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I think Pokemon Sword/Shield has the worst story I have ever played through (SPOILERS)
- Thread starter Splader
- Start date
I didn't notice Fi's character because she spent all her time telling me how keys work with unskippable cutscenes showing me the doors I'm supposed to unlock with said keys. It's a puzzle, Fi - let me solve it!
The writing and story may be worse than Sun and Moon but you'll be grateful for less dialogue during your subsequent playthroughs of Sword and Shield. Pokemon games are designed to be played at least 3 times because there are always 3 starters. I haven't enjoyed a Pokémon game this much since SoulSilver.
I just played Moon again to get ready for Shield and Sun and Moon had way more cutscenes and dialogue than Sword and Shield. Shield felt about a third the length of Moon.
It's almost like their game design philosophy (that kids are dumb, have the attention span of a goldfish and need to have everything spoonfed to them) seeps into the story more and more, too.
Everytime people say "at least SWSH cut the handholding!" i wonder the same. The only difference is that SWSH is shorter. But you're as interrupted during every ten steps you take to do/hear menial stuff just the same, if anything Hop felt as a more constant annoyance than Hau and that was already a pretty low standard
At least Hop would keep his chatter to the battles unlike Hau who would just talk for the sake of character development. Nobody cares about the story in Pokémon, give us BOTW already. Pokémon GO was far more popular before they had events with story dialogue. Every second reading is a second you could have spent battling or catching Pokemon.
You expressed my thoughts on the story perfectly. Maybe the post-game stuff flushes things out more, but I just don't care anymore. Still had a blast with the game itself though!
-Yay time for my fight against Leon!
-Hey fucker I'm back and I'm into fairies now! Come bite my thumb if you know the stakes!
10 minutes later
-Kay now time to actually fight Le-
Screen in the stadium: some stuff happening with Rose
20 minutes later
Now that you have captured a legendary draconic Gigamaxed entity that you never heard about until 10 minutes ago, you can actually go wreck Leon's ass with Eternatus!
-Hey fucker I'm back and I'm into fairies now! Come bite my thumb if you know the stakes!
10 minutes later
-Kay now time to actually fight Le-
Screen in the stadium: some stuff happening with Rose
20 minutes later
Now that you have captured a legendary draconic Gigamaxed entity that you never heard about until 10 minutes ago, you can actually go wreck Leon's ass with Eternatus!
Oh its awful. Its actually insultingly awful. Pokemon Red & Blue had more story to this.
I think of the Fairy Gym town (Ballonlea) and the town with the saunas and how cool they look and how little you do in those towns.
There is zero story, zero dungeons, zero side things, no bad guys, etc.
I just finished the 8th gym. Typically, I would do everything in a Pokemon game, I'd catch the entire dex...but I have no reason to. There is zero point anymore cause the Galar region sucks.
My favourite little part when you beat the 8th gym. And you leave and the town is cheering. They never actually face you so if you move 10 feet, they're just cheering to nobody.
I don't get how this game has an open critic score of 80. I feel like I'm struggling to find out what Sword/Shield do well.
Oh its BS. The game has no side stuff, tells you where to go if you pause the game, and constantly forces you with cutscenes into the next area. Sword/Shield is more handholding than any game before it.
I think of the Fairy Gym town (Ballonlea) and the town with the saunas and how cool they look and how little you do in those towns.
There is zero story, zero dungeons, zero side things, no bad guys, etc.
I just finished the 8th gym. Typically, I would do everything in a Pokemon game, I'd catch the entire dex...but I have no reason to. There is zero point anymore cause the Galar region sucks.
My favourite little part when you beat the 8th gym. And you leave and the town is cheering. They never actually face you so if you move 10 feet, they're just cheering to nobody.
I don't get how this game has an open critic score of 80. I feel like I'm struggling to find out what Sword/Shield do well.
Oh its BS. The game has no side stuff, tells you where to go if you pause the game, and constantly forces you with cutscenes into the next area. Sword/Shield is more handholding than any game before it.
They played that card very well with Sun and Moon. At the end of the day, you were just tagging along in Lillie's journey.
Sword and Shield is no one's story.
Holy shit I agree with this so much. The glimwood tangle town has to be the most useless and disappointing location in a Pokémon game since the dimension with Ultra Necrozma. In general towns feel really empty and unfinished in this game. I also despise the cafés and restaurants that are only here to:
A- Daily fight
B- Cutscene where the characters order something but you don't even see them eat.
Idk, just having an NPC selling lattes to heal my pokémons and stuff doesn't sound like the end of the world, and it could actually add some realism to he scene...
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You are the Player Character and the universe will contort itself to fulfill your capricious whim of becoming champion. Hop, Marnie, and even Bede all have motivations that could make them Main Character material if they weren't standing in the path of your smiling, soulless, wide-eyed husk of an avatar. Instead they're just stepping stones on your path to greatness.
My headcanon is that Leon gave you a starter just so you could be Hop's punching bag and help him surpass his brother, but he never imagined the depths of your insatiable hunger for power.
OP
OP
Lol! And Leon even acknowledged it if you had Eternatus in your party (though I wonder how, this man have X-ray vision or something?) Ngl I did feel a bit bad putting it in, but after forcing me to do all this stuff before finally fighting him, I think I deserved it.
Oh it's just a personal opinion of mine. I haven't finished many games (maybe a few a year), I usually drop them if the story is too nonsensical or something else is bad or I grow bored etc.
What made this time different is that I really was enjoying pretty much everything else a lot minus the story. Probably one of the main reasons it was so damn jarring to me.
I thought the final boss with Eternatus being a max raid battle where the dogs join the battle was actually really well done and very cool. That's the extent of the good story stuff, though. lol
OP
OP
The idea that Hop is a clone of Hau makes no sense to me at all.
At best, their only shared traits are being energetic and friendly. Hau's arc is about how he doesn't take being a trainer seriously, that he doesn't push his Pokémon at all and he's focused only on having a good time. All the while he feels insecure compared to the player and his grandfather while basically forcing himself to be a good sport. This comes full circle in USUM, where he applies himself and pushes past his negative self image to become a potential Champion contender.
Hop is nothing like this, because his problems stem from the fact that he has TOO STRONG of a positive self image. He's so sure he'll be great, that when Bede trounces him, it utterly shatters his perception of himself, thinking that he has to completely reinvent himself. Everything he wants is also based on something others have, and he only gains peace with himself once he 1) accepts where he's been (shown by putting Dubwool back in his team), and 2) Finding a dream and purpose that isn't just emulating his brother by deciding to become a professor.
they're two very different people. You might as well say Silver is the same as Blue because they're both mean.
At best, their only shared traits are being energetic and friendly. Hau's arc is about how he doesn't take being a trainer seriously, that he doesn't push his Pokémon at all and he's focused only on having a good time. All the while he feels insecure compared to the player and his grandfather while basically forcing himself to be a good sport. This comes full circle in USUM, where he applies himself and pushes past his negative self image to become a potential Champion contender.
Hop is nothing like this, because his problems stem from the fact that he has TOO STRONG of a positive self image. He's so sure he'll be great, that when Bede trounces him, it utterly shatters his perception of himself, thinking that he has to completely reinvent himself. Everything he wants is also based on something others have, and he only gains peace with himself once he 1) accepts where he's been (shown by putting Dubwool back in his team), and 2) Finding a dream and purpose that isn't just emulating his brother by deciding to become a professor.
they're two very different people. You might as well say Silver is the same as Blue because they're both mean.
Agreed, I have no idea what people are talking about when they say it's way better. And yes, I have played USUM recently. They're about the same. And at least I was interested in what was happening in those games.
*is having battle*
*uses type advantage*
HAHAAAA I SHOULD EXPECT NO LESS OF MY RIVAL, THE GREATEST STRATEGIST THAT HAS EVER GRACED THIS LAND!
me:.....
*gets critical hit on next chance*
A CRITICAL HIT!? I WOULD EXPECT NO LESS OF MY RIVAL, AS WE ARE GODS WALKING AMONG MEN. NAY, NEANDERTHALS WITH OUR GREATNESS. Unfortunately I have lost so you should know face the champion my brother.
Me:... Ok
*uses type advantage*
I SEE YOUR POKEMON AND YOURSELVES HAVE MADE QUITE THE BOND TO PULL OFF A MOVE LIKE THAT, THAT WAS FUCKING WICKED HARRY EXPELLIARMUS
*uses type advantage*
HAHAAAA I SHOULD EXPECT NO LESS OF MY RIVAL, THE GREATEST STRATEGIST THAT HAS EVER GRACED THIS LAND!
me:.....
*gets critical hit on next chance*
A CRITICAL HIT!? I WOULD EXPECT NO LESS OF MY RIVAL, AS WE ARE GODS WALKING AMONG MEN. NAY, NEANDERTHALS WITH OUR GREATNESS. Unfortunately I have lost so you should know face the champion my brother.
Me:... Ok
*uses type advantage*
I SEE YOUR POKEMON AND YOURSELVES HAVE MADE QUITE THE BOND TO PULL OFF A MOVE LIKE THAT, THAT WAS FUCKING WICKED HARRY EXPELLIARMUS
OP
OP
I was pretty indifferent to X/Y's story and never expected to actively dislike a pokemon game's story, but somehow Sword/Shield managed to do it. Lore dumps every once in a while, the adults doing all of the cool plot stuff while preventing the player from doing anything "because they're a child," and then the awful non-League stuff in Wyndon (including an elevator section and "pls wait one day before you initiate the apocalypse," resulting in the biggest anti-climax moment in the series) was dreadful.
I hated this, Hop says this shit every time you battle him like you've never done it before.
I am fine with a bad story as long as they don't spend almost the entire game hand-feeding progress to you, never letting you just go do your thing for a while, which happened in Sun/Moon. At least Sword/Shield give you the Wild Area to mess around in if you get tired of going down the main path, so they're not entirely the worst.
I thought because it is for kids at first but I'm 41 hours in and that's ridiculous even for kids.
Hop was the worst part of the game, and one of the worst characters in existence. I don't really have an issue with the rest of the story, but there isn't much there.
You were nauseated? Did you have to go and puke your guts out after reading this thread?
Or were you, a member of this forum, engaging in some straight-up nauseating hyperbole?
Lol exactly
To be fair, the only trainers who know about type advantage are you, Hop, and Leon. All other gym leaders and rivals seem to have missed that concept.
Glad I'm not the only one who rolled my eyes at the irony, unless they were trying to be sarcastic (which it didnt seem like)
Not much to say other than I agree and feel the same way. Sword & Shield's story isn't just bad, it's actively bad. At times it could pass for parody. A story this terrible can only be the result of being nobody's priority. It's as if any story the game has is purely an accident.
Pokémon is not known for deep, challenging narratives, but even its most basic and straightforward stories have been better than this.
If you've ever wanted a Pokémon game with no story at all, but would still somehow like to be interrupted constantly and gated to the point of digital asphyxiation, have I got a treat for you.
Pokémon is not known for deep, challenging narratives, but even its most basic and straightforward stories have been better than this.
If you've ever wanted a Pokémon game with no story at all, but would still somehow like to be interrupted constantly and gated to the point of digital asphyxiation, have I got a treat for you.
A bit off topic but which would you recommend: Sun or Ultra Sun? I remember reading some negative stuff about US.
Ultra Sun. You can catch all the legends, there's the rainbow rocket episode where you battle villains from previous gens, the game is a bit more difficult than vanilla Sun/Moon and there are very cool moves tutors which are not present in Sun/Moon.
Plus, the online is very active.
Also, Sun and Moon are missing mega evolution stones while Ultra Sun has them all.
I thought the story wasn't bad. It basically turned into an action movie at the end.
The only thing I didn't like about it is the false ending aspect of it. Like I just wanted to beat the champion and get on with post game stuff, then all of a sudden I'm in a 3 hour long action movie out of nowhere.
The only thing I didn't like about it is the false ending aspect of it. Like I just wanted to beat the champion and get on with post game stuff, then all of a sudden I'm in a 3 hour long action movie out of nowhere.
See lol.
I mostly want to play it because of the story cause some people say it's good and I'm curious. Did they change the characters/story that much in Ultra?