Mel Ende (Birb)

Love to rate this game higher- been following it since the kickstarter and what the company has done with it is pretty skeevy in general. One patch update within the first few weeks of it coming out, then just selling a side visual novel game for it and now pushing at people to fund their next kickstarter. Looking at their community posts on steam, the only messages they've put out past the kickstarter for the other game, wanting people to vote for them to have awards, and a single patch update is sales on the game price. Absolutely destroyed any faith I'd have in their games going forward, the game was incredibly clunky despite the beautiful artwork and animation that promoted it.

Tbh anywhere from a 2-4 star rating and I probably won't argue with you. These remakes are just that- pretty straight up remakes, which I'm personally enjoying a lot more than what ORAS had to offer. There's positives and negatives from the 10ish hours I've played thus far: -the EXP share obliterates the potential for challenge yet again, for... what, the third entry in a row? I understand having it there automatically, but there really needs to be the ability to turn it off. By the second gym you'll be significantly overlevelled if you aren't swapping out your party. -the environments when you're battling are **gorgeous**. The overworld looks like it could be gorgeous, but...there's issues. There's this weird bloom-esque quality that leaves the screen kind of... pastel-ish and faded? And does begin to hurt to look at after a while. Clouds glitch back into place if you're standing somewhere too long. The water texture... was a choice. The faces of characters have this odd, lego quality of being painted on that doesn't match the art style. The sizes of pokemon in battles verses the environments and trainers is buck wild. It feels like they tried to capture the charm of something like the remake of Link's Awakening but kind of just made a game that looks like a Polly Pocket instead. I still find this to be the best pokemon entry on the switch (Pokemon Snap is an outlier and can remain precious) but there's definitely issues there and it kind of feels bad to reflect and think that Pokemon has just continuously had their foot on a downhill slope for quite some time. This game is good- but that's it. I really hope Gamefreak realizes soon that their idea of releasing a Pokemon game a year is absolutely destroying their quality and reputation, just...please chill and actually work on a game until it feels complete. Please.

For what it was meant to be, this game is bad. Two years later and this game still stings to think about. The absolute best thing this game had going for it was graphics. The battle system was smooth and interesting, but ridiculously easy. The music is nothing to write home about, aside from one or two ones that stick out (and of those, they're mostly remixes of songs from previous titles, so...do they count?) Where this game hurt the most was the story. Advertised as a love letter to the players, it's not so much what it is that hurts (though what it is, is bad), it's all the lost potential. Imagine if Disney had unclenched their money grubbing rectum long enough for the story to Actually Happen During the Game, instead of shunting it all into the last two hours. KH as a series has always had a problem of fragmented story-telling; there's a beginning, a middle, and an end, but the Disney worlds usually have little to do with it. KH3 took this problem an escalated it beyond all reason. Sora and co aren't participating in worlds anymore- they're there to watch a movie with you that you don't want to watch. It's so, painfully obvious that there were problems in the development of this game. And it's really hard to know who to blame for that- Disney, who have Square by the balls due to their ownership of KH as an IP, and their 20 mile long list of "YOU CAN'T MAKE ANNA AND ELSA FIGHT EVER" details? Nomura, who seems to be so sick of KH as a series he'd rather just burn it down as he goes? The continually poor shuffling of management and resources in Square, as they continue to do what a lot of studios are now doing- stretching themselves too thin by promising too much? It's hard to say. The result of it, however, is that I haven't bought anything further in the series. And I probably won't. Looking back, KH3 isn't a hideous game. It's not a good game even without being there for the story, however, and as someone who was all in for the resolutions I'd been waiting 16 years to come to life? KH3 just kind of hurt.

Sword and Shield are a balance of good and bad- long term players might find themselves likening the game to Black and White, or the Sinnoh era. Like BW and DPP, SwSh feels very transitionary as a game- it’s not where the series is at, but gives a lot of insight into future direction whilst offering more quality of life improvements... though it does add some problems as it goes. -The game is very short. Having finished the main story, I’m really at a loss for what to do next, so definitely keep that in mind if the price tag is something for serious consideration to your bank account. +/-The new network features cause some substantial lag spikes; these haven’t really ruined the gameplay for me, and they don’t make it impossible to play, but they’re very noticeable. Keep in mind as well that you and your friends will be locked into interacting with people at the same arc of the game, which was disappointing. No championing your friends as they just start out when you’re already champion. On the other hand, when you do make curries and conduct some raids with others, it’s super fun. It can be a swing or miss to coordinate, but I hope this feature continues getting the development it needs to be great. -/+ Pokemon are back on the overworld again, which does breathe a bit of life into the game, but also becomes irritating after a while. A lot of them will rush at you when they see you, and in later stages, you can’t actually outrun them. It gets a bit tiring pretty fast when Electrike#9713 barrels ineffectively into your shins for yet another battle you’re not going to bother having. +/- the 3D modelling...I’m torn on. The newer Pokémon look fantastic, and most others do too. If the base models weren’t changed (and I understand that evidence definitely points at that being the case), the overlay for them was. The new skins and shading look good and add a lot of life— which makes the Pokémon not edited to the same extent really stand out. I kept getting severe uncanny valley when looking at my Leafeon, a mainstay on my party since the second gym, whose quality of model in comparison to every other member of my team is kind of shocking by comparison. Playing the game on handheld, everything looked mostly fine, but tbh I really don’t think I’ll be looking to play this game hooked up to my tv anytime soon. +/- Camping was both a highlight and disappointment. There are so few things to do with your Pokémon, and that was a let down. More toys would’ve been awesome!! The cooking, on the other hand, was really baller, and took me back to making berry blocks in RB. I ended up using it more and more as I went along in the game, but it became pretty much the sole reason I camped. + I really liked the addition of exp candy. It meant that the few times I did want to get a new Pokémon in my main party, i didn’t have to spend forever grinding them up, and I could keep my entire party pretty level with each other the entire run. It did pretty much immediately lead to me being overlevelled, however; up till gym three, I was pretty constantly worrying that my Pokémon would level so much that I’d lose the ability to command them. Having the option to turn exp share off should still be a permanent feature, and I’m not sure why it’s missing here, The game is super fun overall, but it really suffered from the obvious amount of crunch and cut corners that I can’t help but think rests pretty heavily on the near suicidal idea of releasing a Pokémon game a year. Hopefully, a lot of the outcry from this game will still sit with gamefreak regardless of the overall good reception now that the game is out, because there’s plenty of indications that Sword and Shield show a direction of continued improvement to the series, but for the first time, it also feels like it could go the other way.