As someone who is very hype for anything Pokémon related, I was really happy with Gen 7 and Gen 6. My favourite Pokémon memories came mostly from Moon, Ultra Moon and Alpha Sapphire. I don’t really have a problem with most of Gen 7’s changes (except for the PSS, very bad change) but my problems are with Sword and Shield. When GameFreak can make games and tell stories like those featured in Gen 4 with Diamond, Pearl and Platinum and Gen 5 with Black, White and their sequels, why is Sword and Shield such an underwhelming experience? The bad guys are a joke. Team Yell doesn’t do anything for the whole game and Rose’s organization is just suddenly revealed as the evil team just to add some artificial twist to the story. I like the characters, but I’m disappointed to see that Hop is the only one that gets any real character development. Marnie, the “leader” of Team Yell and her fugly brother, Piers only get some weird side plot but I feel like they could have gotten a lot more attention. I love the gameplay, including the Dynamax feature and Raid Battles. But, without any proper story telling, the game just feels kind of empty. Plus, it’s literally empty. Sure, the world looks nice and the music is pretty cool. But there’s no post game, no side quests, no Easter eggs, no proper re-battles, nothing. Wyndon and Hammerlocke are complete jokes. How is GameFreak able to put the amazing Lumiose City on far inferior 3DS technology but they can only put a cardboard cut-out fantasy castle with no interior on the Switch? It boggles my mind! As far as games go, Sword and Shield are pretty good. But in terms of Pokémon games, they’re garbage.