Hands-On: ‘Pokemon Sword and Shield’ Bring Spectacular Battles to Nintendo Switch
I’ve always enjoyed the Pokemon games. Since childhood catching colorful monsters has never gotten old, and they’re perhaps the only JRPGs that I can tolerate. But I can only tolerate them once every decade or so because the main series iterates so slowly playing them back to back reveals how conservative the design still is. It’s frustrating.
Fortunately, moving to a home console for the first time appears to be the next step we finally needed for Pokemon to mix things up. Pokemon Let’s Go Pikachu and Eevee reimagined the original games on Nintendo Switch last year. But after trying out the next core games for myself, Pokemon Sword and Shield, I think they might be the real deal, even if I didn’t play their most potentially revolutionary additions.
My brief demo had me challenging water-type gym leader Nessa. But to get to her first I had to complete the gym mission of redirecting various pipes to clear the path. It’s the kind of puzzle we’ve encountered in countless Pokemon gyms but just seeing it as a true 3D, HD environment to walk through is the kind of added production value that has me hyped for this game in the first place.
While navigating the gym I also had to contend with trainers who spotted me. It’s almost like a stealth game now as you can tell when you’re about to enter someone’s field of vision. And again, traditional Pokemon fights are what you remember just with an added sheen (and Eurotrash club banger battle music complementing the fake anime England theme). We’ve already talked about the new Pokemon people are already falling in love with in this game, but in person let me tell you Wooloo is the real deal.
Finally, I entered the massive stadium where the true test takes place. The sheer size of the soccer-esque arena is just the start of the impressive spectacle that seems to be this game’s selling point. As we battled, the camera cut away to various dads in the crowd looking proud. But the stadiums aren’t that big just to hold a ton of people.
Towards the end of my battle I also tried the new Dynamax feature. After a snazzy anime transformation cutscene, my Grookey grew as big as a kaiju. Nessa followed suit by Dynamaxing her Drednaw. Pokemon Sword and Shield may not be the most graphically intensive Switch game (maybe because the developers already waste too many resources on bringing back hundreds of unnecessary Pokemon) but watching these behemoths go at it was legitimately impressive with attacks being these awesome whirlwinds of power. It’s such a dumb spectacle I love it, two huge lads blasting each other with energy like evil Thanksgiving parade floats.
Beyond the light show Dynamax also has strategic uses like powering up attacks, causing advantageous weather changes, and baiting your opponent into wasting their Dynamax so you can take them out once it wears off after three turns, which is how I beat Nessa.
As exciting as this fight was though I’m way more curious about the pseudo-open world of the Wild Area and the Dynamax raid battles. However, I’ll have to wait until Pokemon Sword and Shield release in November to try those features out. In the meantime.
