Pokémon: Schwert

Pokémon Sword and Shield is a positive step in a new direction, but one that is held back by a fear of the Unown. It's still an incredibly fun new adventure, and the Pokémon selection and variety is the best it's ever been.

All in all Pokemon Sword and Shield, despite being the first core game on the Nintendo Switch, is a very typical Pokemon game. It innovates a bit, messes stuff that should have been left alone up, and leaves other things alone for better or for worse just like every generation before it.

But in the end, I was smiling on most of my journey throughout the Galar region, and 21 years later, I still have a desire to catch them all. "All of the Galar region" will do nicely for the time being, even if it feels more fleeting than past generations.

Pokémon Sword is very much built with the tried-and-true franchise blueprint, resulting in an enjoyable if innocuous title, which makes it a difficult game to score.

Pokémon Sword & Shield deliver a new generation of creatures to capture throughout a consistently enjoyable adventure.

You're not held back by overly complicated back-end systems or hoops to jump through; from the outset, you can start wandering the Galar region, seeing its new Pokemon, and trying out its new battle strategies with very little in your way. This leaves you free to enjoy what Pokemon is all about, and that makes for an incredibly strong showing for the series' proper debut on Switch.

Pokemon Sword and Shield are the best games in the series, streamlining its most tedious traditions without losing any of the charm.

All jene, die Spaß mit dem Hauptspiel hatten und mit der Naturzone als Routen-Ersatz zufrieden waren, die kommen auch auf der Insel der Rüstung voll auf ihre Kosten. Das weitläufige Areal beherbergt bis zu 207 Pokémon und weiß mit einigen Geheimnissen den Sammlertrieb neu zu entfachen.

Pokémon Sword and Shield: The Crown Tundra puts your legendary monster hunting skills to the test in a fun but short-lived expansion.

These efforts seen in The Crown Tundra make up for the disappointment that was Isle of Armor and leaves Sword and Shield’s expansion pass off on a positive note.

While the winter wonderland theme of Crown Tundra is lovely, there's a little more variance than just snow, with a few (albeit generic) grassland locations and foggy mountain regions. The narrative also feels decidedly like a Pokemon movie, with the main legendary finding a way to telepathically communicate and speak to humans.

Isle of Armor is an enjoyable expansion to Pokemon Sword and Shield and brings the franchise one step closer to embracing a cohesive open-world, but it isn’t enough to detract from an experience that is far too brief for its own good.

But like the traditional third or "Ultra" version, The Isle of Armor does refine much of the experience we had in vanilla Sword and Shield, with a more interesting Wild Area to explore and some small quality-of-life tweaks that further the progress Gen 8 has made in that regard. It doesn't totally change up the game, to be sure, but The Isle of Armor is definitely a delight.

There are definitely some much-needed additions that come with the Isle of Armor, but it still feels as though it's the least amount of content possible. I love Pokémon, but this expansion has left me feeling a little bit cold on the whole thing. There's fun to be had, but unless you're committed to catching 'em all or grinding every Pokémon up to a competitive standard, it won't last very long.

As Pokémon's first-ever DLC, The Isle of Armor is an entertaining but shallow return to the Galar region.

If you picked up the expansion pass hoping for a lengthy and interesting story, or some new gameplay then you’ll probably find Isle of Armor a little lacking as I did. That said, the price of $15 isn’t overwhelmingly prohibitive so if you’re a fan of Sword and Shield, you’ll probably be OK with another similar helping.

Isle of Armor is only part one of the Expansion Pass, and already you're getting a lot of gameplay.