Pokémon Sword and Shield Review

Sword and Shield bring a new Pokémon generation to a home console for the first time, and the Galar region wears its British inspiration openly: terraced towns, industrial cities, rolling moors and gym battles staged like football matches in packed stadiums. Dynamax, which swells a Pokémon to monster movie size for three turns, turns those gym fights into events, and the four player Max Raid Battles give the post game a social spine.

The Wild Area is the best idea here. A broad, open stretch between towns with changing weather and wild Pokémon roaming in plain sight, it points towards the more open games that followed, and the quality of life changes, from encounters you can see coming to boxes you can open almost anywhere, remove years of friction.

Around it, the game is narrow. Routes are short corridors, the story is thin and hurried towards the end, and the difficulty asks little of experienced players. The visuals drew criticism for flat textures and sparse detail, and the decision to leave hundreds of older Pokémon out caused a real backlash among longtime fans. Two expansions in 2020 added new areas and brought many of them back. It remains a charming, easygoing entry that sold enormously, rather than the leap the move to consoles promised.