"Shield thoughts by a Red player."

Hey lads and lasses.I haven’t played Pokémon in over 2 decades. As a birthday present I got the GameBoy Colour and Pokémon Red. I’m now in my thirties and as a birthday present I got the Switch and Pokémon Shield. I’ve had a decent 17 hours or so under my belt. Since then I’ve spent a little time on Pokémon related websites, including this one. I seen a few review type posts and I thought you may be interested in mine.The TLDR is old person plays Pokémon and enjoys it somewhat.Firstly getting over the Switch itself is quite something. It hooks up to the bloody telly, the screen is big, it’s got that haptic whatever making the controllers shake. I use it and feel like a kid again. I asked (for my birthday because at heart, we are all children) for the Pokémon game. I was faintly aware it’s still going and I wanted a piece of it. The nostalgia factor is there, with the now tiny cartridges to make one feel suitably old.Right off the bat, being able to choose what you character looks like was a welcome development. Ignoring the fact I accidentally made my self a dude, no doubt I skimmed a step on my drunken birthday. But hey- the options where there and on the face of it distinguishing between young boys and butch dykes can be tricky. I plod on.The companion Hop is a little over eager for my tastes, but I’ve put that down to a considerable age difference. He’s young, from a small town, eager to get out in the world. Unblemished by the cynicism of age. As an old person most definitely blemished by age, and much else besides, I cannot hold this against him.The new starter choices all seem suitably cute. I plump for Scorbunny. Fire is, and will always remain, cool. Anyway, out into this brave new world my fellow Pokémon and I venture. Excited to find out what is the same and what changes have been made.One of the first changes I notice is you can kind of see the wild Pokémon. Giving you the choice of engaging, swapping your first choice Pokémon, or avoiding all together. In Red it was just a matter of blindly roaming in the grass until you hit an exclamation mark. But now being able to see, and plan accordingly, has been a welcome improvement. I can decide if I want to catch the bugger or give my little ones a workout until someone faints.After a while (just before Gym Badge 2 – I’m a slow one) I noticed these match ups were consistently easy. I thought I was being cocky but the human battles were no harder. That’s where I clocked shared Exp. I needed to Google it because I couldn’t remember if it was an original feature. But as much as I appreciate it being there, I’d appreciate it more if it was a conscience choice I could have. I commute three hours a day. I have nothing better to do than rotate my smaller guys to build up their strength. Since I didn’t noticed this straight away, I was playing the first 6 Pokémon I had and the rest packed off to boxes never to be seen again.I have greatly enjoyed the Gym Leaders though. Sweet Milo to kick things off, that mad old bat Opal, everyone in between – I’ve all enjoyed. I’ve like the various missions to get to the big boss. It has been suitable development from playing 2/3 pf their aides in liner fashion until you hit Big Bad. What hasn’t been challenging is the battles themselves. Because of this shared Exp lark I’ve always been a good few levels above whoever I’ve been playing without putting much work in. Perhaps I’ve lucked out with catching Pokémon that are good opposites to the leaders so far, but they’ve all been done in one or two moves. And with that lack of satisfaction come the lack of accomplishment.Dynamax. I get what they are trying to do but I don’t understand why they are trying to do it. Why is it only used for the last Pokémon in Gym Battles? You can’t train for it, so can’t prepare for it. Seeing it for the first time is very cool, but it very quickly loses its lustre and you question why the developers and art team spent (presumably) a decent amount of time on something that doesn’t seem to matter.I had great hopes for the wild area when I first ventured in. The Pokémon in the tall grass were my level, with the random big bollocks Pokémon strolling around the path, with 7-20 levels on me. It has a satisfying open world feel about it and you feel you can make decisions, rather than stuff happening to you like Red when you’re in between towns. My main hope was I could continually return to the Wild Area and the Wild Pokémon levels stay consistent to my party, with stronger guys roaming about on paths to engage with if you wish. That does not seem to be the case. However, that is not to say I haven’t benefited from this mismatch. I caught a level 7 Metapod with an Ultra Ball without battling.All in all I enjoying this so far. Will I get the next edition when it comes out? Unlikely. It’s not challenging enough for my tastes to keeping buying into the franchise. I don’t see it competing with it’s Mario/Zelda rivals, especially with hearing how they have embraced the latest tech. However, I am enjoying this as a trip down memory lane and I can see myself buying whatever one comes out in five years time. via /r/pokemon https://ift.tt/3hyQHDm