"[SPOILERS] Honest opinion, having completed Shield's main story and post-game in just over 23 hours..."

I bought Pokémon Shield the day it came out, despite being fully aware of the controversy surrounding the games. While I had purposely seen the new Pokédex when it was leaked, pretty much everything else (story, locations etc.) was unspoiled for me, so I was looking forward to going into the games mostly blind.23 hours later, I've completed the main story and the post-game events, and just like everyone else I wanted to give my opinions, having been a player since Generation 1 was first released. Below, I've touched upon some of the main strengths and weaknesses of the game; hopefully this will help anyone who's not yet decided if they're willing to buy it!StrengthsDespite the online controversy with which I'm sure we're all familiar, I think there are a number of positive elements about these games:I think some of the new Pokémon in these games are a little hit-or-miss, but I have to say, when they get it right, they get it really right. I can see several of these new Pokémon becoming favourites of mine, in particular Copperajah, Dragapult, Grimmsnarl, Centiskorch and Inteleon - all of whom featured on my play-through team. Sobble is one of the best first form starters I think Game Freak have ever created, although I do think that the other two starters were very lacklustre in their final forms. I would've liked to have seen extra types on them too, as I'm sure we all would have. Some of the new forms were great as well, such as Galarian Weezing, Runegrigus and in particular the Ice/Fire Darmanitan. There were a few disappointing designs, but on the whole, I think this roster are as good as Kalos's new Pokémon, which I also view very positively.​I think the games got Gyms and the Champion Cup spot on. Firstly, the main story battles had such an excellent atmosphere. The stadium battles are a real selling point of these games, and Dynamax (while limited to gyms and other important battles) really did add to a sense of spectacle. I wasn't always convinced by it; when the phenomenon was first revealed, I was very sceptical, so it was pleasantly surprising to really enjoy it. The music really added to the atmosphere too. I absolutely love the Gym battle theme (it's on par with Unova's) and when the leader gets to their final Pokémon, the crowd start chanting which creates a real buzz. I think this is the best set of Gyms we've ever had, mostly due to the atmosphere that's created by Dynamaxing/the music/the larger-than-life feel of a stadium battle.​I also enjoyed the change from the traditional Elite Four set up. I had heard rumours of this change a while ago, but wasn't sure if it was true as I had no idea about the story going into the game. I remember thinking that the concept of changing the Elite Four formula was a bad idea (I'm a bit of a traditionalist), but again I think it was really successful. It felt much more like an actual tournament, and it made sense lore-wise for the best trainers in the region to come together once per year to try to de-throne the Champion. In the post-game, the ability to enter knock-out tournaments with a variety of different trainers is also a great extension of the Title Defence battles from Alola.​I spent a lot of time mid-playthrough really enjoying the Wild Area (more on this below), and in particular the Max Raid battles. Notwithstanding the terrible AI from some of the partner trainers, I found these battles really engaging and again, there was a sense of spectacle, along with some great items. The EXP candies did make levelling up a little too easy, but you could easily choose not to use these so I'm unsure it's a huge issue.WeaknessesUnfortunately, as we all know, the weaknesses of these games are readily apparent. Countless people have discussed the merits and demerits of Dexit (although at this point it's fairly clear that Game Freak's given reason was a bare-faced lie, meaning that there are no real merits at all.) I've also seen many posts about the graphics, which of course are also poor for a Switch title. I don't want to go into these two issues, but of course they do - justifiably - form a great deal of the complaints levelled at Sword and Shield. Instead, I wanted to give my opinion on some of the more subjective issues in the game:​My main problem with the game is its emptiness. By this, I mean Galar as a whole. In the trailers, we were promised spectacular cities that thrive with life. Instead, aside from two or three cities, the Galar region feels very lifeless. Wedgehurst is great as a starting town, and a couple of other cities like Hulbury and Circhester have a vitality about them that meant they were believable. However, imagine my disappointment to discover that Hammerlocke, one of the main cities in the Galar region, is actually just one long road with shops on it and a stadium behind it! Cities like Ballonlea and Turffield are tiny, and barely have anything there aside from the stadium and a Pokémon Centre, and Spikemuth is perhaps most disappointing: a single stretch of road, akin to that on a side-scrolling platformer, with the Gym Leader at the end. You don't even go into a Gym - you fight him on the street! I know that historically, Pokémon has had tiny towns, Mahogany Town in GSC being a good example. But that game was released almost 20 years ago, and even then it had a sprawling Team Rocket lair to explore! This gripe isn't just limited to the cities, either. The routes are too linear, and there's very little to actually explore. Even the Wild Area - a promised land of discovery - is boring in the sense that there's nothing really there except enemies. I feel let down by this mostly by comparing SwSh to other Switch games like Breath of the Wild, which is a prime example of how interesting and engaging world-building can be done successfully. As a UK citizen, I was so excited to see my home country brought to life in the first home console game. Instead, most areas simply fell flat, and in most areas, there was a distinct feeling of this being a glorified 3DS game, rather than a world crafted for a home console.​The pacing of the story - and actually the story itself - were also huge issues for me. As the game progressed, there was nothing to do except for fight the Gyms. You would finish Gym 1, and be directed straight to Gym 2, and then straight to Gym 3 and so on. There was no pacing between these events, and moreover, the hand-holding nature of Sun and Moon was back (although not as egregiously, I'll admit.) Once you leave Turffield Stadium (the first gym), you are immediately herded to Hulbury to take on the second gym. There's no real filler story, aside from Sonia or Leon showing up on occasion, saying something vaguely linked to the story but in nowhere enough detail for it to be meaningful, and then vanishing. In fact, it seems like Leon had more fun throughout this game than I did - constantly hearing bangs and vanishing to "be the Champion" while I was shooed off to the next Gym on my quest. This came to a head at the very ending of the game. In all honest, the denouement of the game is ridiculous. Leon is... taken to a meeting with Rose? How terrible! But I thought we liked Rose? Apparently this is a huge problem so let's literally break into the Pokémon League Chairman's secure office to break up this meeting. And then we're running round trying to battle Macros Cosmos? Who is that - oh right an evil... construction company? Never heard of them before this ending. And then Oleana says we can't see Chairman Rose and gives off serious villain vibes with no explanation of her motives whatsoever? And then goes insane and tries to battle us? Then... hang on, why is Rose awakening Eternatus again? Oh yeah - for some vague, unspecified threat thousands of years in the future which means two things: firstly, Leon is not allowed to battle you for the champion title tomorrow for some reason, and secondly, energy has to be released all over Galar, also for an unspecified reason, but damn is it dangerous and now you've got to stop this random monster we've never seen or heard of. Honestly, the whole ending of the story was absolutely ridiculous. It was even worse than the Team Flare arc in my opinion. Swordward and Shielbert slightly redeemed some of the plot in the post-game, and I'm tempted to think that maybe they and some storyline focused on the historical dynasties of Galar might actually have been a better storyline than the random Chairman Rose-is-evil-for-no-reason arc that we ended up getting.​And this leads into my final point - the characters. Honestly, I've seen so many people on here shredding Hop's character to bits, but in terms of character development and motivations, he's the only one who is actually at all interesting. When Bede defeats Hop, you see how it really crushes him. He comes back again and again, reinventing his team, discarding team members in an attempt to become the very best, and only when he realises that that's not what it's about, he reconnects with his old partners and manages to become strong. All of that is further developed with the Zacian/Zamazenta plot points in the post-game story. The rest of the characters, though, are completely uninspiring. As I've already mentioned, Rose and Oleana have absolutely no credible motivations. I really did not care less about the story by the ending because there was nothing to become invested in. Sonia had promise, and her arc of becoming the Professor could have been amazing, but again, she was very two-dimensional and just showed up to talk about "The Darkest Day" over and over with very little explanation. Marnie's only defining character trait seemed to be being Northern English, dropping her "g" sounds like we do up here. Piers had stupid hair but at least he was a little bit interesting. And Leon is god-awful. He had two notes - "I'm the best" and "I'm no good with directions." We can literally sum up his character as arrogant and lost. And being lost is really not a personality trait. So all in all, the cast of characters was really underwhelming. That's especially disappointing when you consider that SwSh has the fewest unique NPCs of any Pokémon game until this point.Overall opinion?There are many redeeming features to these games. I would be lying if I said I did not enjoy playing through Shield, and the Gyms and stadium battles are a particular highlight for me. Criticisms of this game are not unfounded though, and in my opinion, the weaknesses far outweigh the strengths. Honestly, these games can be summarised in one word: lazy. The locations are lazy; the plot was lazy; the characters were lazy. It all felt rushed, and again I don't want to rehash old arguments, but it's clear that these games were rushed out to fit Game Freak's yearly cycle. I knew of a lot of the controversies going into this game, but I tried to give Sword and Shield a fair chance. As someone who loves this franchise so much, and have done all my life, I felt it deserved at least that. After playing Shield, I'm starting to wonder if maybe Game Freak is out of their depth by this point. The games just simply aren't up to the standards that we as fans of this game want or deserve. As a full-game experience (at full-game price), with all things considered, it would be untruthful to say these games are anything other than disappointing. via /r/pokemon https://ift.tt/32Vx5S0