Alright boys, I've been sitting on some information regarding Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield, and d today seems like a good day to dump it.

First up, the starters
>I was not able to see the third evolutions, only the second stages.
>All three of them look slightly feminine.
>Scorbunny remains pure fire type until it's third evo, at which point it gains the fairy type. There are slight references to its final typing in its second stage design, it looks like a jackalope with a fairy-wing aethetic to its ears.
>Sobble gains the psychic type during its second stage, and it looks like a mix between an old english playwright and a harlequin
>Grookey gains the dark type during its second stage, its stick grows longer to be used like a baton/bat, but it can split apart to be used as drumsticks for some of its sound-based attacks. It's hard to describe it accurately, so all I'll say for now is that it looks more monkey-like than ape-like, and the ponytail on its head gets longer, it almost looks like a mohawk. From what I've heard, there have been frequent mentions of hanuman when discussing its final evolution.

Secondly, the story.
>The story is actually very good this time around. The gym leaders and E4 actually feel like characters and play a large role in the story aside from moving roadblocks.
>Characters from previous gens appear in the story, but it's a pretty good plotpoint so I won't spoil it.
>Cutscenes will be skippable, but the animation looks pretty clean, even in handheld mode, so I wouldn't recommend it.

1/2, pic unrelated