Feb 272019
We’ve been waiting for news on 2019’s mainline Pokémon games for the Nintendo Switch, and they were revealed today in a special Pokémon Direct.
Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield will be released worldwide in late 2019.
The three starters are the grass-type monkey Grookey, the fire-type bunny Scorbunny, and the water-type lizard Sobble. It’s set in the Galar region, which appears to be based on the United Kingdom.
“Sword” and “Shield” feel like rather odd titles for Pokémon games, since this isn’t a series that typically involves swords and shields and it certainly doesn’t look like medieval Pokémon or anything like that. The names did make me think of Team Plasma’s knight motif, so I wonder if we’ll have something similar as this generation’s villainous team.
Responses to the reveal are a lot more negative than I expected. It seems like a lot of people were expecting a massive open world Pokémon game, which honestly would have disappointed me.
From what we’ve seen so far, Galar looks like a beautiful region and the gameplay looks like standard Pokémon gameplay. Gyms are back, as well. I’d hoped they might keep the wild Pokémon visible on the field from the Let’s Go titles, but I’m fine with random encounters.
(But here’s hoping HMs are still gone; that was the best change Sun and Moon introduced.)
And could that be the sneaking mechanic from Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire?
It’s too early to say if Pokémon Sword and Shield will address the criticisms I’ve had with the last few Pokémon games (although the world map looks like there might be side areas), but right now I’m optimistic and excited to see more!
What did you think of the Pokémon Sword and Shield reveal?
In other news, the Ace Attorney Trilogy will be released for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch, and PC on April 9, but it’s digital-only.
As someone who skipped ORAS, I don’t know what sneaking does. Wot does it do and is it a useful feature?
I like overworld encounters but it’s not a deal-breaker or anything to have random encounters, especially with the quality-of-life improvements they’ve established regarding Repels.
Rare Pokémon would appear in shaking grass (or similar features in other areas), but they’d disappear if you ran up to them normally. You had to sneak up to them, and then the encounter would begin. The clip in the trailer is too short to tell if anything like that is going on (and there’s no shadow or other indicators like in ORAS), but the trainer’s movement at 0:28 looks exactly like the sneaking mechanic to me.
More than just the sneaking itself, though, what I really liked from ORAS was the DexNav. It showed you what the Pokémon in the shaking grass was and gave some basic information about it. It also had a search feature, so you could make a Pokémon appear if you’d encountered it before, if you were in the right area.
It also told you if there were Pokémon in a specific area you hadn’t caught yet.
So really, the reason I’m excited about the possibility of sneaking is because I want DexNav to return.
Edit: Here’s a good video about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yghMlFyf8Gs
[…] last two Pokémon generations, I’ve been interested in learning more about Sword and Shield ever since they were announced. Here’s hoping the Pokémon Direct has good news to share about Sword and […]