I hate Pokémon Sword & Shield with a burning passion. In fact, I absolutely despise Pokémon Sword & Shield, and the only reason I ever got Sword was because it was given to me for Christmas in 2019 and I never had a single reason to purchase Shield, especially ever since we learned how unbalanced Zacian was compared to her younger brother Zamazenta. Everything about the game ranging from the region’s design to the poorly written human characters to the forgettable new Pokémon to the reused Pokémon models to the slashed National PokéDex and everything in between that you can think of, I hate all of it. I could probably make an entire thread detailing everything I hate about this absolute abomination of a video game. Even calling it that feels generous, seeing that calling this a video game implies that this is a product that costs actual money that I could justify selling to another person for a reasonable price.
I didn’t use feel this way, though. Back in 2020-21, the game was… barely tolerable, at least. I did actually purchase the DLC for my Sword cartridge, but only so I could try and do some of the Dynamax Adventures. I did attempt to give team building in this game a fair shot, but I got so bored so quickly that I ended up boxing my entire team (all two or three Pokémon I had) in favor of wanting to speedrun through the rest of the game with a significantly overlevelled Gyarados and a copious amount of Exp. Candies to make it happen. There are actually more than three Pokémon added in the Galar region that I would say I at least kind of like- I tend to like the Water-Type starters a decent amount no matter what region I’m playing, Galarian Zigzagoon’s up there with the old Zigzagoon and Patrat it was my first full odds shiny in black 2, cut me some slack as my favorite earlygame regional rodent evolution line, I’m pretty sure Hatenna and possibly its evolutions might be autistic-coded and I think that’s neat, and my college roommate of four years ended up giving me an unironic appreciation for one of his favorite Pokémon, Urshifu, that I did not have prior to us meeting and bonding over a number of different games and topics.
As the years went on and I took another look at this game, deciding if I wanted to actually give Pokémon Sword a second, this time actually fair chance… yeah, no, I’m good. Even if I can’t say in good faith that the DLC is nearly as horrible as the base game, enjoying Pokémon Legends Arceus and Pokémon Scarlet & Violet and its own DLC more than I expected has only put more of a damper on what I consider Pokémon’s worst core series stretch from Ultra Sun & Ultra Moon to Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl. And even then, I only list Ultra Sun & Ultra Moon there because I’m still salty they weren’t true Unova-style sequels like I thought they could or should have been; without that specific context Ultra Sun & Ultra Moon are probably slightly better than the original Alola games overall. I have no such praise I can provide to what I consider the worst Pokémon region in my overall rankings, even if a couple other regions are slightly worse in specific areas of interest.
The only positive experience or memory I got out of these games was the fact that my 2019 calendar year in regards to the Pokémon franchise was, to put it lightly, absolutely freaking insane, and that had it not been for those specific moments earlier in the year that have unironically changed my life, I probably would not have been willing to give the franchise a second chance when the 2022 core series games would come out a couple years later. Seeing as Generation 8 saw the origin of the Pokémon Legends sub-series of games, I do think a Galar-focused Pokémon Legends game could improve upon the region and my perception of it while generally being a very thematically fitting idea for a Legends game. That does not increase my appreciation for the original iteration of Galar, however. If that logic were true, I would be much higher on all of the non-Platinum Sinnoh games, which I also strongly dislike but not quite as much as these 2019 games.
Let me summarize this post this way. You want to know how much I hate these games? I hate Pokémon Sword & Shield as much as I love Pokémon Ranger: Guardian Signs, a game that I’ve designated as both my favorite and my most nostalgic video game in existence and one of a select few games that I can say with confidence helped me become who I am today and helped prevent me from doing anything outlandishly stupid when my mental wellness started dropping rapidly during the early 2020s. The fact that I am physically capable of hating a work of fiction as much as I love the game that I am convinced was quite literally made for me should tell you something. The Pokémon franchise and the video game industry at large has had a disturbingly strong impact on not just my mental wellness and, if my discussions with my counselor are anything to go off of, actual threats of self-harm for a while there- yeah, how’s that for wrapping up a Smogoff post?- and while my mental wellness and the quality of my life have thankfully significantly improved since the early part of this decade, I can’t help but shake the feeling that Pokémon Sword & Shield were the start of a dark and disturbing trend for me that would only later materialize fully and make me understand that I wasn’t just overly attached and addicted to playing Nintendo games. I hated these games so much that I was willing to throw away everything the Pokémon franchise and Nintendo had done for me up to that point, and had I not made the decision to turn away from what was causing my irrational behaviors, fears, and causing me to become clinically depressed, things could have been much… much worse.
she is FABULOUS
