Enjoyed Pokemon S/M more than Sw/Sh and X/Y

[Personablue]

Pokemon sun and moon may be linear, may be story heavy, may be initially very hand holding experience and may not let us skip cutscenes but it is still the best Pokemon game after the DS era.
I had a ton more fun than both Sword shield and XY.

+The story in sun moon was much better than the brain dead story line in the other two games

+It felt like a celebration of the Pokemon series, and quite rightly so it's the 20th anniversary game

+The tropical island setting, the trails , totem Pokemon, the Z moves , everything felt so festive.

+Not to mention the first time reveal of regional forms like Raichu and exeggutor, and Ultra beast was hype

+The hype cycle leading to the games were unlike anything other games


+The story was cinematic and played a active role in making us invest in its story. It is the longest Pokemon game in terms of main story. There were Tapus to catch , ultra beast to find. More content too

+The presentation , the soundtrack , the artstyle , the characters, the dialogues every moment made us feel like we are in some kind of big celebration/festival

 

[Noppie]

I prefer Sw/Sh over the other two, but that might be partly due to Pokémon fatigue at the time.

 

[Reinhardt Schneider]

For me, Sun and Moon are the second worst games of the series, enjoyed XY greatly and while SwSh doesn't reach the heights of XY when it comes to online, the gameplay loop is fun as fuck (50 hors and still not reached 8th gym) so it's the best for me.

 

[gunlovefiction]

Why

 

[Zalman]

I prefer Sword and Shield in pretty much every aspect. The region, the gyms and league, the cast of characters, the music, the QoL features.

 

[Lugia]

The most fun I've ever had with a Pokemon game is Sw/Sh. It reignited my love for the series.

 

[Deleted member 8791]

For me, Sun and Moon are the second worst games of the series, enjoyed XY greatly and while SwSh doesn't reach the heights of XY when it comes to online, the gameplay loop is fun as fuck (50 hors and still not reached 8th gym) so it's the best for me.

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Very similair feelings for me. Sun/Moon deflated me in so many ways and I ended up taking a two year break from Pokémon. Meanwhile I really enjoyed X/Y and SwSh is the best the series has ever been for me due to the massive amounts of streamlining and QoL improvements.

 

[Valkerion]

I love Sun and Moon as well, purely for the tropical setting. I don't think any of the games post Black and White 2 have been good persay in their stories or motivations though. They went from evil teams to leaning extremely hard on the friendship instead of actual rivals thing.

They are all jolly vibes though so I dig them all honestly.

 

[Wise]

Sword and shield is much better than the 2 imo

 

[Yuntu]

Out of all 3D Pokemon I clearly enjoy Sword and Shield the most. Great rivals and great gym battles with a fantastic mood to it.

Wish we still had X/Y online though.

 

[Deleted member 2809]

It had nice characters at least
Fuck nebby tho

 

[SJUG]

I liked Ultra Moon a lot, but I've found myself to be playing Sword a lot more compared to the last two gens. I've enjoyed it a lot more than XY for sure, since those games really bored me after how good Gen 5 was. The PSS should've been a permanent addition though.

 

[nikos]

I've tried to get into Pokémon with every installment, as well as spinoffs, since Black/White (maybe even earlier) and Sword was finally the game to do it for me. I ended up logging over 100 hours in the first two weeks. I finally consider myself a Pokémon fan.

 

[Deleted member 31092]

Sun and Moon is a much better game than Sword and Shield and XY.

I spent more than 300 hours in both XY and SM and over 70 hours in Sword and Shield by the way. I'm not hater.

I think how barebones SWSH are only really shows at the League Tournament, from there onwards it becomes clear how undercooked everything was.

Story (and it sucks major ass) is completed and all you have left is a bunch of poorly implemented features.

 

[Reinhardt Schneider]

The PSS should've been a permanent addition though.

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This is my only dissapointment with SwSh. The Y-comm would be great if it really mimicked the PSS properly.

 

[Personablue]

Sun and Moon is a much better game than Sword and Shield and XY.

I spent more than 300 hours in both XY and SM and over 70 hours in Sword and Shield by the way. I'm not hater.

I think how barebones SWSH are only really shows at the League Tournament, from there onwards it becomes clear how undercooked everything was.

Story (and it sucks major ass) is completed and all you have left is a bunch of poorly implemented features.

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Exactly, that's why I made this thread. Sword shield is the pokemkn XY of switch.

 

[Solobbos]

While I played through both X and Sun, I can't really say I remember much of either of 'em and even though SwSh should perform better and there's a lot of work to be done to make the game better, I still think it's one of the best Pokémon experiences I've had.

 

[Metto]

It's probably the most fulfilling RPG
of the three as it has more focus on its story

With that said Sword and Shield are just more fun to play between Raids and amazing QOL changes making comp Pokémon a lot more accessible. The characters are still charming enough between their battle animations and league cards. Plus Sword and Shield's soundtrack is among the series' best

I would put Sun and Moon and Sword and Shield close to each other and I like them way more than XY

 

[Deleted member 48434]

Didn't we just have a thread talking about how terrible the story in Sw/Sh was?
How is it winning?

 

[Jonneh]

Didn't we just have a thread talking about how terrible the story in Sw/Sh was?
How is it winning?

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Story is only the beginning of a Pokemon game

 

[DanteMenethil]

sun and moon wins

 

[Deleted member 48434]

Story is only the beginning of a Pokemon game

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Then what about all of the gameplay related complaints?

 

[Delio]

From a comp point of view, X/Y and Sw/Sh are my favorites if only for the online features. X/Y stands above Sw/Sh in that reguard since the PSS was just straight up better than anything they have given us since then.

 

[Jonneh]

Then what about all of the gameplay related complaints?

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You'd have to be a little more specific, which ones?

 

[パンダさん]

I'm the weird one, I like Le'ts Go the most.

 

[Deleted member 48434]

You'd have to be a little more specific, which ones?

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Difficulty wise, I hear it's a total faceroll. SuMo was easy itself, but I remember it pushing back just a tad at certain points.

 

[Jurec84]

After all the initial backlash by hardcore fans I am surprised to say I love Sw/Sh a lot - it's just a joy to play. The story is basic, but I never played Pokemon for the story lol.

 

[Personablue]

Story is only the beginning of a Pokemon game

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What about content? The latest pair of games has barebone contents , in sun moon it was great to catch all the four tapu , the ultra beast etc. Here it's just the cover legendaries. Nothing significant happen in the story , whenever something comes up we are told adults will deal with it and just concentrate on the gym challenge. The second half of story was also very rushed.

 

[Reinhardt Schneider]

Didn't we just have a thread talking about how terrible the story in Sw/Sh was?
How is it winning?

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Story is a minor part in a pokémon game

Gameplay loop, pokémon designs, pokémon distribution, QoL features, online... each and every single one of these overweights story in a Pokémon game.

 

[ryushe]

For me, Sun and Moon are the second worst games of the series, enjoyed XY greatly and while SwSh doesn't reach the heights of XY when it comes to online, the gameplay loop is fun as fuck (50 hors and still not reached 8th gym) so it's the best for me.

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Pretty much this for me except Sun and Moon are my least favorite Pokémon titles.

 

[AzureFlame]

Sun and Moon is terrible imo, the game is just annoying to play.

As for the Let's Go games they are useless, i already played a way better remake.

 

[Conrad Link]

Sun & Moon are the worst, the lowest point of my Pokemon fandom. I hated the island setting that all just blends together, I hated the story, just spamming the A button to get through whatever blah blah they're taking forever to talk about. And most of all the insistent hand-holding for EVERY, LITTLE, THING. *barf*

JUST LET ME GO IN THAT GRASS AND CATCH SOME WILD POKEMON, PLEASE!

It's just so annoying to play, everything in Sun annoyed me.

Sword & Shield are so much better, even based on the soundtrack alone. Hop is the worst thing in Sword, he's like Sun thankfully just put into one character.

Let's Go! Eevee and it's addicting chain catching mechanic might just be better than all of them.

 

[Deleted member 3040]

I haven't played SwSh, but I absolutely adore Sun and Moon. What makes it work so well for me is how it all comes together so well. The setting, the story, the characters, the general atmosphere, and so forth... they all mesh extremely well. I also honestly really liked how the story unfolded (constant ":)" from the MC aside), with how Team Skull ties into the island trials and also the other shenanigans, how some characters' Pokémon fit their trainers to a t, and so forth.

Love it a lot.

 

[Zippo]

Sun and Moon are great, Sword and Shield are decent.

X&Y are awful.

 

[Reinhardt Schneider]

X&Y are awful.

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No

 

[Zippo]

No

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Yes

 

[Reinhardt Schneider]

Yes

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You're being inconsistent

XY is superior to SwSh in some aspects, like story, route complexity and online, and is equal to SwSh in designs and distribution (albeit with a way smaller regional dex) Just the online makes XY not awful. If SwSh is "decent", XY is "decent" too

 

[Good4Squat]

I only play through the story up until the credits and then maybe a little past that before I get my fill. And in that respect, I guess I did like Sun & Moon a little more. It feels like it had a little more personality, where Sw/Sh feels a bit more generic somehow. I still enjoyed Sw/Sh for what it was mind you.

 

[Deleted member 2791]

Then what about all of the gameplay related complaints?

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SwSh has the best gameplay out of all the mainline games imo so yeah.

 

[Graefellsom]

SwSh has biggest number or at least ratio of great new pokemon designs since gen1 . It also just feels really fun to play.

SwSh's story may be rushed and not all that great but at least it was fairly unobtrusive and brief unlike the countless and unending interruptions in US/UM.

 

[Deleted member 48434]

SwSh has the best gameplay out of all the mainline games imo so yeah.

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Could you go into detail on this? I'd really like to know exactly why you think this way.

 

[Reinhardt Schneider]

Could you go into detail on this? I'd really like to know exactly why you think this way.

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Not him, but in so far (I'm right before 8th badge)

- Battles are slightly faster than SUMO/USUM's
- The new bike with seamless surf function makes exploration a breeze
- The mix with wild roaming pokémon and surprise encounters is addictive and easies the new shiny odds improving method.
- Related to this, there's so mahy pokémon thrown at you that is hard to stay with only 1 team
- The nature of Dyna/Gigamax makes it easier to counter than Megas and more significant than Z-Moves. Also dynamax battles are epic
- Speaking of dynamax battles. Raids are a great idea.

The only issues i could think is the forced Exp. share (Wich is mitigated - if not completely solved - by having extra pokémon to rotate) and the catching level cap wich, i would say, it's pretty fair.

Also the gameplay loop is great as i already said. Route -> Gym -> Wild area to catch previously uncatchable pokemon and access dynamax raids you previously couldn't access. I didn't expect to take an average of 7 hours between gyms but here we are. I'm at the gates of the 8th gym and no urge to enter yet because i'm too busy catching wild pokemon, adding to my shiny odds modifier and going on raids like crazy.

Honestly, while it's true that the game feels undercooked in the tech and story department, it just feels like Game Freak has struck gold. Now they just need to update the Y-Comm to allow direct contact with friends at least and it will be perfect.

 

[Leo]

Disagree. SwSh is miles better than XY (it almost feels like what XY SHOULD have been, since the setting is pretty similar) and much better than S/M, which had suffocating gameplay with all the linearity and handholding. SwSh may be linear, but the wild Area does miracles to make the gameplay loop feel more loose, since you can take a break from the main quest anytime and go do stuff there. The Pokemon designs are damn ace too, but SM had great designs as well (not XY though).

The thing that bothers the most in SwSh is how underdeveloped the regular routes are, they are tiny and have very few trainers. If it had expansive routes like Platinum it could be top3 mainline Pokemon easily.

 

[Corrie1960]

I haven't enjoyed a Pokémon game since gen 5 but I bought the gen 6,7 &8 games also hope gamefreak can bounce back someday

 

[IHaveIce]

Sun and Moon are the worst Pokemon games for me tbh.

X/Y was ok, I like SW/SH


Not one of them is as good as the DS era games.

 

[Petete]

Sun and Moon are so good that they need to do US and UM a year later.

/s

 

[Xita]

So much of SwSh feels like a poor man's SM. Agree with you OP, Sun and Moon was the most fun with I've had with Pokemon since B2W2.

It's probably the most fulfilling RPG
of the three as it has more focus on its story

With that said Sword and Shield are just more fun to play between Raids and amazing QOL changes making comp Pokémon a lot more accessible. The characters are still charming enough between their battle animations and league cards. Plus Sword and Shield's soundtrack is among the series' best

I would put Sun and Moon and Sword and Shield close to each other and I like them way more than XY

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Couldn't disagree more with this, the music is probably one of the most disappointing aspects of SwSh because GF usually delivers on that front, if nothing else.

 

[Deleted member 2791]

Could you go into detail on this? I'd really like to know exactly why you think this way.

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Essentially, a lot of the wasted time spent in previous games got axed here and replaced by better, more rewarding mechanics.
You don't have to grind endlessly against the same trainers if you want your Pokémon to reach a certain high level. You can just do raids, which are much more fun forms of battle that allows you to catch rare pokémons, and get EXP Candy as rewards that you can then use to skip the grind.
You don't have to go back to a Pokémon center to check up your PC box and switch pokemon, you can do that on the fly. IV/EV/natures/Eggmoves can be farmed of changed much easier than before, without completely dumbing down the challenge of making a comp ready pokemon.
The Wild Area itself is pure gameplay over narrative content and it's just super fun to roam around the lands, checking which rare Pokémon appear in the overworld/raids, see what your friends got up as raids and eventually join them.

It's a lot of things but those are my main fav aspects.

 

[Aleh]

Sun and Moon remain my favorite. Although SWSH was a big jump in QoL and gameplay thanks to overworld Pokémon

 

[Comic Obsessed]

Sun&Moon had much more endearing characters and, while the story was not something mindblowing, it was still better than the apparently nonexistent one in Sword&Shield.