Evan Kozolanka

Personally, I found Sword and Shield to be pretty boring. Don't get me wrong, there were parts that I did enjoy, like the Wild area. Although I did find the wild area to be a but small after completing the game twice. It's a shame that the game became mind numbingly easy and the battle tower is fun for like 10 minutes, then it just gets repetitive. Also, I found that Hop, your rival, shows up a bit too much. When I say too much, I mean he shows up either before and/or after each gym battle with no way around it. I did enjoy Marnie as a rival though, as she battles you around 4 times. Same with Bede. The main villains plan isn't exactly what I would call noteworthy, and the same goes for the story. I did enjoy the unique challenges for each gym, although they really were just the same thing as gyms in previous games. The dynamax feature I personally found uninteresting as it just boosts your hp and gives you attacks that are just rebranded Z-moves, and it just reminds me a mega evolutions, which were way more interesting, at least to me. The champion is the exact antithesis of an interesting challenge as he actively chooses pokemon that are weak to your starter, except the other starter that he took, ie if you took Grookey he would take Scorbunny. Overall, I would give Sword and Shield a 6/10, it's fun, but I could have the same experience in older Pokemon games that have more to do. It also doesn't help that there isn't as much pokemon in Sword and Shield as there was in Gen 4 - 7. Hopefully the dlc patches most of the problems I had.