{"id":2265,"date":"2020-10-30T15:00:22","date_gmt":"2020-10-30T21:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/?p=2265"},"modified":"2020-09-03T21:30:52","modified_gmt":"2020-09-04T03:30:52","slug":"video-game-pokemon-sword-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/2020\/10\/30\/video-game-pokemon-sword-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"VIDEO GAME: Pok\u00e9mon Sword (2019)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Pok\u00e9monPok\u00e9mon Sword
\n<\/u><\/strong>Year: 2019
\nRating: E
\nTime Played: 92.03 hours<\/p>\n

As with any new iteration of a long-running franchise, it\u2019s equally interesting to see how the formula is changed to make things interesting while also cutting out some of the tedium present in previous installments. While Pok\u00e9mon<\/em> Sword<\/em> has certainly improved some of the quality of life issues present in the franchise, some of the newer features still need a bit of work to be fully enjoyable. That being said, for the first time in many generations, I was able to (almost) completely fill my Pok\u00e9dex (even with the DLC Pok\u00e9mon, having not actually bought it) while playing entirely by myself. I still have a few evolutions I need another friend for, but they account for ~1% of the total.<\/p>\n

I was somewhat pleased with the introduction of the \u201cGigantamaxing\u201d mechanic, even if it was essentially a combination of Mega Evolution and Z-Moves from Generations 6 and 7, respectively. The annoying thing about these special Pok\u00e9mon was that I had to use the Y-comm to catch them in Max Raids. The refresh rate on the available battles needs to be fixed since more than 50% of the time, the battle wasn\u2019t available. Additionally, it would be nice to make trades with strangers in-game instead of relying on Pok\u00e9mon Home<\/em> to get the Pok\u00e9mon I wanted.<\/p>\n

While it\u2019s a bit of a pain to join Max Raid Battles, the variety of events that gave me opportunities to catch rare (for my game) and highly-evolved Pok\u00e9mon make this entry stand out amongst its predecessors. I also appreciated the Wild Area since I spend most of my time there. The fact that Pok\u00e9mon in the Wild Area scale in level based on your progress through the game made gaining levels much easier than in the past. The XP crystals were also lifesavers from the monotony. I also appreciated the \u201cvisible\u201d Pok\u00e9mon that carried over from Let\u2019s Go Pikachu\/Eevee<\/em><\/a>, as it allowed me to choose who I wanted to battle. Overall, despite a few weaknesses, the improvements to the series made this a great game in the franchise.<\/p>\n

Some fantastic quality of life improvements, but with a few features that still need fixing, I give Pok\u00e9mon Sword<\/em> 4.0 stars out of 5.<\/p>\n

\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" \"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" \"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" \"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\"<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pok\u00e9mon Sword Year: 2019 Rating: E Time Played: 92.03 hours As with any new iteration of a long-running franchise, it\u2019s equally interesting to see how the formula is changed to make things interesting while also cutting out some of the tedium present in previous installments. While Pok\u00e9mon Sword has certainly improved some of the quality […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,1900],"tags":[1576,2494,2495,2186,1901,1867,2493,2388,906,2497,2496],"class_list":["post-2265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-4-0-stars","category-video-game","tag-1576","tag-gigantamaxing","tag-mega-evolution","tag-nintendo","tag-nintendo-switch","tag-pokemon","tag-pokemon-sword","tag-switch","tag-video-game","tag-wild-area","tag-z-move"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2265"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2265\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2267,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2265\/revisions\/2267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}