>>45956153Sword, and Shield wasn't necessarily a cutoff age, but I had to say it was damn near the final nail in the coffin for the franchise.
The fact that Masuda thanos snapped half of the pokemon in the game being the biggest insult, and the worst offender for obvious reasons. But enough of the elephant in the room.
First let me talk about the linear gameplay. It was such a point A, to point B experience even with the wild area. I was going one direction each time I was progressing through rotes to the next gym. Glimwood tangle was the most janky, and restrictive. I felt trapped, and there was so little breathing room for each route to the point to where even the wild area couldn't excuse it. The only route I was excited to come back to was route 2 on my water bike.
Let's talk about the easiness of the game. There is nothing else to say other than the teams that the gym leaders had were pathetic, and I had a well built team that was 10 levels higher by the first gym. Not to mention some pokemon still only have 3 moves in each gym like X, and Y.
Thirdly, I would like to talk about the insulting amounts of handholding. Even a child didn't need this large amount of guidance let alone me. When I got to motostoke, I was told to go to the hotel, simple enough, it's right next door. Then when I go left, just barely even 5 seconds later the same guy was showing me the hotel, and placed me right in front of the motostoke hotel so I knew right where it was, and then when I finally got in, Sonia was telling me to check in at the hotel, when that is what I was going to do. Cutscene, after cutscene, it was like sun, and moon all over again, but even worse. It was already restrictive enough with the linear routes, and caves. The addition of the insulting amounts of handholding made it worse.
Lastly, I just want to point out that the evil team was anti climactic. It was just a team of creepy people that worship an emo kid.
Overall, the game was awful for these reasons.
