Pokemon S&S is Great!
Pokemon S&S is Terrible.
Pokemon is great because finally, after 20 fucking years, you can actually skip all the tutorial stuff. No more learning how to catch a Pokemon or jump off a tiny ledge, or any number of other excessive tutorials that have flooded recent Pokemon games.
Pokemon is terrible because it has done basically nothing with the advancement in technology. You can tell that they thought about it though. For example the Wild Area (which is a open world esque zone in the game but really is only one of the routes in the game) you have full control over the camera. A small thing but it makes it insanely noticable in the rest of the game which plays exactly like every other Gameboy version of the games. Locked camera angle routes and towns, which makes you wonder why they even bothered to give you the camera control in a single area in the game.
Pokemon is great because it is the still the game we've loved for generations. Turn based battle gameplay, a way too young child alone on a round the world trip to defeat all the gym badges in the country and become champion. In fact that's basically the story, you are a kid and there is a champion that is famous everywhere so.....you beat him. There is no Team Rocket this time, there is an enemy team but they are just stupid mega fans of the champion which makes them fairly forgettable and pointless. also Pokemon is terrible.
Pokemon is terrible because again it is the same gameplay you've played for 20 years in a row. The new monsters aren't all that great, they're fine, not bad, but not great either. And for the first time since the original games, the starters are mono type which makes them uninteresting compared to every starter to come before them.
Okay enough of the little gimmick here. Let's get down to the core here. Is Pokemon S&S a good Pokemon game? Yes. Absolutely yes. It's all I can say really, if you've played other main Pokemon games, then you've played this and you'll like it if you are already a fan of the formula.
That's kind of the problem though right? It's the same shit again. Which if this was on the 3DS again I'd have little problem with because the Pokemon games have always been fantastically built to be little portable stop and start experiences. However this time they are on the big bad console and it just seems lacking in terms of the power and memory they have on offer here.
While I'm not much to care about the big Dex cut in which they've cut the available Pokemon in this game from over 900 down to 385, it does seem kind of weird that they wouldn't put them all in to allow players to have everything on the brand new system jump. And their excuse is utterly stupid when you look at how little they've actually done with the game. There are no console leaps here, it's a 3DS game that has been upscaled to HD graphics for the Switch.
Pokemon strikes me as a series that should be much more annual than it is. Like Call of Duty, it basically is the same game everytime, the core systems never change or if they do it is very minor. Though at the same time I guess there isn't a lot you could do to evolve a formula that basically boils down to:
1. Beat wild animals into submission
2. Toss a magic mind control device at them
3. Enslave them to beat down their bretheren so that you can enslave them all.
4. Maybe also save the world or just beat up everybody else's animals like a world wide bully.
This game does have a lot of quality of life things, like being able to access your box from anywhere, using your camp to make curry which has a variety of effects but the most important one being that there is a curry which will revive, heal, and restore your Pokemon without having to go back to a Pokemon Center. They've done a lot to reduce or even remove the need to go to town so you can be out in the world grinding and or hunting for shinies. I've not seen any shiny Pokemon yet, but there are no random encounters in the game as like in Let's Go the Pokemon pop up in the grass and you can avoid or chose to fight them. I assume it has some sort of shiny system that will allow you to shiny hunt, but maybe it doesn't.
Also there is the Mega size thing. This is a lot like Mega Evolutions. Cool on paper, but it only works in limited situations and only with a few specific Pokemon. So it doesn't effect multiplayer competitive play, and it is just a gimmick in the over all game. Ultimately it isn't worth talking much about because it is such a non-thing.
I'm conflicted because really Pokemon S&S is exactly what I wanted from Pokemon. A real adventure on the Switch. Remember I was disappointed with Let's Go for basically being the shit mobile game ported into a console-like game. So I really enjoy Pokemon S&S.
However I can't help but continue to have a bad taste in my mouth while playing the game because they had all the potential of making a full Pokemon experience with the full power of a console and they didn't do anything with it. I had been hoping there would be something extra or evolved here in the jump to a system more powerful than anything they've ever gotten a chance to use before. Especially if you look at the Let's Go games as GameFreak just testing the waters of what it's like to put a game on the Switch.
So i dunno really. It's good. But it's also just derivative and poor.
EDIT: I wanted to clarify why I don't care about the Dex cut. As someone who's already gone through the fucking nightmare of trying to catch all 800 bastards in Ultra sun and completing that Dex. I never want to have to complete that shit again. I like that this game is not only down to a managable 385 creatures, but they are also all contained between the two versions of the game without have to use Pokemon Bank, and other shenanigans to catch them all.
It might suck if your favorite is cut, but ultimately there are a bunch of new Pokemon here that might let you discover a new favorite. And a Dex cut is good for a new generation and a new audience on the Switch because it makes the idea of completion a reasonable task.
Competitively, this might force a new meta.
Pokemon S&S is Terrible.
Pokemon is great because finally, after 20 fucking years, you can actually skip all the tutorial stuff. No more learning how to catch a Pokemon or jump off a tiny ledge, or any number of other excessive tutorials that have flooded recent Pokemon games.
Pokemon is terrible because it has done basically nothing with the advancement in technology. You can tell that they thought about it though. For example the Wild Area (which is a open world esque zone in the game but really is only one of the routes in the game) you have full control over the camera. A small thing but it makes it insanely noticable in the rest of the game which plays exactly like every other Gameboy version of the games. Locked camera angle routes and towns, which makes you wonder why they even bothered to give you the camera control in a single area in the game.
Pokemon is great because it is the still the game we've loved for generations. Turn based battle gameplay, a way too young child alone on a round the world trip to defeat all the gym badges in the country and become champion. In fact that's basically the story, you are a kid and there is a champion that is famous everywhere so.....you beat him. There is no Team Rocket this time, there is an enemy team but they are just stupid mega fans of the champion which makes them fairly forgettable and pointless. also Pokemon is terrible.
Pokemon is terrible because again it is the same gameplay you've played for 20 years in a row. The new monsters aren't all that great, they're fine, not bad, but not great either. And for the first time since the original games, the starters are mono type which makes them uninteresting compared to every starter to come before them.
Okay enough of the little gimmick here. Let's get down to the core here. Is Pokemon S&S a good Pokemon game? Yes. Absolutely yes. It's all I can say really, if you've played other main Pokemon games, then you've played this and you'll like it if you are already a fan of the formula.
That's kind of the problem though right? It's the same shit again. Which if this was on the 3DS again I'd have little problem with because the Pokemon games have always been fantastically built to be little portable stop and start experiences. However this time they are on the big bad console and it just seems lacking in terms of the power and memory they have on offer here.
While I'm not much to care about the big Dex cut in which they've cut the available Pokemon in this game from over 900 down to 385, it does seem kind of weird that they wouldn't put them all in to allow players to have everything on the brand new system jump. And their excuse is utterly stupid when you look at how little they've actually done with the game. There are no console leaps here, it's a 3DS game that has been upscaled to HD graphics for the Switch.
Pokemon strikes me as a series that should be much more annual than it is. Like Call of Duty, it basically is the same game everytime, the core systems never change or if they do it is very minor. Though at the same time I guess there isn't a lot you could do to evolve a formula that basically boils down to:
1. Beat wild animals into submission
2. Toss a magic mind control device at them
3. Enslave them to beat down their bretheren so that you can enslave them all.
4. Maybe also save the world or just beat up everybody else's animals like a world wide bully.
This game does have a lot of quality of life things, like being able to access your box from anywhere, using your camp to make curry which has a variety of effects but the most important one being that there is a curry which will revive, heal, and restore your Pokemon without having to go back to a Pokemon Center. They've done a lot to reduce or even remove the need to go to town so you can be out in the world grinding and or hunting for shinies. I've not seen any shiny Pokemon yet, but there are no random encounters in the game as like in Let's Go the Pokemon pop up in the grass and you can avoid or chose to fight them. I assume it has some sort of shiny system that will allow you to shiny hunt, but maybe it doesn't.
Also there is the Mega size thing. This is a lot like Mega Evolutions. Cool on paper, but it only works in limited situations and only with a few specific Pokemon. So it doesn't effect multiplayer competitive play, and it is just a gimmick in the over all game. Ultimately it isn't worth talking much about because it is such a non-thing.
I'm conflicted because really Pokemon S&S is exactly what I wanted from Pokemon. A real adventure on the Switch. Remember I was disappointed with Let's Go for basically being the shit mobile game ported into a console-like game. So I really enjoy Pokemon S&S.
However I can't help but continue to have a bad taste in my mouth while playing the game because they had all the potential of making a full Pokemon experience with the full power of a console and they didn't do anything with it. I had been hoping there would be something extra or evolved here in the jump to a system more powerful than anything they've ever gotten a chance to use before. Especially if you look at the Let's Go games as GameFreak just testing the waters of what it's like to put a game on the Switch.
So i dunno really. It's good. But it's also just derivative and poor.
EDIT: I wanted to clarify why I don't care about the Dex cut. As someone who's already gone through the fucking nightmare of trying to catch all 800 bastards in Ultra sun and completing that Dex. I never want to have to complete that shit again. I like that this game is not only down to a managable 385 creatures, but they are also all contained between the two versions of the game without have to use Pokemon Bank, and other shenanigans to catch them all.
It might suck if your favorite is cut, but ultimately there are a bunch of new Pokemon here that might let you discover a new favorite. And a Dex cut is good for a new generation and a new audience on the Switch because it makes the idea of completion a reasonable task.
Competitively, this might force a new meta.
