 Today I want to talk a little bit about Pokemon Sword and Shield because today the review embargo has lifted and no Not every review in the world that's gonna come up for this game is coming out today There will be people that review it later. There will be youtubers and other people who get the game on launch on Friday They end up reviewing the game either over the weekend or next week or however long it takes them to complete the game and 100% or whatever they feel like they need to do in order to review the game Right now it does stand as an 84 on Metacritic, but this is just based on 10 critics so far There's bound to be 30 40 50 plus count in the end. So this early scoring is an indicative of much but I have taken some time to actually read some of the reviews and I know that this Should mean that I can't review the game myself because now that I've read other people's reviews It'll obviously impact my opinion and I'm but I think I might review this game anyways Down the line. It's gonna be a little bit. It's not gonna be anytime soon. We're talking You know early 2020 or something that I might I might finally throw a review of Pokemon Sword and Pokemon Shield but I Was just kind of glancing at through these reviews because I'm curious what they say like what about it makes it Like why is IGN giving this game a 93? Whereas Nintendo life is given an 80 whereas daily stars given it a 60 Why is there such a wide variance in some of these scores? And you would figure a Nintendo place like Nintendo life would be more likely to score it favorably And I'm just gonna read some of the summaries from these critic reviews on Metacritic Just because I feel like this is a good way of teasing a little bit of what the game is about without Destroying this game for people and spoiling too much so IGN it is an example says Pokemon Sword and Shield are the best Games in the series stream lighting its most tedious traditions without losing any of the charm I think that's gonna be I think that's what Pokemon Sword and Shield's trying to do It's trying to be the best IGN thinks it's the best But that doesn't necessarily make it the best for each individual person for some people the fact that you can't have every Pokemon Is already going to make it not be the best You know that's just a personal desire for a lot of gamers But moving on games radar says gameplay tweaks and attention to detail make Pokemon Sword and Shield the most compelling Pokemon World to date So they're kind of agreeing with IGN They gave it a 90 game spot gave it a 90 as well And they said in collecting battling and exploring Sword and Shield cut out the bloat and focus on what makes these pillars of The Pokemon games so captivating in the first place You're not held back by overly complicated back-end systems or hoops to jump through in the outset You can start wandering the Galar Regency in its new Pokemon and trying out its new battle strategies But very little in your way This leaves you free to enjoy what Pokemon is all about and that makes for an incredibly strong showing for the series proper debut on switch and a lot of that makes Pokemon Sword and Shield sound like exactly what I Want Pokemon to be I do feel Pokemon as a series has been a little bloated Pokemon as a series has made people jump through a lot of hoops and made systems a little bit more complicated And they needed to be and that's one reason why I enjoy it Let's go Pikachu and let's go Eevee so much in particular Let's go Eevee because that's the version I had I really enjoyed these games because it made me Appreciate some of the simpler things in Pokemon and not worry so much about some of the complicated stuff Well a lot of those complications are reintroduced into this game a lot of the other bloat was cut and That I think it's gonna make a more enjoyable experience for me. So I think game spots review might be the best one to represent my feelings In terms of making me interested in these games because again, I've been playing Pokemon since the very beginning I stopped after I think gen 4 or gen 5, but I'm really looking forward to getting back into the series for you know on a home console at least on my TV first time I've really done that since the super game boy back in the day, but Let's move on ever I dot IT I've never heard of this place, but they're they're included on Metacritic It says Pokemon Sword and Shield are complex and convincing games a solid plot a more varied gameplay and a very thought-plea created level design Are the hallmarks of this new Pokemon generation? They gave it an 85 now Nintendo life I mentioned earlier. They gave it an 80 They said Pokemon Sword and Shield succeeded in bringing some new ideas to the table But they're also somewhat guilty of not pushing things far enough. What's done, right is done, right? But what's done wrong feels like it comes from a decade old design document There are moments contained within that are the best the series has ever been But this joy is at times spoiled by contrasting moments that left us Disappointed and did not match up with the rest of what the rest of these games can offer What we've got here is an experience full of highs and lows from the unadultered wonder and joy of seeing a brand new Pokemon in a stadium full of cheering crowds to the monotonous and dragged-out dialogue. We just wanted to skip So it's interesting Nintendo life's actually been pretty harsh about the game I I think this is going to be a polarizing experience I think is what I'm getting from these reviews either you're not as critical about Pokemon and you end up loving it Or you are pretty critical and you're gonna not rate this game Maybe as high as you think now Pokemon games if you're actually looking at You know game review scores on the whole, you know, especially on metacritic where we're getting this stuff from Pokemon games in general aren't like these 90 plus experiences. They're always in the 80s Pokemon Let's go Pikachu. I think was a 79. Let's go Evie was an 80. I don't know why there's a one-point difference But it just is what it is You know, I think there's like Pokemon Y or Pokemon X one of those are like one of the highest scoring Pokemon games like an 87 or an 88 But Pokemon games in general are not like these 90 plus experiences anyways in terms of reviews It's just a really popular series. It's easy to get into one of the easiest to get into RPGs out there Yes, but if Pokemon's an RPG, I mean, I think everyone knows that but it's not talked about I think enough that it's that it's basically a Beginner's guide to RPGs does that make sense? But it's a beginner's guide that can get complicated if you want it to I don't know I mean, maybe that's just my viewpoint on Pokemon and I'm about to get blasted for it Moving on EGM given an 80 and they said the first new generation Pokemon games to release on a proper home console does not Disappoint new features like Dynamaxing and the wild area are fun additions that make the experience of becoming a Pokemon champion Still feel fresh. It's just a shame that the game freak didn't lean on the new features more than they did so Kind of a whole hum review there, you know, yeah, they liked it, but you know, it could have been better Daily star now these are the ones that so far have given it a 60 and it says Pokemon sword and shield are not bad games So it starts out with a look to give our bad despite our score but fun character arcs and inventive creative designs of the new Pokemon are often offset by poor pacing and restrictive world design the world of Galar is charming and Is a Pokemon interpretation of Britain I've dreamed of since I was a kid But between gating what Pokemon you can catch behind gym badges some half-baked route City designs and a modest amount of post-game content sword and shield can only be called a good Pokemon game but not a great one and obviously they use the full scale because They've literally said it's a good game But they gave it a 60 and for a lot of people's 60s like everybody panic But some some people actually use the full scale and mean the full scale It's not that anything that's not an 80 or 90 is a bad game. So I Just find it very interesting going through those reviews and there's more And there's gonna be more cropping up throughout the day you're gonna probably see plenty of youtubers as well coming out with their reviews and I gotta say that Setting aside all of the game freak BS We've had a lot of criticism over the the Pokedex We've had a lot of criticism at times over the art direction or some of the animations. We've also had a lot of Concern over game freak employees being upset maybe not being upset But thank you game freak movement and they thank you game freak movement actually getting mocked in a lot of ways because people think It's hilarious that fans need to thank a company for making them rich because that's what fans did Is we made game freak a Pokemon company and everyone else rich People wondered if they should be mad at Nintendo people wanted that should be mad at the Pokemon company or mad at game freak Or if we should even be mad at all, maybe we should just wait till the games come out judge the games on their own merit You know, we're so focused on all these things when none of us have actually played the games to know if it's worth cutting Pokemon And all this stuff like it's a lot of give and take and Pokemon is just a polarizing franchise It just is when I have spoken out against Pokemon in the past when I say spoken out against I'm talking about why I fell out of love with Pokemon, which I'm not even 100% sure exactly What did it? And how much I love let's go Pikachu and let's go Evie. I don't know if you guys remember last year I was praising. Let's go Pikachu and let's go easy heading into launch and I praised it after playing it and People were blasting me Pokemon fans were blasting me for my love of the let's go games And it just felt so strange to be attacked in so many ways by Pokemon fans And then the watch these Pokemon fans turn on big oh well gen 8's coming and then attacking gen 8 before it even gets here It does feel weird. It feels like the Pokemon fan base is a little fickle now This isn't everyone of course a lot of you guys out there a lot of you Pokemon fans That are patiently waiting for your favorite reviewer to get the review out or are picking this game of day one You bought the switch light bundle or whatever the case might be Some of you guys are gonna be perfectly happy and fine and happy go lucky and everything's gonna be great And I know a lot of kids that play it aren't gonna be as critical and all that so but but it's just interesting watching The Pokemon fan base do what they do because I see I've been really tight and close with the Zelda fan base for a long time And I've seen the Zelda fan base overreact the things But even then we didn't seem to attack individuals for having different opinions I you know before Breath of the Wild Zelda to the adventurer link was my favorite Zelda game and Ocarina of Time wasn't even in my top 10 and there were people that thought I was stupid for having those opinions But they didn't attack me over it They didn't come at me and you know yell at me about those opinions They just said why and then when I explain why they're like, oh, okay Well, I mean we can't argue with your personal opinion and what you enjoying games and all of that You know they can disagree and I think it's kind of the same thing with Pokemon here where it's okay to be critical It's okay to not that to be unhappy with what happens in Sword and Shield Maybe you don't like Dynamax maybe you're really unhappy over the Pokedex these feelings are okay But what's also okay is for people to not care about that stuff and to love the game and I think what ends up happening is you see a clashing of personalities and this is the internet and The negative side of everything always seems to get amplified over the positive side So I want to kind of give a little positive spin on this as we head into the launch of Pokemon Sword and Shield And that is that these games are going to sell extremely well these games are going to make a lot of people happy For a lot of us This will be our first time seeing most of these Pokemon including the new ones of course in HD Because there hasn't meant every single Pokemon in HD before so That's going to be really exciting in that of itself I guess you if you count you know I actually know it hasn't been every single Pokemon because I was gonna say even Pokemon Let's go Peach or let's go Eevee or I really should say even that game plus the Pokemon Let's go the phone app doesn't really have every Pokemon and I know this one doesn't have every Pokemon either Oh my god, don't remind me but it's gonna have a lot like 400 Pokemon or whatever it is in HD It's gonna be glorious. We get to fight in stadiums we get to do a lot of crazy things and I think that a lot of us are gonna come away pretty happy with these games Including myself because after all this is the first true generation of Pokemon I'm deep diving in really since gen 4 and I am looking forward to either falling in love with Pokemon all over again And this is the game that does it although I really did enjoy let's go But it was gen one and I've been called the gen one or before um, or I'm going to You know end up not liking the game and maybe figure out what it is about Pokemon that doesn't click with me anymore Either way, I'm looking really forward to playing this game. I'm not sure which version I'm gonna get yet Probably leaning towards shield because it's blue and blue is my favorite color But we'll see if Eric ends up picking up shield, then I'll probably get soared and I look forward to having a deeper conversation About Pokemon on a future podcast episode Got some ideas for the podcast coming up, but Well, we'll get into that another day. Anyways, thank you guys so much for tuning in Hopefully you enjoyed this and you're enjoying all the reviews popping up around the internet And I look forward to talking more Pokemon with you guys once I get a chance to go hands-on with it Hopefully sometime in December. All right, folks Subscribe for more content and I'll catch you in the next video