Pokémon Master Sword and Hylian Shield - Which box legendary is best? (LEAK-FREE ZONE FROM PAGE 7 ONWARDS)

You've done me a solid here (as someone who doesn't have the patience to write a long post) by having every single point you've made summarise my feelings towards the game and why I rate it so highly in my top Switch games.

My only real niggle that's stopped me personally getting more time out of it than I already have is that there's no particularly interesting way to chain for Shiny Pokémon. It turned out to be pretty much what I'd have expected, would I personally like more from it feature-wise? Definitely, I know it was never gonna be the perfect sprawling epic I would like it to be but it's on its way.

Here we go...

Buskalilly wrote:

Whereas here, I just straight-up disagree. The wild area was great, and it made going back post-game to fill my dex the most fun it has ever been. Add in cool, modern multiplayer stuff like Raids and it's a total win for me.

I've thought of another reason why I didn't like it in the meanwhile! This one's utterly subjective, but I think I prefer the structure of meeting new Pokémon at a certain point in the game, when you're meant to, building up the power and species of your team rather than having almost all of them available early.  Unless they went full open-world, in which case I might adjust to it.  This halfway house worked as well as the backtracking sections in Luigi's Mansion 3.

The Raids unfortunately are pretty bad in single-player, with AI allies that have wonderful Pokémon like Magikarp and all the brainpower of one too.  I actually think that's another point against it, as was putting TRs behind Raids and even taking the reverse step that was TRs in the first place.

Buskalilly wrote:

"Good pacing" doesn't mean "the same pacing throughout". You have slower parts, faster parts, quiet moments to breathe and rushes of action. I genuinely think this game had great pacing!

You did have those things, but I felt that the pace changed in sporadic random ways that didn't feel like they were building towards anything and gave me whiplash as a result.

Buskalilly wrote:

I'm not sure if you mean Rose & Co or The Royalty, but either way I think it was actually done well. I've said this elsewhere, but deliberate or not I like the angle that as a young teen Pokemon Trainer, I wasn't really involved in the main plot until the adults already fucked it up. Also, Rose as an Elon Musk Tory was a great villain. I wanted to kick his dick off from the moment he appeared on screen.

Rose & Co - the Royalty get a free pass for being postgame content.  I actually think it's bad game/story design that you're barely involved in the main plot until the end, even though I can understand why some might like it.  The whole point of playing a single-player game is to get involved in the plot.  It's not a TV show where you follow multiple characters!  Let me feel like I've earned those story beats!

Buskalilly wrote:

Quote :

You barely use the water 'cycle outside of the Wild Area.

 
And? Better than Hoenn amounts of water . . .

Like the Wild Area, this feels like something where they should've gone big (had a steadily evolving bike throughout the game that, say, got tires that could go over different terrains, used electricity to power things up etc.) or gone home (not used water as an obstacle given that the solution was so throwaway).  They did neither and it felt unfinished.

Buskalilly wrote:

Quote :

No legendary trio!?

Let the past die, kill it if you have to. Although, they've alluded to new versions/ additions to two previous trios being in the DLC, so whatcha gonna do?

Buy the DLC natch, because I am a Nintendo shill and there's not much else new and big and shiny until Origami King.  It's not specifically the lack of a trio, but more that there was nowhere I could explore and stumble across a rare one-off special-feeling Pokémon.  I could've shortened that to 'there was nowhere I could explore' given my thoughts about the Wild Area I guess.

Buskalilly wrote:

I feel like Piers got a pretty decent showing? I'd have liked more Oleanna if anyone, she seems like she's way deeper than we got to see. At least we got a decent amount of Best Girl Marnie and perfect idiot Bede.

He got more time in the postgame I think.  Agreed about Oleanna, Marnie, and Bede.

Buskalilly wrote:

Leon was a cracking rival, he really felt like this larger-than-life, unbeatable presence and I was SO hyped for that battle.

Personal taste here: I just really hated him.  The larger-than-life stuff, the posing, and even though Rose was obviously a git Leon's 'SOD THE ENVIRONMENT I WANNA DO SPORTS' didn't paint him in a good light in that scene either.  It wasn't even satisfying to bring him down in the end because he took it so well.  In fact, he reminds me a lot of Klavier Gavin from Apollo Justice.  That's not a compliment.

Buskalilly wrote:

Hop was also a fantastic little character, with a genuine journey full of emotion. That look when he finally gets to the championship but you beat him? Kind of heart-breaking. It really leaned into something that was only implied in previous rivalries.

I think he had the potential to be that character.  In LLP you mentioned him losing his way and abandoning his Wooloo, and yes, I think if they'd stuck to that he could have been great; but it feels like half the team wanted to give him that journey and half the team still thought that Hau and his perpetual peppy optimism made for a good rival.  So you'd beat him down, and he'd turn up the next time bouncing along like a puppy.  With some better writing this might have come across as a façade, but I don't think it did.

If there's one thing writing these points has taught me it's that above and beyond Sword/Shield feeling unfinished, it feels like there were areas that were caught between two courses of action and kind of came out stuffing both.  That's the reason it reminded me of LM3 near the beginning, with its 'hey look there's backtracking like a Metroidvania but we're not actually going to do anything with it' lack of approach.  That is kind of understandable, given that I'm sure they want to do new things and go new places with a franchise that has a large, existing, and in parts rabid fanbase.  I don't know what the solution is, but giving them the condensed cycle they surely have to stick to for the sake of the rest of the media behemoth ain't it.

Buskalilly wrote:

And there we go. Please don't take this as me attacking you, or attempting to take you down. I'm not angling for Super Genius DESTROYS Stupid Liberal With Facts and Logic or anything here. I just wanted to show you how my mind works on this stuff. I'm not an apologist for Nintendo, and I don't just feel so strongly the positive aspects that I ignore the negative; it's simply that I genuinely don't have the issues you have with the game.

There are plenty of things, even including games made by Nintendo, with which I do have issues. I think I've done a pretty good job of dishing out kickings when I want to?

Likewise, please don't assume that by responding to your responses I don't respect your reasoning/thought process, or don't want you to love the game - which I'm sure I'm not going to change anyway.  It's great that you loved it!  I wish I could overlook the issues like you and Smurf (I really don't mind Shinies) and find a new Top Tier Game.  I guess I just wanted to respond to the responses.

...that said, I can't remember the last time you dished out a kicking to a Nintendo game.  Or maybe you did but I saw the 10/10 on the end and it didn't register as a result.

Buskalilly wrote:

I mean honestly, you're just asking me to do it when you say something like this. But I guess that's to be expected from a low-testosterone simp who would rather be cucked by feminazis than play real games, for real men, about a real league, with real monsters.

Going to have to agree with Balla on this one as SWiSH has a lot of issues, still was a fun game and till Animal Crossing was my most played Switch game because the core Pokémon gameplay is still excellent just everything around it brought it down.

Oooh, Balla, you've lost all credibility there - Mas is with you :p

I slagged off Luigi's Mansion a fair bit in places?

Anyway, I can definitely see the ways this game is being pulled in a few different directions, and even the parts which needed a lot more time in the oven. Nonetheless, I liked it a lot.

Also: I mostly did raids offline! Working against my useless teammates was part of the challenge.

I dunno, you seemed to still be really keen on it overall! Maybe you gave it a kicking and then a rub-down afterwards with scented oils while pouring it a drink.

These things are absolutely going to impact people to different degrees. As long as none of those degrees are ‘death threats to Game Freak’ it’s all good.

If Teddiursa and Cubone are not in Sword and Shield by the time the second DLC is out, I will burn down masuda's house.

Started this again due to the DLC coming soon. I know it's only been a few months but didn't remember it looking as rough as it does or ACNH just looks so that this looks way worse in comparison.

My team is a tad muh at the moment, as I wanted to use some of my lower level Mon I have in my Pokémon Home but I keep getting errors messages when I try to use it & seen others get the same issue apparently to many people trying to get the starters with some better stats which are being given out.

I saw that Buskalilly posted his podcast episode about Falinks, so I think I'm going to start a new game too but with Fallinks as my starter pokémon and a fighting type only playthrough.

I think it's a good looking game because of the way that it is styalised, but I will concede that it's a little archaic.

More could have been done to liven up the battles with a bit of movement between actions, rather than having pokemon jogging on the spot between orders, and it's a shame that we don't see more pokemon within the settlements pitching in with the community like they would in Detective Pikachu or any of the cartoons. Would have been nice to see more interactions between wild pokemon too, you know, birds occasionally swooping in towards bugs that sort of thing. Don't need a Monster Hunter World ecosystem by any means, just something that lets the pokemon's personalities come across a little stronger.

The technique they use in towns and cities to give them depth is superbly done though. If anything, it's almost too good because I'm sad that there isn't more to explore within the cities!



To be honest, the way Gamefreak deal with visual depth here reminds me quite a lot of Animal Crossing, but with a much greater draw distance.

I still think the game has really pretty environmental design, and some very nice moves (No Retreat springs to mind), but... yep. I think they need some form of Pokémon interaction in the next-gen equivalent of the Wild Area to make it feel like it belongs. Imagine a Pokémon version of Gaur Plains! Now stop, because it's not going to happen this decade.

Animal Crossing had a lot of time and money to luxuriate over designing all the smallest things. Pokemon Sword rushed things with a small team to try and make something very big. In terms of crisp, sexy visuals, they're worlds apart.

I enjoyed my time in Galar, however, and think the monsters look cool.

After getting Pokémon Home working, I've just done first gym with my fire team that I set up which also includes a slowpoke at the moment but will switch him out when I bump into another fire Mon that I would like.

At the moment the team is Slowpoke, Charizard (I seem to have 3 of them but I'm using the shiny one from an event from Spring 2015), Flareon, Torracat, Salazzle, Raboot

Noice! We should co-ordinate and each create a mono-type team so we can be our own gym league. I call ghost!

Great idea so:

Mas = Fire, can I keep Slowpoke if I teach him fire moves?
Buska = Ghost
Muss = Fighting

Now the rest of you's

Buskalilly wrote:

Noice! We should co-ordinate and each create a mono-type team so we can be our own gym league. I call ghost!

Cool idea, and what a fucking generation this was for the Ghost type! Dreepy and Corsola easily crack my top 10 pokemon, probably top 5 to be honest. I would totally have gone for ghosts if I hadn't used so many in my vanilla play through.

I was tempted to go for a Rock play since you start pretty near Stonehenge, but FALINKS.

Well both my top two new Pokémon have been taken. I'd probably say dark types if I were going to do this.

Absol is dark right?

Absol and Sneasel and Umbreon are all in my top ten monsters ever, probably. #owtheedge

I've nearly hit my diamond record of 700 hours on this, as I am I guess you could say preparing for the DLC

A couple of students have talked to me about the DLC; I have been asked to report back about it's worth getting.

ShopTo have it for £20

shanks wrote:

I've nearly hit my diamond record of 700 hours on this, as I am I guess you could say preparing for the DLC

You absolute madman!

Buskalilly wrote:

A couple of students have talked to me about the DLC; I have been asked to report back about it's worth getting.

It's a tough life eh?

I had an hour on the Isle of Armor last night and another hour this morning.

So far, this feels like what I was hoping for from the main game; the full 3D and openness of the Wild Area, but with interesting design and some story and characters. So far, I've actually avoided engaging in battle beside the initial, unskippable battle. I've just been exploring and catching new monsters, and it feels really nice to be in this space.

I saw . . .

Spoiler:

I really hope this is a preview of what we can expect Generation 9 to feel like.

I've got a boner.

OOooooohhh yeeeaaahhh:

I've barraged through the DLC this weekend and just have Mustard to go. Grinding time!

I think I'm definitely more a fan of closed-world Pokémon games, although the Wailord made me think of the tyrants in the Xenoblade games in the best way and might be my favourite bit of the IoA.