

    4. Graphics
    The graphics in this game are poor in comparison to other Switch games. Considering how financially healthy the Pokemon franchise is, I would have expected graphics to at least be on par with BotW. I mean seriously, we all know about the tree textures. There's no excuse for this on a Switch, c'mon. It's pure laziness.

    5. Pokedex
    And speaking of laziness, we come to my final point - the Pokedex. Or should I say "lack of". If we crunch the numbers real quick, up until the end of Gen 7 we had a total of 809 Pokemon, then Gen 8 (Sword & Shield) gave us another 80, so that brings us to a grand total of 889 Pokemon in the NationalDex. Or does it? Because GameFreak made the decision to cut 489 of those Pokemon. Let that sink in for a second - the main aspect of this game, the "Pokemon", have been reduced by 55%. They've basically taken what should have been the roster and thrown half of it away. This is such a stupid decision, because pretty much all of my favourites are gone. Looking for a bit of nostalgia by training a Squirtle? Nah, not in the game. Wanna pretend you're the first antagonist Gary and kick butt with your Nidoking? Sorry chump, don't have it. But don't fret, I'll just dominate my opponents with the classic Mewtwo, there's no way they'd have removed th- oh wait, he's been cut too. I mean seriously, if you're going to remove content from a game, don't cut the main reason people play it in the first place. Stupid, stupid, stupid. And don't tell me it was a "design choice" because they had to make time to create all of the Pokemon animations. The internet is littered with evidence of the animations being copied from the previous games, so that's a blatant lie. There's no excuse.

    So there you have it. These are the main reasons I've given this game the score that I have. It feels lazy, rushed, and a shameless cash-grab praying on the blind faith of Pokemon fans. It frustrates me that this game could have been the perfect Pokemon game - it certainly had the potential, the financial-backing and the fan loyalty. And they can't say they didn't have the experience - this isn't their first Switch release, after all. It's really disappointing.

    I hope sharing my experience of this game was helpful.    … Expand
  20. Marlon_Alfredo
    Nov 15, 2019
    2
    La textura no son lo suficientemente buenas para justificar la ausencia de los Pokémons, la historia como en los últimos jueg
  21. icarols
    Nov 15, 2019
    3
    All the game is poor optimized and no national dex. No way to play this. Pokémon deserves better!
  22. TheAniviaOTp
    Nov 15, 2019
    1
    It's not a good game, not for Pokemon fans at least,
    maybe if you never played a game before or you are a kid ,you probably won't care, but the fans, the people that spend a lot of time with their game , will not like it as it is lacking a lot of content past the main story.
  23. Zeriel000
    Nov 15, 2019
    0
    Wow it's so funny that the media doesn't DARE give this game a bad review. This reminds me of Bethesda when nobody dared touch them, but we have to be honest here. This game is a 3DS port with HALF the content and DOUBLE the price.

    I want to know why EVERYONE keeps buying the same game Over and Over and Over again and it's like I'm the only one that notices??? So I'm feeling like I'm    Wow it's so funny that the media doesn't DARE give this game a bad review. This reminds me of Bethesda when nobody dared touch them, but we have to be honest here. This game is a 3DS port with HALF the content and DOUBLE the price.

    I want to know why EVERYONE keeps buying the same game Over and Over and Over again and it's like I'm the only one that notices??? So I'm feeling like I'm going insane!
    This is the most valuable franchise in history, this is a BILLION dollar company and this has been going since 1995! so stop making excuses!

    This game has No graphics, No Story, Half the Pokedex GONE, Mega Evolutions thrown in the garbage, WORST STARTERS SINCE GEN 2! I don't care what anyone says! I'm so DONE!

    Don't waste money on this, if you have a 3DS you're not missing ANYTHING! buy Luigi's Mansion instead!    … Expand
  24. lan2007
    Nov 15, 2019
    3
    El juego se siente como algo sin terminar, como algo que querían hacer de cierta forma pero no tuvieron tiempo.
    El tremendo recorte que sufrió en cuanto a contenidos(Pokémon disponibles, mecánicas, etc.) no es compensado por las nuevas mecánicas y contenidos.
    El juego aparte es tremendamente fácil, llevando al jugador de la mano casi a la fuerza y presentando un reto casi nulo. Las    El juego se siente como algo sin terminar, como algo que querían hacer de cierta forma pero no tuvieron tiempo.
    El tremendo recorte que sufrió en cuanto a contenidos(Pokémon disponibles, mecánicas, etc.) no es compensado por las nuevas mecánicas y contenidos.
    El juego aparte es tremendamente fácil, llevando al jugador de la mano casi a la fuerza y presentando un reto casi nulo.
    Las gráficas tampoco son lo mejor, aunque hay partes donde las texturas y animaciones se ven muy pulidas hay otras donde son simplemente pésimas.
    Recomendaría al que quiera jugarlo que lo haga, más no que lo compre, el juego si entretiene y puede ser un buen pasatiempo por algunas horas y tal vez un par de días, pero definitivamente no vale el precio que tiene. De ser posible pidanlo prestado o rentenlo.    … Expand
  25. Eddieman
    Nov 15, 2019
    0
    Nintendo/Game Freak lied to us that this game is build from the ground up. Its just a copy and paste formula of the Pokemon 3DS games. Not only that, but they had the audacity make some ignorant excuse of why they removed over half of the national pokedex.
  26. Haydinho
    Nov 15, 2019
    1
    Save your money for something better, these games are the easiest ever In the mainline of RPGs and contain no real post story content. The controversy in the build up is 100% justified here, the graphic are basic, content is shallow and there are massive cuts to core gameplay. Wait for this to turn up in a bargain bin if your still desperate to play it.
  27. Irving169
    Nov 15, 2019
    10
    En las pocas horas que llevo me ha gustado, lo que agradezco mucho es poder usar pro controller, no me gusta que en Pokémon let's Go en modo TV te obliga a usar los joy con.
  28. Coller
    Nov 15, 2019
    10
    Good game nice look good better
    Didn't lie gamefreak
    Remake mobel
    Natural Dex
  29. Weird-Wizard
    Nov 15, 2019
    2
    If this was some indie RPG effort, maybe one of the other less successful monster collecting games, this game would deserve maybe a 6 or a 7 score. It has some charming moments, some nice features, but some really distracting and irritating flaws.

    But this is a Pokemon game. One of the most financially and critically successful media franchises ever. It should be better than this, and    If this was some indie RPG effort, maybe one of the other less successful monster collecting games, this game would deserve maybe a 6 or a 7 score. It has some charming moments, some nice features, but some really distracting and irritating flaws.

    But this is a Pokemon game. One of the most financially and critically successful media franchises ever. It should be better than this, and fans deserve better than this. We should not be paying double the price for half the game, graphics barely better than the previous portable console, and literally dozens of fan favorite creatures indefinitely unplayable and unusable.

    I say this out of love for the franchise, having owned, played, and beaten every mainline entry and never having been this disappointed before. You can do better than this, Game Freak. And for the sake of both the fans and the company, I hope that you pull up your socks and deliver better products in the future.    … Expand
  30. Electabuzz26
    Nov 15, 2019
    1
    Just a lazy Game, with a lazy new dynamic with no sense at all. A bittersweet story, with not new content, and a pretty bad ending which gives you an idea of a sequel or maybe a third game adding all of this cause the game is not complete.
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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 »