Pokemon Sword

I am almost finished with my Pokemon Sword Living Dex and want to take this time to address my complaints with the game. I have put well into 90 hours into Pokemon Sword, and I don’t want anyone to think I didn’t enjoy the game, but I do have some issues as a long time fan who has been playing since Red and Blue. Honestly, Dexit isn’t even one of the thing’s I care about, I enjoy the chance to try new pokemon by being forced away from my mainstays.

• Lack of GTS – Global Trade was the best thing ever. To have nothing like that in this game is making it very difficult or me to complete my Dex. Surprise Trade just doesn’t cut it, and Link Trade is basically Suprise Trade 2. Please for the love of god bring back the GTS.
• Trading with Friends – A genuine lack of any way to connect to a specific person. Apparently, to trade with friends, you have to use link trade and set a link code which is 4 digits long. Sounds easy enough, but there is a possibility you can connect to someone else using that same code. The biggest feature of pokemon is trading and battling, why do we have to make specific non-random trading as hard as possible?
• Rivals – I’m just going to go ahead and say that Pokemon Sword doesn’t even have a rival. Rivals has been an ongoing problem for quite a few Gen’s now. Rivals have gone from threats to now Hop just outright loses to everyone. Bede was more of a rival than anyone in the last few generations of Pokemon. Bring Back Gary Oak who would always show up at the most inopportune times to ruin your day. Rivals and Gym Leaders were the only difficult battles, so in a way, we’ve lost most of the game’s difficulty.
• Gym Leaders – Never have more than 4 pokemon, I can’t think of a single NPC outside of maybe Leon who actually had a full party of 6. Just more ongoing issues in how these games have absolutely zero difficulty. This region even treats Battles like a national sport, I equated it to European Soccer Culture once, yet no one takes the time to flesh out a team. It’s no wonder Leon was undefeated.
• Trainers – Where did they all go? I’m used to routes being packed full of opposing trainers to battle, but every route in this game seems to have maybe 5 max. Are people not allowed to train and battle unless they are doing the gym challenge? Is every one of those trainers on each route a challenge employee? Is this the most peaceful region in the Pokemon universe?
• Bike Outfits – Like the pokemon ride outfits before them, they are completely ugly and I wish they didn’t exist. I understand the league uniforms but who seriously takes the time to change their clothes before a bike ride other than serious marathon competitors. I’d like to have the bike outfit removed or have better options for it rather than just a color change.
• Clothing Choices – I loved it when they added character customization back in the 3DS games. However, I feel like Pokemon Sword has the worst and least amount of clothing choices and hairstyles so far. I was barely able to find any I liked in this game. I’m not sure why they can’t add to the list instead of starting over each generation with a new list of clothing. I know they are trying to have each region have it’s own fashion, but I’d love to see the options continue to grow instead of dwindle. I’m sure the Pokemon world has online shopping and global shipping.
• Hallways – Every route is pretty much a straight line with little to no deviation. It is impossible to get lost. Let me also list Spikemouth as the most disappointing city ever, a literal alleyway and nothing else. Even the Wild Area is pretty small and straight forward. I saw a chart about all the wasted map space and have to agree. There are a couple of small open areas, but there isn’t much to any o them. On a side note, all the routes felt quite short to me.
• Lack of Touchscreen Use – Ever since the DS introduced a touch screen we have been able to select menus and attacks or whatever by touching the screen. The Switch has a touch screen, so why remove that option now? it’s hard to go back to not having a touch screen option after it existing for so long on the handheld games.

I do enjoy these games as a diversion from the normal as opposed to the way Sun and Moon did it. Sun and Moon had a nice region without gyms and a league atmosphere at least until they ruined it by starting a league at the end, they tried to deviate from the stale old story of villains and gyms but just wound up repeating that anyways.

Sword and Shield nicely ditch the evil organization route for a region where Pokemon Battles are a massive sport. I will complain about all the evil organization bits they dangle in your face and never let you go near because “that’s for adults”. Why dangle that in our face if you aren’t going to let us participate. I would rather it have been left out and just stuck to the Sports story, I do understand however with post-game that dangerous happenings become the job of the champion and I guess that is the story’s way of saying “let the champion handle it”.