Guys, I’m so excited for this game. Wait, I’m getting ahead of myself. Greetings, all. Your Prince has returned and here not to talk about a smut comic (not yet, at least). Today we got more footage of the newest game in the Pokemon franchise: Pokemon Sword/Shield. The game was announced earlier this year with lots fanfare but little information. With today’s Nintendo livestream, we have more answers to the mystery of the newest game and our first real look at the Galar Region!
I’ve been playing Pokemon for over 20 years now and I will say watching this livestream gave me goosebumps! Some readers may remember that I was not crazy about the most recent mainline game: Pokemon Sun/Moon and cared even less for Ultra Sun/Moon. Based on the information we got in this stream, I have a lot of hope for Sword/Shield. This is not our first look at the game, as we’ve already seen the new starters and briefly got to see the main two characters. But now, we have seen some cool features I want to discuss.
This game looks beautiful. I can’t say it enough. The region (which is clearly based on the UK) looks stunning and even how the Pokemon are animated and designed looks so good. Nintendo is really putting all of the Switch’s processing power into play here and I’m supportive of it. Also the character designs all look fun with some interesting comments made about sports, sponsorships, spectacle and more all made in a very brief glimpse of gameplay.
There’s a feature or two that…well, let me preface by saying I’m old. I’m not entirely sold on the new Max Raids (likely a thing taken from the very popular Pokemon Go) that allows four to challenge a superpowered Pokemon all together and the newest evolution in…well, evolution: Dynamax. It looks a lot like Mega Evolution and Z Moves from other games and honestly, my initial bristling to it may just be my old lizard brain being resistant to change. It looks fun, I just need to give it a shot.
I’m glad to have gyms back in the traditional sense and honestly, this trailer did what I needed it to do: it didn’t tell me everything. As I said in an unnecessarily sensual metaphor to a group of friends:
I don’t want to finish too soon.
That may be the one thing Avengers: Endgame was good at. It may have been aggressive fanservice but it was after 11 years of set up.
If this is the only look we get until the game comes out. Sold. Even better.
A few more things: I love the design of the legendaries and all hail Wooloo.
This livestream made me excited to play this game: exactly what a trailer should do.
Let me know which starter you’re going with, I think I’m very team Sobble and if you’re sold on Pokemon Sword/Shield!
