Within a week, the principal had banned Pokémon at my school, and my mom enforced a strict moratorium on all collectible cardboard in our household. I haplessly handed over my binder to a fast-talking upperclassman, who sifted through my hoard of cards, commented on my good taste, and slyly plundered my stock before I knew what hit me. ( The movie made $10 million on its opening day.) Lunch hours at elementary schools turned into a Wall Street trading floor, as kids bartered, hustled, and haggled over newly minted trading card collections. 3 on Billboard’s US Dance Singles chart in 2000, not long after Pokémon: The First Movie opened in American theaters. The theme song from the Pokémon TV series, colloquially known as “Gotta Catch ’Em All,” somehow reached No. Pikachus, Charmanders, and Squirtles stormed children’s entertainment, reshaping card shops, fast-food toys, and Saturday mornings in their wake. If you were in grade school in the United States in 1998, you probably remember it clearly. Pokémon wasn’t anywhere, and then it was everywhere. Part of the Fads Issue of The Highlight, our home for ambitious stories that explain our world. For more information, see our ethics policy. These do not influence editorial content, though Vox Media may earn commissions for products purchased via affiliate links. They’re not only the best Pokémon games ever made - they’re the best video games I’ve played all year. After two decades of getting closer to that reality, Sword and Shield make it real. To me, Pokémon Sword and Shield highlight the possibilities of what modern video games - with all our technological advancements - can be, bringing what were once childhood dreams to interactive life. With Sword and Shield, the series finally caught up to my imagination. I vividly remember playing Pokémon Red all those years ago and wondering if the games would ever reach the point of the cartoons, creating a world where wild pokémon roam free and my battles had the stakes that Ash Ketchum’s did. The games themselves are less Pokémon game and more like a lovingly created, playable version of the popular anime. But with the maddeningly difficult Battle Tower and the sheer delight of exploring the Wild Area and taking on the endgame multiplayer raids, there’s plenty of depth for more mature fans willing to put the effort in to train the ultimate team of competitive fighters.īut the difficulty almost doesn’t matter. Sword and Shield are still easy games by nearly any metric, at least for the main storyline. The games mark the biggest step forward in ridding the series from the annoying artificial barriers to fun it had erected over the years, and in turn make more high-level aspects of the long-running RPG series even more accessible. Sword and Shield even does its best to be transparent about that with in-battle menus, allowing players to see which moves are most effective or what temporary stat effects are in play. That’s before getting into all the quality-of-life changes that Game Freak has made with Sword and Shield, cutting out unnecessary cruft like limited-use move teaching items, environmental moves like Fly and Surf that were essential to travel, and the requirement to have to travel back to a town to change up your team’s lineup. ![]() It’s so much fun to explore and see what rare or interesting pokémon is around the next corner, in fact, that it’s responsible for sidetracking most of my playthrough of the actual gyms and storyline. You can camp with your pokémon, creating delicious snacks to share or just play fetch with them. A wide open area to explore, with different biomes, filled with dozens of different pokémon just wandering around and massive Dynamax and Gigantamax raid battles that let players team up across the internet for truly legendary pokémon battles. ![]() On top of all that is the Wild Area, the crown jewel of Sword and Shield, which feels like the future of the franchise. It’s one thing to be told that you’re competing in a country-wide league against the pros - but it’s another to see building-sized pokémon duking it out in a massive stadium to the roaring cheers of a huge crowd. For decades, the Pokémon games have told me that I was a legendary trainer, facing down the world’s greatest pokémon masters in huge battles, but Sword and Shield finally shows that. There’s the pervasive sports culture (complete with practice fields, rowdy fans, and merchandise) around Pokémon battles that makes my adventure feel a part of the world.Īnd then there are Dynamax gym battles. Wild pokémon peer their head out of the grass as I adventure along the path, ambling along in their native habits like the wild creatures we’ve always been told they were. Sword and Shield’s Galar region feels alive to me in a way that no Pokémon game ever has. Pokémon Sword and Shield are the best Pokémon games in years
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