Pokémon Sword and Shield/YMMV

• Alas, Poor Scrappy: Even though he wasn't killed off, Hop, who is an Expy of Hau and represents EVERYTHING that's wrong with SwSh, became like very sympathetic for some IRL Poketrainers, who managed to defeat him for one last time.
• And the Fandom Rejoiced: The tutorial modes are optional and using a hands off model, which means that Pokemon veterans will be able to jump into the action and newcomers can learn how things work.
• Base Breaking Character: Depending on who you ask, Hop is either one of the best characters in the game with a strong character arc and a worthy rival for the PlayerCharacter, or one of the worst rivals in the series due to his endless praise of his big brother Leon, practically showing up every 5 minutes, being too similar to Hau right down to using some of his animations, and being the personification of the hand-holding Pokemon games have taken since Gen 6.
• Creator's Pet/Pandering to The Base: Charizard was given the "Overrated/Creator's Pet" stone according to some gamers, since according to the November 6, 2019 leaks, he's the only remaining old gen starters (besides Pikachu) that made the cut. This even made some gamers hate the Gen 1 Starter, since they feel that Game Freak is ONLY pandering to Charizard fans (also, that Charizard is the company's favorite), and their favorite starter wasn't given the time of day.
  • Game Freak referencing the whole Kanto region is also this. The only other region with as much Pokemon in this game is, strangely enough, Unova.
• Critical Dissonance: Some video game journalists loves Pokemon SwSh, even dismissing the reported bugs and concerns, but some of the fanbase has either mixed reviews or downright hate the game (made worse by reported bugs).
  • According to Metacritic states that critics gave Pokemon Shield 81 Metascore and Pokemon Sword 81 Metascore, while the audience gives both games a 3.8 and 3.5.
  • One of the IGN writers outright dismisses all problems with SwSh, including game breaking bugs, as being bought up by gamers as being conspiracy theorists.
  • Subverted slightly with Nintendo Life's review address both the pros and cons about the game, despite rating it an eight.
  • Subverted with Eurogamer's review which stated that there's severe main issues and Dexit ain't one of them, like there's an aura that one can tell there's trouble development within the game.
• Ensemble Darkhorse: Galarian Weezing got this big time on it's reveal for looking both classy and reminding fans of Doug Dimmadome. It's popularity only skyrocketed with the reveal of it's ability, "Neutralizing Gas", which negates any other Pokemon's ability, leaving many fans calling it one of the biggest, if not the biggest Game Breaker in the series for it's potential in battle.
  • Move over Arceaus and Helix Lord, there's a new god in town, Snom!
• Fan Dumb: The fandumb accuses the boycotters and some of the neutrals and casuals (who are waiting for reviews) as ONLY complaining of the National Dex being cut in half, not serious issues, like the game being rushed out too soon.
  • Averted, some IRL Poketrainers are neutral, casual, and just want to play and enjoy the game and not get into any drama.
  • Also, averted, other IRL Poketrainers who love SwSh's warts and all, are even admitting that some of the boycotters did bring up good points.
• Game Breaker: Like all boosting gimmicks, Dynamax has proven incredibly powerful. Unlike its predecessors though, it has not been received particularly well by competitive circles thus far. The HP boost gives many Pokemon bulk they really have no business having for their intended roles, and Max Moves like Airstream giving free stat boosts just for having the appropriate coverage, or the ability to set field effects like Rain, while dealing extreme amounts of damage simultaneously. Like Z-Moves before them, protect can't stop their attacks either, and they're immune to flinching and Encore. Even worse, unlike Mega Evolutions nearly any Pokemon can Dynamax, and while whatever item the Pokemon is diabled until Dynamax ends, it can be cleverly used to bypass certain restrictions (A Choice-item user can use Dynamax to give themselves the ability to switch moves, then once Dynamax ends, they can use their returned item to mop up whatever's left). All this, for three whole turns. Offensively, it becomes difficult to knock out a Dynamax'd Pokemon before you get blown away in turn, and defensively it's difficult-to-impossible to stomach attacks or force them out with traditional stall tactics -- only worsened further by the removal of wide amounts of defensive options due to the Dex Cut. Seen as the nadir of the Power Creep beyond even Mega Rayquaza for just how many Pokemon can use and abuse this, discussion has been rampant with cries for the mechanic's ban -- cries that would ultimately be answered.
• Just Here for Godzilla: Like Little Town Hero, Some people are only interested in the game so that they can listen to Toby Fox's contribution to the soundtrack, which is played in the post-game's Battle Tower.
• Memetic Mutation: Thanks to the existence of "the big tiddy goth gf" meme, Marnie is often called "goth gf" by fans, thanks to her black clothes, shaved hair, choker, serious-looking expressions, and absolute cuteness.
• Nightmare Retardant: Dynamaxing can often fall into this. As fun as it is to enlarge your Pokemon to Kaiju-size to fight one that's equally large, some Pokemon look utterly ridiculous as such. A gigantic Wooloo or Hoothoot (to name just two) isn't all-too scary to the typical video game fan.
• No Such Thing as Bad Publicity: All the backlash from fans about the National Pokedex seems to have the opposite-desired effect on the sales; supposedly, a boycott on these games was called for, but it sold 6 million copies on its launch weekend, a record for both the franchise and Switch games in general for debut weekend sales.
  • That being said, some argue that while Pokemon is a franchise too big to ever "fail", Sword and Shield were hardly the biggest success in the franchise compared to the benchmarks set by predecessors like Sun and Moon or even Heartgold and Soulsilver, despite the Switch's superior installbase.
• Overshadowed by Controversy: Rather than being remembered as mainline Pokemon's big leap to the console scene, Sword and Shield will perhaps never escape the controversy of it's 60% Pokedex cut and the reasoning behind it, the announcement of which proved to be the straw that broke the camel's back in terms of Game Freak's questionable decisions and cutting corners philosophy concerning the games.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Corsola was one of many Pokemon time forgot, with stats that render it slow, passive, not bulky enough to really be used defensively, and with a typing with far too many weaknesses for its own good -- it only really got attention for how it was the prey of the far more popular Toxapex in Gen 7. Galarian Corsola has found its fortune thanks for an advantageous change to Ghost-typing in a game where Knock Off's distribution has been reduced, a movepool other utility Pokemon would kill for, and gaining an evolution (Cursola) allows it to make use of Eviolite, giving it the kick to its defenses it needs.
  • Also, Farfetch’d. This Pokemon has always been a Joke Character at best and a burden at worst. Galarian Farfetch’d, however, is a vastly improved version. First it's Normal/Fighting making it somewhat better than the old Normal/Flying version without one decent move in either type. More importantly, it can now evolve into Sirfetch'd. Not only does this new form look totally awesome (the expression in its eyes practically says, "Come one step closer and you'll get this sword where the sun don't shine") it has more than twice the base ATK of Farfetch'd, can learn some decent moves like Brick Break and Brave Bird, and is the only known Pokemon able to learn Meteor Assault, a Fighting version of Hyper Beam. It's not a perfect Pokemon, but it's at least usable now.
• Ruined FOREVER: Poketrainers aren't too pleased that the National Dex was omitted and they can only catch Mons that are only found in the Galar region.
• The Scrappy: Hop is widely considered to be one of the worst rivals in the series. He is generally loathed for endlessly praising Leon, practically showing up every 5 minutes, being too similar to Hau right down to using some of his animations, and being the personification of the hand-holding Pokemon games have taken since Gen 6.
• Sequel Difficulty Drop: Some IRL Pokemon fans sees SwSh as having MORE handholding than Sun and Mon, like the Ex.Share is for ALL the Pokemons in your team (And there's NO way to toggle it off) and actually having the NPCs telling the gamer where to go next...Even albeit the player knows where.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks: Sword and Shield had consistently been hyped up as the best games in the franchise and the grand debut of Pokémon to the console scene, but at the tail end of the E3 2019 Nintendo Treehouse direct, Masuda announced that only Pokémon in the Galar Pokédex could be transferred to Sword and Shield through Pokémon Home, effectively ending the tradition of being able to transfer any Pokémon from one generation to another. Fan backlash was immediate and harsh. Not helping matters was the reason why, stated just days after the E3 direct: Game Freak was apparently redoing all of the Pokemon models and putting their effort into "high-fidelity animations", which was why they couldn't have every Pokemon in the game. Enraged fans pointed out that all the models and animations seen at that point were either on par with, or were straight up lifted from, the 3DS games and Let's Go.^[1] Because of this, much of the hype that Sword and Shield had built up evaporated overnight and left fans mad that Game Freak was cutting corners when they shouldn't have to.
  • To put things into perspective, the Japanese fanbase, well known for rarely being outraged over anything, was just as critical, if not moreso, than the western fanbase for many of the reasons stated above.
  • It got even worse when an interview with Masuda on June 2019 had him implying that the National Dex cut would be the precedent for all future games, meaning fans would never be able to "catch em all" ever again and essentially turning the games into a popularity contest. In addition to making fans angrier, this managed to turn off some fans from the franchise completely, seeing it as meaningless to buy the new games if there would always be restrictions on what Pokemon could be transferred into them.
    • Also, adding some leaks that appeared during November 6 2019, were half of the National Pokedex has been cut. Some gamers thought it was not gonna be this extreme.
      • Not even Mewtwo and the Gible line could escape the cut.
  • The National Pokedex wasn't just the ONLY thing that was cut, but a huge chunk of movesets as well.
• What Do You Mean It's Not Heinous?:
  • Some insane fans that are disappointed by Dexit, even resorted to harassing and even sending out death threats to the Game Freak/the Pokemon Company devs. Some of the extreme ones are trying to make it that so that no one else is allowed to enjoy Gen 8.
  • A downside to hashtag "Thank You Game Freak" is that some of those fans that are using the hashtag don't know why their fellow gamers are upset about glaring actual issues and are merely jumping on the bandwagon without a care, don't care about researching why people are bringing up these issues (i.e. GF getting rid of a huge chunk of movesets, etc.), even grouping those who are just criticizing GF's current route with the toxic fans that are actually doing the harassment and death threats. Instead of using the campaign actually just to support the well being and mental health of the developers.
    • Or worst, are shills and die hard fans that are willing to defend Game Freak and the Pokemon Company no matter what.
• Hastag #ThankYouGamefreak, which was started by the YouTuber, MysticUmbreon, was a campaign made thanking Game Freak for Pokemon, how it changed their lives, and other just as important points (i.e. boosting morale for the devs), just to counteract the negativity surrounding this controversial game. That being said, it wouldn't take long for the Japanese fanbase, lacking context and not as charitable to thank a company for giving them a lackluster product, to mutate it into #FuckYouGamefreak.
• IRL Poketrainers have been speculating and even blaming that Little Town Hero, Pokémon Go, and some of TPC's mobile phone projects are what cause SwSh to be in it's current state...Besides crunch times.
• The "Isle of Armor" and the "Crown Tundra" DLCs leaves some IRL Poketrainers with mixed reactions, some stating that this shoulda been in the main game in day one and this is proof of the devs suffering from crunch times, deadlines, and PokeFatigue. Also, a worrying proof of a beginning trend for future games.
  • Other gamers see the DLC as softening a bit of the blow of the Dexit controversy and Game Freak trying to win them back.

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Back to Pokémon Sword and Shield

1. ↑ The later confirmation that they weren't being lifted from older games and doing them all from scratch did nothing to appease fans' anger as it left them questioning what the point of "future-proofing" the models back in 2013 was if they were all going to be replaced anyway and left fans even angrier since it meant the 3DS games had to suffer frame drops for nothing.