Customer Ratings & Reviews

Very great Pokémon game! Has a lot of interesting additions

As the title says, the story is rushed, choppy, a little incomplete, and most characters are completely flat. But I don't think that's what most of us are here for. The new mechanics are fun to play with, and while the online functionality of the Wild Area and the YCOMM are a little spotty at times, it's still well worth it.

Solid game all around would recommend you purchase

Pokemon Shield it's a must have hours of fun for days!

This game is awesome love it so much this is the best

I played the first Pokemon game (Pokemon Red) when I was like 1w years old, on the Gameboy Advance. So playing this newest installment and seeing just how much graphics and capabilities have improved is mind blowing. And there are so many quality of life improvements that make it less of a grind. GRAPHICS ARE FANTASTIC! Battles are exciting.

My son asked for this game, and it was short to complete the story, but entertaining a lot. He's still playing it and finding lots of new areas and new pokemon. He's so into the game, that I would recommend this game to any pokemon fan. Great and entertaining to all ages.

My daughter really likes Pokemon on Nintendo Switch

Aside from some of the issues, I still really enjoyed Playing. It wasn’t as grandiose of a world as the trailers made the game appear to be. It was much smaller than I was expecting. I really enjoyed the new Pokémon this gen, and the character development amongst your rivals were a lot better written compared to previous games. Although some cutscenes fell flat, and felt a bit misplaced, overall I really enjoyed the game and new characters, and am still playing even after finishing the two main storylines.

Great new features, good graphics and unique Pokemon

Got this as a gift for my son and he loves it. Great fun!

Fun game that brought all the best changes from Lets Go! to a new region and story to explore. The novel Wild Area and visible wild Pokémon from Let’s Go! are great additions. The only thing I wish they had done was build on the story a bit. It seemed a little shallow, but it certainly didn’t stop me from enjoying the game

I am a pokemon player from backkkk in the day! I used to play on my gameboy as a kid - it was my favorite game ever. With this pandemic going on, I needed something to keep me busy and this is awesome! It reminds me of the game back in the day but it is totally upgraded and filled with tons of surprises. Definitely recommend

While the graphics of Pokemon Let’s Go! were definitely a little better, the gameplay on this series is much more in line with other entries in the Pokemon line of games. For me, this was more enjoyable than Let’s Go! and the setting, while not truly open world, is much more expansive than any previous game and tons of fun to explore.

To start with, I'm not a long-time Pokemon fan by any means. I didn't play my first one until a few years ago, so I don't have any nostalgic or fond memories of playing the games or watching the show as a kid. This game really embodies a lot of what I've come to know about the series, the good and the bad. There are things it does excellently, and there are things that I think really needed some reworking at best. Gameplay: For the most part, the gameplay is standard Pokemon. You run around capturing monsters and battling trainers, with the goal of eventually becoming strong enough to be crowned as the Pokemon Champion - the most powerful Pokemon trainer in the region. It's honestly a lot more fun than I'd expected as a gameplay loop, and if you're looking for that, you'll definitely get it with this game. Now there are some things that are different between this game and the previous entries in the series. To start with, tall grass behaves a little differently than you might be used to. Rather than having completely random encounters in it, you'll see Pokemon spawn, and you can choose to engage with them, or try to avoid them. This makes it so that you don't have to deal with an obnoxious amount of battles when you're just trying to get to the next story area. Some of the Pokemon will chase you for quite a ways if they notice you, some will approach and stop at a certain distance, and some are so ridiculously fast that you have no chance of getting away if they notice you. I think it's a great way of giving more control to the player, and I utilized it quite a bit as I played. If you've ever played Dragon Quest XI or Final Fantasy XIII, the random encounters often behave like they do in that game. I should mention that there are still encounters in the grass that are a little harder to avoid - an exclamation point will appear and the grass will rustle, but you won't see a Pokemon. Those are random encounters that are still avoidable, but it's a little harder to do so. Another new thing about the game is what they call Dynamaxing. Essentially, you or your opponent's Pokemon (only a singular one) will grow really big... and that's kind of it. The attacks don't really do a whole lot more damage than normal ones, and most of the Pokemon in the game do not change their design at all when they do this. There are a select few that actually have a design change when they Dynamax - in that case it's referred to as Gigantamaxing - but personally, I never had any in my party that could do this at any point. Dynamaxing and Gigantamaxing is only possible in select battles, however. Most gym battles and a few story battles allow it, but otherwise you're not going to encounter it very often. I expected it to be an annoying mechanic to deal with, and it kind of is, if only because it doesn't really change anything you're doing as much as you'd expect for how long each dynamax animation is. By the way, it only lasts 3 turns, which I understand, but at the same time it makes it even less of a challenge or threat to deal with when you encounter it. There are a lot of quality of life improvements from previous entries here. For example, you don't need to go to a Pokemon center to access your box. You can swap Pokemon from your box to your party and back from the regular menu, and it's extremely helpful. You don't need to go into the key items menu or make a shortcut to use your bike - you just press a certain button once you have it. You don't need to teach Pokemon TMs or HMs at all to navigate the area - most of those sorts of things have been streamlined in some way, which I have mixed feelings about, to be honest. Pokemon Centers are home to the nurse (of course), the PokeMart, and an NPC who will do anything from name rating to move forgetting, all in one location. It's really convenient and I have no qualms with it. In terms of building friendship with Pokemon, the main way to accomplish that this time around is by going camping. In most of the overworld, you can set up camp. Your party of Pokemon will be out, strolling around the campsite, interacting with each other, getting stuck on an invisible wall for no apparent reason. You can cook curry for them, using berries and various ingredients you'll find throughout the game. It can restore HP, grant experience, increase friendship levels, and if it's REALLY high quality it can remove all negative status effects, including fainting. It's annoying because it's difficult to tell whether or not you're doing a good job during the cooking minigame, and for a consistent experience I'd recommend using the button inputs to do the game rather than using the motion controls - they will cause issues more often than not. You can also play with your Pokemon - you can play fetch, have them attack a toy (when you have a 7 foot tall Pangoro attacking you in first person, it's a little terrifying) and you can also chat with them. There are a LOT of glitches with this system - Pokemon will get stuck on nothing, they'll get stuck on each other for amusingly long periods of time, they will pick up a fetch toy and then just not bring it back ever, they'll get stuck in loops where they stand there doing the same animation and making the same noise for 10 straight minutes, it's honestly pretty hilarious, and I got a lot of entertainment out of it. I think this is the best they've done with making you as a player feel like you're connecting with them - rather than only having the option to forcibly feed them dozens of treats, you can actually play with them and I think it's really cute. Overall, the gameplay is standard Pokemon with some QoL improvements and a new gimmick that feels a little bit half baked. It's a lot of fun, and aside from Dynamaxing being underwhelming, I have nothing to complain about. Story: You know that thing in every other Pokemon game, where the apocalypse is actively occurring as an unbelievably powerful creature destroys time and bends space, and then everyone tells a 10 year old that the fate of the universe lies on the shoulders of them and their pets? It's something that's always kind of bothered me. But it doesn't really happen here for the most part. Of course it happens a little, but without spoiling it, it ends up being saved until the very last moment and it's actually explained pretty logically. I really liked this change because I always thought it was weird that nobody else in the region could handle the situation or even attempt to control it. The rival is extremely annoying in my opinion. There comes a point where, basically, your dinner plans get cancelled and then you and a whole group of people decide to storm a private corporate headquarters as a result. No, I'm not joking, and no, it doesn't make any sense in context either. It's a major plot turning point and it's frustratingly bad. I wasn't expecting anything profound, but... really? It's like they had two halves of a story and didn't know how to connect them together so they just had an AI write the connection and called it a day. It's acceptable at the lowest possible standard. I've experienced worse stories in games, but this one was aggressively mediocre, even compared to most other Pokemon games. General Stuff: The online in this game ranges from being okay but badly implemented, to being outright broken and barely useable. If you want to join a Dynamax raid, good luck. It will show one is available to join, you'll try to join it and it will give you some vague error that doesn't tell you what's actually going on - most of the time, it means the raid party was already full. If you start one and hope people join you, good luck there too. You'll be waiting for 2 and a half minutes for nobody to join the raid half a dozen times before you get a single person to join you. You can technically play without real players - they'll add NPCs to fill the missing slots - but the NPCs are worthless. They never bring effective Pokemon (they will sometimes even bring a useless Magikarp), if they DO have an effective Pokemon they will almost never use a move that actually does damage, they'll just buff their stats literally every turn without attacking until the raid ends. You might think it's a bad AI, but there are a number of battles in the game where the AI is very clearly well designed - it will not hesitate to one shot your whole team and it will always find a way to win in a war of attrition - so that's no excuse. In my opinion, there is no real post game. There's a small story bit that lasts maybe an hour and a half, there is a battle tower, but aside from that you've got nothing. There are no difficult, new, or interesting dungeons to explore. There are no areas where you can use a TM/HM you didn't have before to explore a new section, that aspect is just... not here. There are only a grand total of 3 legendary Pokemon in the base game. One you catch for the story, one you catch in the post-game story section, and one you are literally handed at the battle tower for no reason. That's it. It's... disappointing. Especially since you can catch nearly all legendary Pokemon if you buy the $30 DLC. Conclusion: It's not bad. It's pretty par for the course with a few things that are different from the normal formula - the issue is that for every good thing they bring, there is a catch somewhere, or there is something else that brings the experience down. If you like Pokemon, it's worth a play. If you don't like Pokemon, this isn't likely to change your mind. If you've never played Pokemon, this is as good a place as any to give it a try. I would rather rate it 3.5 stars, but half stars aren't possible, and I didn't think it deserved to be rounded up, to be honest.

Awesome Pokemon game. The graphics are amazing! It's a little easier than I would like, but a great game.

Great game, lots of fun, play anywhere with every body

Great new addition to the pokemon series. I was skeptical of the game at first, but after playing I can say I genuinely enjoy this game a lot. The characters, world, pokemon, and music are all great, but this game definitely could have benefited from some voice acting and improved character/pokemon animations. It's also a bit of a bummer that, even after the DLC was released, about 200 pokemon or so are still unable to be brought into the game

They finally gave us the Pokemon game we've been waiting for: seeing pokemon live rather than random encounters. I enjoyed the game very much, I actually wished it was longer and that it was a little harder but Pokemon has their demographic. Overall if you're thinking of getting the game, I'd recommend it.

This is such a fun game! I will admit that I bought this on Black Friday because I think the original price is a bit too steep for what I get out of what is just in the package. What I mean is that you can buy additional in-game experiences and that does add up for what you already pay for.