Of Course Pokémon Sword And Shield Is Getting Review-Bombed

@Zuljaras Astral Chain can't get special treatment.

Those comments seem like legitimate and well constructed comments from passionate fans who are displeased with how the game has turned out. There's nothing wrong with voicing your opinion on a free and open internet and i wouldn't call any of those comments you have highlighted "Attaking the developers"

I hate review bombing in general but think it's merited here and the criticisms of it seem justified to me. Also, is it even review bombing if it's genuine opinions?

Having just looked at those reviews, whereas there are some 0s who definitely haven't played the game, the majority of the negative reviews do seem to have played already and site things they liked and disliked about the game before giving it a poor score.

That said, we definitely need something to stop people who don't own a game from reviewing it.

My copy should arrive today though so I suppose I'll make my own mind up.

@mist Yeah but if they are rating it a 0, then they are making a mockery of the whole 0-10 system. Very few games deserve a 1. Even “Spirit of Speed 1937” is a 3 in my book.

Now, it’s time to have a coffee and not look at Metacritic. Maybe a trash fire this morning.

Wow, I never expected that! Color me surprised...

Seriously though, I’ve started playing Shield this morning. Took a day off for it and I like it so far (after having played I all other games, and having all versions, even all counterparts such as blue/red, gold/silver, etc.). I seriously don’t get the amount of hate this game is getting and the reasons been given. Yes, there was some cutting such as the pokedex, but did Breath of the Wild add all features from previous Zelda games? Yes, some visuals can always be better, but did we expect it to look like something like Doom? The game so far in my experience is fun, and that’s what counts most in my opinion.

people never went into it with an open mind. It’s almost Blizzard level of complaining, but in that case, the complaints were in my opinion way more legit, since they were about a company’s way of dealing with real life oppression.

Those negative reviews are fairly articulate but tbh both of the good (fans are good review bombing it too) and bad reviews should be wiped, it's way too soon to have a fully formed feel of the game yet.

I still haven't get the game yet but so far my impression with Pokemon Sword / Shield is 70/100 right now. 😁
Don't care with those crybabies. 😝
Let's moving on and enjoy the game ! 🤟

Nintendo Life once again disrespecting anyone who doesn't lick Game Freak's anus. Disgusting website. Starting any article with "of course" is on par with the quality of journalism of The Sun.

@RazumikhinPG I can sense a pattern of "disliking something yet keeping talking about it"

Haters gonna hate! One thing has become blatantly apparent in this day and age, the majority of gamers are 'spoil little brats', you've finally got a mainstream Pokémon game on Switch just shut up and play it and be the best you can given the tools you've got! Seriously.

Nintendo Life's astro turfing policy in full swing. Do you guys honestly call yourself journalists? First you try to equate that all fans are writing to Trump to get the game banned, and now are acting as if all negative viewpoints are 'review-bombing'. Even more embarrassing is the reviews you chose to highlight actually seem like well reasoned viewpoints...?

Why don't you do some actual journalism yourselves? Look at the GF statements saying that the game will use all new models made ground up, then data mine the games yourself and see if this is true? Why don't you reach out to GF employees to try and get an inside scoop into what is actually going on?

Why won't you do some actual journalism? If you are so adamant that the outrage is unwarranted, investigate it yourself maybe?

Edit: are you going to write an article about the SD card save-data glitch which is actual important??

These dont seem to me to be from people who legitimately played purely be cause it's the same regurgitated crap I've seen none stop for months. There might be truth to it, but after seeing it over and over I cant help but think it's just more vocal vomit from people who haven't actually played it.

I'm hoping to get my copy sometime today, still wondering whether to get Sword or Shield (Mawile is one of my favourites yet Shield has overall has more I like) because I feel this has been blown massively out of proportion by an extremely vocal minority. I expect there to be things I dislike, I already loathe gigantimax as its such a dumb and out of place gimmick, but it feels like if these are legit reviews then they've definitely gone into it not wanting to like it.

Entitled children who feel they own their interests. Yes, consumer feedback is important, but it’s up to groups and people individually to decide what shape their creations take. No matter how passionate you are, don’t have a right to someone else’s creation. People need to understand this and instead exercise their right to buy something else rather than screech about their opinions online constantly. I do feel that if the media stopped giving these people a platform in the form of these articles the fan base would far less toxic.

First just want to say that review bombing is idiot and stupid.

I just feel like they couldn't have picked a worse time than the first mainline console Pokemon to cut features (I don't care about them to the degree of the online brigade) and to cut so many at once.

@Kasma88 I dont upvote comments much, but you managed to put something I've thought for a while into words.

@mist maybe... except they can’t possibly have actually played through the game long enough to form an opinion based on actual experience, which is how games should be reviewed.

IGN say it's the best Pokemon release, easily. And it's getting better scores than death stranding.
I'll comment after I play it, but I've hatred the most recent Pokemon releases so I get the feeling I'll love this.

this isn't what "review bomb" means

Seeing team Yell members as the article's illustration I expected people review bombing these games with 10/10s, but it actually seems balanced.

@Alpha008 how many twists and turns occur in your average pokemon game?

It's an embarrassment. Also harassing Casey at IGN for her review just because she gave it a great score (which most reviewers did, it averaged in the 80s). She had even asked her coworkers if they felt it was a fair review before publishing to be sure. I have alot of respect for IGN- they're one of the few giving honest reviews lately without bending the knee to popular pressure and expectations.

I just can't deal with these people. Even if they do have some valid criticisms, all that gets buried under the mob outrage and hyperbole. Criticisms against the graphics, animations, etc as if it’s “so bad”. Graphics look fine. Really, the game, visually speaking, looks fine. Nice and clean and crisp. Yet you will hear people say the game “shouldn’t get a pass” for the “graphics”. Huh? Ya lost me with that one people. Just because it may not be the most visually impressive game of the year doesn’t mean the graphics look bad. And the animations look fine. Same, not the same... it is what it is. Some look better than others but overall, they work. They’re fine. Yet you will hear people say the game “shouldn’t get a pass”. Huh? The game isn’t “getting a pass”. It’s being credited for all the things it does well. And things it doesn’t exceed at (like animations) doesn’t mean it’s a disaster either... It’s fine.

Started playing this morning, and first thing that struck me is how much higher quality this game is than the last entry I played. It looks really good on the Switch Lite, too. Will play more at work today.

And for the record, I don't care how "articulate" a review bomb is. It's not an opinion blog. It's for people to review how fun and entertaining the game was. Not playing it and then rating a 0... that isnt justified just because half a dozen people gave an expose.

The entitlement is so massive. Holy cow

Playing Shield right now and I don't intend on sharing my opinions until I'm finished with it.

But anyways, why was FE getting review bombed? Is it still about the art style? smh

Whilst some of the comments seem justified and a possibly accurate viewpoint, in all fairness surely those users can’t have played enough of the game(s) by now to give an honest and accurate review.

Poor Miltank is soon out of milk...

Why even give this attention? It's just more fuel to the fire. Well... In a week or two this is probably forgotten and we've all moved on.

I'm soon going to start Sword and will probably enjoy it very much. Nice weekend y'all!

This wasn't unexpected. Personally I haven't played the games but they at the very least look intriguing.

Many of these negative opinions I see around are the same ones I remember having had over 10 years ago when Pokemon Diamond and Pearl released. I felt sort of betrayed since the games did not live up to my expectations of 3d graphics and models of the pokemon, having seen what Dragon Quest Monsters had pulled off on the same system (I picked up the games some months later with no beforehand knowledge of them).

That's when I stopped playing the games, after having spent hours on all the previous ones. Though, I did not go on a rampage of the kind you would see in a kindergarden when someone's toy gets taken or wish isn't granted.

Now, I've come to accept that the pokemon games are not there to show off graphics, and the gameplay of the mainline series is very conservative, but that's okay. Game Freak doesn't claim otherwise, and no one is forcing you to play the games. Just play something else. Don't waste your time going around on a rampage. Of course that's different from just voicing your opinion, which is okay whether it be positive or negative. For example, the trees in SwSh do resemble those in DQVIII on the PS2. But do I play the game for the trees?

A bomb well deserved

I'll try to act surprised that you guys manage to make a news story out of it.

@Kit
Thats (nintendo) fanboyism. Be happy about what u get. Lmao

@zet FE was review bombed because "too anime" and all of that. And Asltral Chain... I guess because it was another Nintendo exclusive Platinum game?

• Making an educated guess that major games review sites might possibly be receiving special payment for a positive review of a divisive game (based on the inconsistent content of the review vs. the final score given to it) - Insane and hurtful to even suggest such a thing!
• REVIEW BOMBING! - Definitely and objectively happened (based on no clear evidence, but merely on confirmation bias)

@Damo, why the double standard? Your team has done this several times previously, as well: https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2018/11/people_are_review-bombing_pokemon_lets_go_across_major_sites_amazon_japan_blocks_user_scores
https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2019/09/metacritic_takes_action_against_disgruntled_gamers_who_review-bombed_astral_chain
https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2019/09/metacritic_review-bombers_strike_again_with_fifa_20_on_switch

@Bomberman64
Its about the effort imo. A lot more was possible. Gamefreak chose to be lazy and cash-in on fans of the franchise. Not cool imo.

I see a lot of 10's too so people come from both sides.

@JaxonH Casey DeFreitas is a massive Pokemon fan. Does that make her the right or wrong person to review it? I dunno, but I imagine it inflates the score somewhat.

I had to:

So petty...I bet most of them haven't even played it

@frabbit

We all know this game isnt fantastic by todays standards. People giving it a high score do it just because it is a mainline pokemon game or money was involved. Definitely not an unbiased score by any means

@Nourldean Obviously they have not. I took a gander and it looks like quite a few of them are literally copied and pasted.

If I were a developer/boss at GameFreak, I'd just rage quit the whole Pokémon franchise. Let's see how the "Pokémon Loving Fans" like that. Just say: "Well, if this is what you think, YOU'LL NEVER GET A FFING GAME EVER AGAIN!!! EVERRRRR!!!" That would be so relieving.

@Barbara001
Not if they wanna stay in business, lmao

@SuperEndriu I agree that a lot more is definetely possible. Would they do that, though? As I said, GF have never been groundbreaking in terms of graphics nor innovation, not since Gen1/2.

If enough fans were thrown off this time by game freak, the repercussions will only be felt when the next games come out and these now ex-fans refrain from buying it, because a lot of people who don't end up liking this game will still have bought it this time around. However, if you went in buying it while already hating it, I can only hope you end up changing your mind since it would be a shame to have wasted your money, really.

@jockmahon Amen to that!!! 🙌❤️

@Barbara001 That would be hilarious. What if a boycott worked but, instead of trying to appease the complainers, Game Freak, Creatures, and Nintendo decided to put the series on ice, like Metroid? 😂 I would be disappointed, but these people need to chill out.

@JaxonH people seriously harassed a reviewer of a POKEMON GAME??? Have people gone insane???

@Bomberman64
I didn't buy. Maybe if its on sales.

As you pointed out gamefreak was never about innovation. Thats fine. But if the major appeal of the game are the pokemon then why cut the dex? And why lie its the animations that are responsible when they are not?
Imo its simple, if you praise someone for basically nothing they will never get better. Such is life!

I'm shocked at the number of articulate reviews on metacritic with a score of 3-4. The people slapping 0 on it are just as ridiculous as those slapping a 10 on it, the game is clearly neither.

However, the point still stands. If you play pokemon for the campaign, the game is probably an 8-9 for you. If you spend most of your pokemon time in the post game, it's probably more of a 5-6, maybe lower. These two major camps will not be able to reconcile their differences because they have fundamentally different expectations of the game.

@mist Except that they haven't actually finished (probably some have never even played) the game..

@eaglebob345
That would actually be amazing. Other companies would have a chance to fill the void and raise the bar so high that pokemon would never return. Great idea!

@SuperEndriu as game developers they'll just make another game. That's what most game developers do. GameFreak making a lot of Pokemon games is an exception, not a rule. Soooo, if I were them, I'd let all the entitled little b*#@es get theirs and take the whole thing away from them.

@SuperEndriu Na, it's just being grateful for what you have Without it you'd have nothing.

@eaglebob345 right? I would laugh! 🤣

I ordered it yesterday and I'm now waiting to play it. I hope it turns out be good but I don't expect a Odyssey or Botw, which is sad to begin with. GameFreak as a developer just isn't great. The last good game they made was Black 2 and White 2 imo.

@Barbara001
Its not that simple. Their recent attempt at a game wasnt so great, wasn't it? Besides there are shareholders

@JaxonH "I don't care how "articulate" a review bomb is. It's not an opinion blog. It's for people to review how fun and entertaining the game was."

If you agree with a review that ignores all the issues in a game and gives a high score because the person playing it had fun, you also have to agree with someone that played the game and had no fun because of the issues present.

For me this game is a 5 or 6 at best. Some good new ideas mixed with the same old formula but lacking in content and polishing.

And that's how things will probably end up in metacritic. Some people who don't give a damn to anything besides their 15 hours campaign giving it a 10 and people despised with the content cuts and new price giving it a 0.

@Kit

Thats a way to look at things.

@SuperEndriu That is very true, and it is also why voicing one's opinion is important, but in the end the most you can do as a consumer is to not buy the game. Then, of course devs or staff will survey online to see why their game failed to meet sales expectations.

I didn't mean to refer to you directly buying it, but in general. Still, you made the right choice for yourself not to buy it.

When it comes to the animations, I agree it would be lying to say the animations were done from scratch, if they were just copied from a previous game, however, what truly matters is if the animations are good enough for you, and that should have been possible to judge from the trailers. They didn't do the usual "promise more than they can fulfil" by showing a trailer that did not represent the game that a lot of devs do.

Is it bad that I am not surprised at the level of negativity in the world these days?

In spite of their strong points, the games were asking for it.
Review bombers should aim for a higher score, though, because lowering it to a seven out of ten should suffice for the point they're trying to make.
Then again, if they want to lower the average score to seven the 3.8 reviews are a necessary evil. Sadly, once the bombers' review are inevitably filtered out, the scores will go back to the point of "getting away with it", which is exactly what @Kalmaro (IIRC) feared in another thread.

@Bomberman64

I think we all know, even if some won't admit it, this game is just a cash-in. I consider it disrespectful towards fans.
Think botw, a zelda masterpiece (not without haters) but most people will agree lots of effort and polish went into that game.
People expected a massive game on switch.
Let me ask you, how would you compare sun and moon with swsh? Taking into account hardware possibilities?

Let's just ignore all the reviews with 10/10 that even admit that the games are not perfect. Seriously?

That's not a review bomb if they are listing actual reasons, NL. Though some reviews most certainly are not valid, one can easily find examples on that on both sides with ones that denounce "haters" and ones that denpunce "shills"

not really been into Pokemon but got to admit the graphics on this recent one is dissappointing. when you consider they could have got it looking something like DQ11s or BOTW and it still looks like a 3ds game upscaled,I can see why fans are disappointed,not to mention the various content removed. Its not for me really but the kids will nag me to get it i imagine. So......Sword or Shield?

@frabbit I think Casey is the most knowledgeable Pokemon player in the games journalism industry. While I think the NUMBER she attached was a little high (maybe an 8.5 would be more appropriate based on what we've seen), the actual text of her review is pretty excellent and I trust it.

It's unfortunate that we didn't get a BoTW style revamp of the series, but SwSh still look like very good classic Pokemon games.

@vitalemrecords no idea, it’s only my second one. It probably gives me a different perspective to the haters.

Oh man people are all emotional about it and somehow mildly positive professional reviews are biased?
Most Switch games aren't compared with BotW, DQ11s overworld also looks bad in comparison
How oninaki is better than Sword and shield in user scores? Is that logic and unbiased?
The game looks like a 7 to low 8s to me, seeing footage plus reading some reviews, so 10s are more accurate than zeroes in the end, not sure why people try to dismiss it as 'both sides are wrong or something, feels like they're sympathizing with the bombing

Again, MetaCritic is a pile of * Mario growing noise *. It's fine if you want to get an idea what people think, but if I want to see how good the game is, I would check out a few actual reviews that go into detail.

At the end of the day, the only review I trust is my own. Imagine if I decided not to play Sonic Heroes because GamesMasters (UK Magazine) gave it 50/100, because they played the terrible PS2 version.

What a bunch of morons.🙄 Buying a game which they knew, they will hate.
But hey, Gamefreak/Nintendo got the money and a sold game copy. Good job!👍
Normally if you hate something or you don't want something, you DO NOT buy it.

Guys, of course NL is upset. They gave the game a good score and their word is law now, apparently.

NL, I'm really disappointed in how you guys have been acting lately. Are you game journalists or are you shills?

Perhaps more people who like the game should be writing reviews?

@Likethepear They are welcome to go to metacritic and do so.

@Mogster Just went back and noticed that the changes the Trump article title from Trump to "The US president"

@Damo Did they also remove the positive reviews score from people who just gave tens without playing or owning the game?

The thing is that these clearly are review bombs because I don't think reasonably this game, whatever your feelings, would be worth a 3/10 or worse. Some of these reviews have genuine points and are valid but such scores are not in line with the comments being made. If you feel that way, this is what, a 5 or 6? I feel the same with 10/10 reviews - I mean is this once every generation or so good?

@SuperEndriu okay, but the shaleholders also agree. And they have a great idea for a game, because they have all the time to come up with ideas, 'cause they don't have to think up new Pokemon anymore. So they come up with a great idea, with a great game and make it a Playstation Exclusive, just to mess with the "Pokemon Lovers". Just to show all those people that it's okay to have conversation about wishes, but not to demand and push and break. Wouldn't that be neat?

@Damo The reviews I'm reading on Metacritic have some obvious ones that are trolling, but the majority of the negative reviews are well written and sound intelligently formed.

That being said, your website gets more disgusting each passing week.

You think that your review of Pokemon is set in stone, and that because it had a positive tone that nobody can speak badly about the game. The way you handled criticism of Astral Chain is also questionable.

This has me convinced that you are actively trying to push sales of video games instead of informing the public.

Just because one of your staff members praised Pokemon SS doesn't make that word law. Other people will review the game and give their take, as well.

Game Freak hasn't moved the series forward in what, 20 entries? But it's the first Switch entry, so we can only lick Nintendo's boots...

@AlexSora89 Yep, they have filtered stuff before and it's gotten to the point that you can't trust sites that have user reviews. Rotten tomatoes and the captain marvel, for instance...

People say the review bombs are "legitimate complaints"
But the game came out 6 hours ago. They likely haven't played it at all, it's just pre hate.

Are you people even reading Metacritic? The negative reviews are extremely well written. Ethics in games journalism? NOT ON NINTENDO LIFE.

Game Freak keeps doing the same garbage, year in and year out. They aren't trying, because they know people will go DRRRR POKEMON and buy it while drooling. They literally have no incentive to do anything different, because the fans just mindlessly buy the next game no matter what GF makes.

OF COURSE a couple of "games journalists" reviewed a huge franchise favorably. That will never change. That doesn't mean that people who are upset with Game Freak suddenly have no say. Liberal bias in the media, truly. Go to hell, Nintendo Life.

@Barbara001

That's wishful thinking. Look I understand you are mad because you feel a game that you love (or want to love) gets critisized and you feel this is unfair. Nintendo usually has it much easier to get way with stuff because their fanbase is the most loyal of them all but this time they have really screwed up. Welcome to the real world!

@Alienfreaks04 Makes you wonder if people got the game early or something.

I used to use Metacritic when is first came about as it was genuinely helpful on getting real people’s opinions on the games and often gave a glimpse at problems not highlighted in media reviews but now the site is basically useless. Once again childish idiots who can’t accept anything that’s not completely how they want it, or are so biased that they give anything by a certain company a 10 have ruined it.

Personal opinion: The game is a ton of fun and it's just as lovely as all the other main series Pokémon games.

I love it, Sword is quickly becoming my favorite Pokémon game.

@Mr_Pepperami Sounds like you haven't read any of the Metacritic reviews. They are genuine complaints about a company that has gotten lazy.

User reviews became pointless once irate gamers started using them to air grievances about games they've never played.

Also, to the "10s and 0s are equally ridiculous" crowd... no. They're not. Besides a 10 unbalancing the average score less as an outlier, the game is objectively much closer to being an amazing game than it is a broken, unplayable mess (which is the only sort of game worthy of a 0).

@Blizzia This is why Game Freak doesn't try. Because fans like you keep lapping up their hot garbage.

I'm picking up my double pack in about 2 hrs cant wait

@Mr_Muscle if they are dropping zeros out of ten for it then why should I? A zero would indicate that it doesn’t work and isn’t functional. It’s idiotic to give a game like this a zero. Give it a 5 or 6 and write a proper review and I’ll read it but sorry but a zero is stupid.

@SuperEndriu unlikely is not impossible. And that's the real world. And for someone in the real world, you really didn't get the joke part of my story right? That I didn't think it a real viable option, but that I would think it funny if it would happen? Just to shut people like you up, who feel entitled to something. But since you're (probably) not a shareholder, you are not entitled to anything that GameFreak does. And that's the point. If you don't like a creative outing, fine, a lot of people don't like "who's afraid of red yellow and blue", but that doesn't give them the entitlement to go to the artist and say, IT SHOULD BE BLACK INSTEAD OF RED! CHANGE IT!!! That would be meshugga. And that's the problem, that the conversation ended and the entitlement started. Like you have a RIGHT to a good pokemon game and the developers are your little slaves, there to please you. Because otherwise 'they get away with their slacking and lazy work'. What you wanna do? Whip them?

But who cares about user review on Metacritic ?!

@Mr_Muscle Dry your tears crybaby.

Just because you dislike the games or think they are bad, doesn't mean I have to.

I think they're excellent Pokémon games.

@Mr_Pepperami Again, you are proving to me that you haven't even looked at the website. Most of the reviews are rated 3-6. Go read the reviews and inform yourself, instead of lapping up the misinformation in the article.

@Blizzia Just another reason that Game Freak doesn't have to put any effort into their next game. I have no tears for people like you, who mindlessly buy Pokemon games no matter what.

I know these articles are just here to generate clicks, but Metacritic has done this to themselves. Even among hobbyists, the only people who should be reviewing this game are those who have actually played it to a respectable degree. Even then it's a 4/10 at the absolute worst.

@Barbara001
Lmao. I am not that much into pokemon, so it's not that much of a deal to me what happens with the franchise in general.
So you believe people who complain and critisize feel just entitled. Fair enough! Maybe it would be better if only people were allowed to review a game who truly love it, with an 8 being the lowest score possible.
Btw I am not into whipping

@Barbara001 If Game Freak were a charity, your comment would make (a little) sense. But, they are a multi-million dollar corporation. They WANT your money, why shouldn't they WORK for it? If the overall quality of the product is bad, why should people remain silent about it?

Game Freak needs to pick up the pace if they want those dollars. Right now they are just resting on their laurels, because people will mindlessly purchase the game with the Pokemon label.

@Mr_Muscle I’ve seen the site and there are just as many zeroes as there are 3s(which is also a stupid score as it indicates the game barely works). Sorry I just don’t agree that slapping silly scores on stuff is correct, especially if you want to be taken seriously and not just salty fanboy who’s kicking his snorlax out of the the pram. You have people giving it a zero saying they have never played it for god sake. How can you rate a game you’ve never played???? Just don’t buy the thing. If enough people feel the same then they will do something.

@Mr_Pepperami It's okay to be stupid, and have someone cure it. It's not okay to be stupid and stay stupid. Go read the site. Even the ones that have a zero still took the time to write something intelligent. Wow, so much denial. Amazing.

@SuperEndriu no not everyone who criticizes is entitled, I'm sayig there are entitled people who criticize. And those people feel the need to pressure developers to get their way. To "not let them get away with it". Away with what? Making a game their proud of? How very dare they! There is no getting away with something if there is no entitlement, no right you can evoke in which the other person owes you something. If the developers owe you nothing, they can't get way with something. Since you said their getting away with something, I assume you think SOMEONE (not saying you)has a right on their products. And I don't see who. And about the whipping thing, good to know, me neither 😉.

@Kit "Don't Ask Questions, Just Consume Product and Then Get Excited for Next Products"

@Mr_Muscle I told you I’ve read many on the site. I even agree with many of the points raised but giving it a zero is still stupid and childish and not objective. I’m not gonna buy it that’s how I show that I don’t think it’s up the scratch but I’m not gonna drop a zero review or even a three as I’ve not played it and Even if I did I’m sure it would be nowhere near a 3.

@Mr_Muscle because SLAVERY is FORBIDDEN. You think I work because I want money and therefor I owe my boss something??? No no no no. My boss needs something only I can provide, and therefor I demand money for my service. See, that's totally different. You can give money to the service GameFreak provides. Don't like the service, don't give the money. Buy Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth, which is also a great game btw. But no, because they want your money, you are not their superior, they provide a service YOU want, not the other way around.

Alien Visitor: greetings, "human". I am curious about your world. Can you tell me a few of your species' greatest achievements?

Joe-Bob: well, we built a thing called "the Internet". It links millions of computers in homes, offices, universities and laboratories, along with most of our newer cars and appliances and handheld devices that everyone carries at all times, so that the entire planet is linked in a giant web of information exchange and we can share all human knowledge and experiences with anyone, instantly, no matter where we go.

AV: fascinating. A remarkable achievement. Truly your species has much to share with the galactic community. Tell me, what do you use this "Internet" for?

Joe-Bob: well, see, if someone makes a game or a movie that I don't like, I can instantly join in what we call a "review bomb" to make it look bad. It helps send a message, see? Like this game, Pokemon, it's terrible. (I haven't played it yet, but I'm pretty sure it sucks.) Here, let me show you...

(A.V. gets into starship and prepares to disintegrate the Earth)

Joe-Bob: WAIT, WAIT! THAT'S NOT ALL! I DIDN'T TELL YOU ABOUT PORN YET!!

@JasmineDragon always lead with the porn.

One thing I love about this drama is it has made it very easy to know whom I should ignore. Every comment section I read is cleaner and cleaner of hate with each of these articles.

@Barbara001
So at least we have one thing in common .
The whole point is not about entitlement. Getting away means imo: offering less for the same price and succeeding without backlash.
Backlash is needed to tell the producers something was not ok in the hopes future products will be better.

This isn’t a “review bomb” as these have legitimate criticism. The fanbase is understandably pretty upset about these games. Given that over 60% of Pokémon have been cut, moves have been cut, Gamefreak has been proven to have lied for the reasons for these cuts, and technical issues are present, and the games haven’t done much to make up for that.
The fanbase doesn’t seem to agree with the reviewers. IGN’s (way too high) 9.3 rating even has more dislikes than likes.

@Mr_Muscle The funny thing is I don't mindlessly buy Pokémon games no matter what. I informed myself regarding Sword/Shield, liked what I saw, and bought it. Now I'm playing and enjoying it, and feeling my purchase was easily justified.

Of all the thing in the world worth being pissed off about, Pokémon almost certainly isn’t one of them.

@Barbara001 Please learn to read the comment before replying back.

@antdickens thank you. Seriously it’s like a brick wall.

@antdickens You're welcome to disagree.

@Damo Early copies get released all the time, according to articles you guys post. I'm sure the same thing occurred, here. I'm also sure that some of the reviews are trolling. However, most of the negative reviews I've read are issuing some pretty solid complaints about the game, and series as a whole.

@SuperEndriu so not into whipping, but you are into backlashing...... Hahahaha 😉😊❤️. I get your point, and I agree with your version, but I wouldn't say backlash but would say critique. Backlash still sounds a bit... Lashing. But critique is not the outrage and weirdness that's happening now, where people apparently are harassing people who give good reviews. Critique, yes, outrage, no.

@Quarth started sword last nice. Done about 2 hours and it was pretty good. Hope you enjoy it 👍

Well, I guess the Sony and Microsoft fanboys don’t have to worry about review bombing this one. I need to play this game for myself to see how it is.

@Mr_Muscle I did, did you read mine? You say, because I give them money, and I give them money, they should work for that money and do as I say. I said, no you want a service, if you like a service, you can pay for that service and have to make due as to what they say. It's all about who gets the final say. Sooooo now that we're clear on that and I do hope you read this comment properly this time, will you respond to it?

Millennial gamers sure are a toxic, joyless bunch. Had never played Pokemon until I played Lets Go Eevee and Pikachu with my 9 year old. Not really my cuppa but any sweet/innocent game your son invests in and lets you tag along is a winner if your a parent. Watched him play few hrs of Sword and Shield and it really is great fun. (He even insisted I choose his "starter" . (Yup, im down!)). . . Couldnt see past Sobble's adorable lil face. "Review bombing" ... pointless waste of time. Go play something u like and cut the negativity out... it gets tiresome.

I downloaded Sword. No problems yet. Only played about an hour but I’m really enjoying it. Just from what I have played, there is no way you could score this under a 6. Haven’t played it docked but it looks rather nice in handheld mode. If people are giving this 3s or 0s, then they ARE review bombing. Games with those scores are Superman 64 bad and this is NOWHERE close to that even if it isn’t what you were hoping for.

@SuperEndriu there's no evidence they lied.

There's evidence many previously existing pokemon/animations are identical to their Sw/sh counterparts, but backwards compatibility issues mean they were either heavily modified or entirely rebuilt, both of which take a lot of time. "Game Freak lied" is born out of complete ignorance of how game development works.

Criticism of the game is generally valid if it can be quantified in some way, and these games do have a couple issues - performance in some cutscenes drops, framerate is inconsistent in the wild area if you're online or during weather effects. Loading other players seems to cause some choppiness. If you've been a fan of past pokemon games, however, the reasons to dislike it are pretty few and far between.

@antdickens
The term “review bomb” often implies that people are doing it to troll and mess the review score for no other reason than laughs and giggles.
People have legitimate reasons this time, and I agree with the points stated in they’re reviews I have read, because the problems they have listed are present and very disappointing for core fans of the series.

@Ashunera84 Ikr, people keep saying they lied and post all these models that are identical as proof, but... In reality that's just a testament to the quality of Game Freaks work. It means they were able to 1:1 produce the same models without being able to do anything but rebuild them from scratch.

All these non-devs feel incredibly entitled for no reason.

Oh well. Game is very good so I'm happy.

@Barbara001

You got me there. Maybe I am not well-behaved after all

Of course NintendoLife protect GF and Nintendo.Because they know they're nothing without them.It's very sad to see them fall to this point.People rightly write their opinions.It's not the right thing to do to present it as a fake review bombardment,or even to pick and choose some of them.Shame on you.

@antdickens okay, I'll be good now 🥺

@SuperEndriu 😝😝😝😁😁😁😊😊😊❤️

@Kidfunkadelic83 I'm on my way home now, also went with Sword. Maybe we can battle later on?

This doesn't seem like an 'attack' as you out it unless every shared opinion is an attack, because in that case your skin might be a tad thin. These all seem like thought out criticism of the game. If these seem harsh you should go read Eurogamer's review. It's pretty open on how bare bones this game is

Well deserved in this case some people might like mediocrity and that's ok, but for the real fans which is the most part of the community that has been playing Pokémon since the beginning expect better and this game costing more with less content than previous games that were on a less powerful console it's unacceptable

@Quarth sounds like a plan, or atleast trade or team up for the mega battles.

Lol the fact most articles on here are about negativity on Sw and Sh but yet the adverts are all for the game. Good times.

The only reviews that matter

@Mogster that’d require actual work, Nintendolife employees only react.

@GKO900 Nailed it.

@Ashunera84

Many people will disagree. Backwards compatibility is not an issue here, they just used the same stuff not the same game.

All metacritic complaints aside: how are we supposed to review a game? Swsh has less content than previous games (pokemon count as content) - is this a reason for a higher or lower score?
Racing games usually don't come with less tracks than their predecessors. Would they score higher if they did?
Could shsw have better graphics? Probably but pokemon isn't about graphics people say, so we can't really take that point into account for our score?

Tell me, what goes into a pokemon review score? The amount of fun a reviewer had while reviewing?

I think there should be certain guidelines which are valid for all games or at least shared between similar games. And previous games should also be taken into account.
If not we end up in a double morale situation where some games are treated harshly while others are praised for nothing.

@fluggy See this is where your opinion becomes invalid. You're trying to speak to people who have been supporting Pokemon for over 20 years now - you haven't. We have expectations. If you took the time to see what people were complaining about, you'd know you could go back to 1998 and get the same exact experience then as you can now. So rather than talking like a clueless dad, please do some research before typing in your disappointment to the fans.

This game even if the criticisms are valid and coming from a good place is not a 0/10. A 0/10 would imply the game doesn't even start on the console/PC and you cannot even play the contents of the game. For a game to truly be terrible it has to:

A) Break every known story telling convention and not have any logical progression in plot. You can break the plot without any real effort and it lacks any entertainment value through being good or bad.

B) The game has to be a technical mess and you are running into a bug so often that you cannot get immersed into the experience. We are talking about launch Fallout NV level buggy (Fallout NV is an awesome game, but at launch it was a mess).

C) Graphically it is ugly on both an artistically aesthetic level, but also on a technical one. I'm not talking about a blurry texture here and there, or a bad model. I mean the game looks like Superman 64 and being released in 2019.

D) The game is just simply not even fun to play. The combat system is unintuitive, boring and just simply broken.

Unless, Pokemon Sword and Shield fits the above than it is not even a 3/10. Even, for myself a game like Death Stranding which is a rather boring game with a messy plot is still a 5/10 (sorry Kojima its not your best work). And being perfectly objective, Sword and Shield in quality is closer to a 10/10 than it will ever be a 0/10 even with the valid complaints.

Just my two cents take it or leave it.

@jump Not really, considering that the game pretty much ends after the two hour post game. I could see a lot of players having finished it by now, only to realize they bought half a game.

@antdickens That's fair. I was actually typing a response to one of your earlier comments when you replied lol..

But I think this review is actually good (despite being angry at the game), which is why I only use NintendoLife for my game reviews. I truly believe you guys give honest/fair reviews when considering all angles - so thank you!

There are many angry trolls on here, but some of us are just angry at GameFreak. Also - I don't think most people believe NL is protecting GF haha... But if you were to say IGN is, well then that's a possibility XD

@Burning_Bacon I read on Eurogamer that they left out the "dungeon" parts and there are less trainers. Now for me that's a plus, because I loaaaaaathed those dungeons and trainers. I always treid to avoid them or jsut stopped playing for weeks because I had landed in another dark dungeon full of random encounters and trainers and very many floors. So for me, being more "bare bones", not having to rough through an SS Anne again is a total plus. I've been playing since pokemon Blue (yep, that old) and the dungeons and overload on trainers was always the thing that annoyed me the most about pokemon games. So I'm quite happy about those changes. Just saying that in pleasing some (like me), you displease others and in displeasing some, your pleasing others (like me) 😊.

@antdickens I know. I thought Nintendo fans were better than this, but I guess not. But, hopefully Metacritic balences out to scores to be more in line with the contents of the review rather than the scores.

PS love the site and the clear hard work and dedication everyone on Nintendolife gives every day. Keep it up!

@SuperEndriu people can disagree with facts all they like, doesn't make them right.

Backwards compatibility is everything when developing for a new system. They quite literally can not just reuse the same assets. Simply putting the old models on a new console does not work. The way the Switch handles textures, shaders, lighting etc. is different from 3DS and simply using the old assets would result in a garbled mess.

This is why Game Freak almost certainly wasn't lying when they said they said they rebuilt them from scratch. They had to either fix a ton of garbled messes or rebuild from scratch. Why lie? There's no reason to. They weren't lying when models and animation were cited as the reason many pokemon were cut, because rebuilding 1100 models from scratch with basically 0 reused animations/rigs between them is a colossal undertaking. I can confidently say no other single game release has ever had that many.

There ARE fair criticisms to be made of the games, but dishonesty from GF is not one of them. As I said, there are several causes of framerate loss and I can't speak to the total amount of game content because I haven't finished it yet. They aren't visually technical marvels, but saying they look bad is disingenuous... they objectively look substantially better than any past entry (excluding LGP/LGE maybe) and reasonably comparable to most other major Switch releases.

@HollowNight
I guess I stand corrected. I was actually giving the older "fans" (you know, the "20 year supporters") the benefit of the doubt. If you grew up with Pokemon and your bout 30-40 years old now... and review bombing a game based on kids japanese cartoon. . . youve got um ... issues.

Apart from a few pretty badly written reviews I honestly see nothing but constructive criticism in the content of the fan reviews

People had every right to be completely disappointed or feel flat out betrayed by Game Freak for their lack of transparency and inability to seemingly deliver a game longer than 19-20 hours at most based off what I'm reading

This wasn't really worth writing an article over. It just feels like you want to shame the people who actually cared about receiving a product of higher quality

There are bad reviews in there for sure, but they don't seem to make up the majority.

Its really sad that review bombing is even a thing. I usually go by audience scores when deciding to see a movie, as they are usually more reliable than the critics when it comes to good movies to watch. Review bombing is making me trust game critic reviews more than the user score, which is sad

metacritic needs to start banning those trolls on there thats abusing the review score on there.

At least it's not being review bombed for being an exclusive.

Is everyone playing nice here?

@JaxonH You will find that reviews are opinions.

@fluggy ghehehehe 😁

The Pokemon fanbase is so freaking toxic. I am so glad that I just keep to myself and play the games for fun.

@ummyeahnintendo Critic reviews for movies are embarrassingly out of touch. Probably because the journos are anything but journalists but left wing activists.

I am not even sure how any of these people have played long enough to even have an opinion (Not sure when it went live Digital I guess)

I can understand coming here and saying you will hold off from buying it... or disappointed with some gameplay info.

But if someone claiming a "Review" on something not even played - is crazy hate.

Oh brother. As much as I love playing games, I hate the gaming community.

The problem with review bombing in general is that often you can end up having bad reviews from people who never really played the game simply cause they don't like it

@Wolfgabe astral chain and fire emblem three house were review bomb by trolls who havent even play those games and also being butthurt over astral chain being exclusive to the switch as well.

@Yorumi Very good post. I also see the negative user scores being due to the out of touch critic scores. Giving a game with all these issues such a high score devalues the score system and makes people distrust critic scores. So naturally game journos will try to spin it and make out the user reviews are the problem rather then looking at themselves. Game journos are out of touch.

@SquallLeonhart86 bs dude read my comment above yours those trolls that review bomb sword and shield did the same thing to 2 other switch games i mention.

@RiasGremory Nonsense. Giving a game a low score because of disappointment is very different to giving a game low score because it's an exclusive

@antdickens Yeah I agree with you there but user reviews have always been known to have people giving extreme scores of either 0 or 10s. Not all of them do thankfully

I listened to a review saying that if an open world Pokémon game would have come during the GameCube era, it would have been a 10/10. Now the problem is the hype created around this Pokémon game which made theorists make all kinds of assumption AND the fact that people played BoTW (best open world game eeeeveeeer). Pokémon games have always been simple in a cute naive way, this is why I loved these games. I don't want Pokémon games to try to be the new best RPGs ever, I just need them to take me on this journey I Ioved since Pokemon Red & Blue. This is the best Pokemon game!

@SquallLeonhart86 calling my comment nonsense go to youtube and check it out your self man.

@antdickens Yeah it should balance out over time

Gonna be playing Shield later today! Cautiously optimistic, but when posting a review everyone has different expectations for a game. It they're happy with it, then it will be higher and vice versa. If you think its a 9/10, go for it. But if you think its a 2/10, please don't post it as a 5/10 just to prevent people from dismissing any concerns you have about the product....

All of these review bombs obviously have an agenda which means that whoever has given it a negative review has either not played it and made assumptions beforehand or bought it knowing full well they wouldn’t like it just so they could post a review in which case they have still given Game Freak a sale when the best way to let them know you do not like the idea of the game is to not buy it at all.

Either way the reviews are ‘fake news’.

If in a month after owning it and either finishing it or giving up on it you still don’t like it, then I’ll listen to you.

Still if the negativity is that bad it means more second hand copies around which will drive down the price when I buy it in a few weeks so who is the real loser here?

At this rate, don't beg for another home console Pokemon game. This is just embarrassing.

@frogopus The target market are enjoying themselves. That's great to hear. People at my work are wondering why I'm laughing. I said I'm reading a bunch of adults going into absolute meltdown over the latest Pokemon games. Normally they see me laughing at flat earthers and sovereign citizens. I think hardcore Pokemon fans are almost on the same level.

I think is sad that more than half of this people haven't even bought or played the game and are already "reviewing it" plus is way to early for reviews anyway, the game just came out and most likely the haters that have actually been playing the game haven't even gotten pass the first or second gym, they haven't really bothered to actually give a chance to try to experience the game for real.

I don't care what other people say or think about the game. It all goes down to how I feel about the game. I am buying it for me. Nobody else is buying the game for me. That is what I think of this matter.

Unlike astral chain, rhese seem from fans that love rhe franchise. Astral Chain review bombing was feom people that were mad it was a switch exclusive. Completely different scenarios.

@frogopus kids usually have lower standards.

For those, such as @JellyPop saying that these reviews seem to be from people who already played the game, keep in mind the game has existed as available for exactly 13 hours or less depending on your location. How many of these people do you honestly believe have played all there is to play in a JRPG in 13 hours to be able to write such scathing reviews? Even if their complaints are ultimately valid based on early impressions, their decision to post it as a total review is, at very best, dishonest, even if their bias would lead them to the same review a week later.

RazumikhinPG8 once again disrespecting anyone who doesn't share his opinion. Disgusting user. Starting any comment with "Nintendo Life" is on par with the quality of commentary of children.

Welp Uh How am i post to be shock..

i'd say the shills are more of a problem then reveiw bombing in this case.

I have yet to play the game, but from what I've seen so far, most of the criticism seems to be a disconnect from what is actually presented. It's a semi-open-world Pokemon game. That alone is reason to be interested in it.

The theme I see in most of the criticism seems to be a mix of people who seem to believe all Pokemon should always exist in all games like it's some additive formula. I never expected that. I expect each game to have its own collection of 'mon.

The other theme that's never stated but implied seems to be that people that liked Pokemon when they were younger wanted Pokemon to become a certain type of game by now, and with the first console entry, they let themselves expect that that meant it was going to become a certain type of game. The trouble is GF never intended it to become that type of game, never said they intended to, and tons of fans got upset with the fact that the game is what it is instead of what they wished it was going to be.

Maybe there's validity that there are limitations to the game that shouldn't be there, I won't know until I play it. But I still feel such disconnect between complaints that basically read "I expected this game would be the Pokemon I imagined I'd get to play someday and that's not what it is, it's something else instead" versus what GF has always said the game would be. Between this and Let's Go, I feel like Pokemon "fans" in general, just don't actually like Pokemon very much at all. They just like retro SNES/GB JRPGs.

@frabbit Considering most of the bile is coming from "hardcore Pokemon fans", I'm not quite certain that her being a big fan makes a positive score the more likely outcome as a default of that status.

@Damo "Review-bombing" is a contrived dysphemism, intended to slander opposition. Disagreeing strongly with another's conclusions isn't a proof of intent. If I were to baselessly claim several Zelda games got a 10/10 from a large amount of fans simply because those people want to heighten the perception of those games, my clearly biased claim would hardly be believable, and I would rightly be scorched for it, unless I provided strong reason for my hearers to believe otherwise (ie, more than just "they're mean and wrong, therefore they are malicious").

Again, why the double standard? Do you consider only the 0/10s to be bombings? Would you the same about 1s or 2s? What about the 3s? But overwhelming numbers of 8s, 9s, and 10/10s aren't unusually generous. That's normal, since I agree with those!

Please consider your journalistic integrity, sir. It is only fair to your readers, after all. We appreciate good and interesting writing (which skill I have lauded you for having, previously, and I think I'm keen to do so again), and we also appreciate consistency.

@mist I’m personally not a Pokémon fan, but my wife bought the game and I’ve been watching her play, and I don’t see any of the technical issues many of those comments mentioned. The game seems fine to me.

Even though these are intelligently formed opinions, they are likely ones made months ago, since the game literally just came out.

It is fans review bombing over the dex issue and couching that in partially formed opinions they've been building on since the dex issue was first brought up.

The gameplay is standard Pokemon. Story is standard Pokemon. To give it a 0 because you are upset about dex is disingenious at best and downright trolling at worst.

@antdickens @frogopus post in #214 needs to become a talking point. Not joking. It's the most true statement around, and one nobody wants to hear. The clicks will be through the roof, NL will become the most DDoS'ed site on the internet.....and at least one outlet will be stating the simple truth amidst the flames.

@Yorumi You always surprise me that you're certainly one of the most level-headed and thoughtful people among the commenters here....but the moment Pokemon comes up you tend to be one of the most extreme "internet people" around. But only for Pokemon (and NSO)

I don't like basing accusations of lies on assumptions. Yes, companies lie all the time to "short sell" their cost cutting measures. Starting with "your business is important to us!" No, it isn't.

And yet, we don't know what their process is, what work they did or didn't do, what they lost or didn't lose prior. Maybe they lied to cover for cost cutting or time saving. Maybe they did a lot of work on models. We don't know. Maybe they're sick of the whining fans and just tried to placate them so they shut up and it backfired, while they made the game they wanted to make. Heck I'd have tried that too, probably.

What we can bet is that if there really was no required effort in putting all those mon in, they wouldn't have cut it - there'd be no cost or time saving reason to do so. So the fact that they cut it at all, without some "day 1 DLC" to sell it back to us, we know pretty certainly there IS some effort/cost/time that would need to be spent to include them. Maybe it's a more complicated internal reason than "better animations" and they just went with a simplified explanation rather than "well, our 3DS dev kits aren't compatible with the new asset streaming tool we used, so we have to made some hand modifications to each model before importing them, etc. etc."

This game isn't Coluseum. This game isn't Battle Revolution. This game is Sword Shield. It doesn't matter how many character classes were in some other game - this game needs to stand as its own game, not a relative accumulation of games from 20 years ago. Judgement of Sword should be about how fun Sword is, not about how it compares to a battle game from an age past. It's not selling itself as a direct sequel of that spinoff.

I think it comes back to my and frogopus point. This game is primarily intended for people who weren't even BORN YET when Colosseum released. And Colosseum isn't a JRPG - it's a game in a different genre entirely.

Out of all your criticisms, so far, the only one I feel could negatively affect my experience with it is the content. If the game is short, with a lack of content, lack of characters/story events, gyms etc, that will possibly negatively affect my experience with it.

The rest of those criticisms still comes back to "I wanted this game to become something else because I've played all the others." You no longer like new Pokemon games for being Pokemon games, you want a Pokemon game that changed along with your tastes. They never said they intended to do that. It wasn't a game for 8 year olds that then adapts and becomes a game for those 8 year olds 50 years later. It remains a game for 8 year olds that 58 year olds can enjoy too. We're not going to see Snorlax as a homeless war vet with alcohol issues sleeping on a bench in Pallet Town.

We're not going to see Pikachu as a cynical, grizzled old crime investigator down on his lu.....oh....wait.....

My wifes son loves this new pokemon. So who am I to argue.

@Yorumi The whole "GameFreakLied" campaign is getting ridiculous. At worst case, they blew off a complicated issue with a stupid oversimplified explanation to make people shut up and go away....they probably shouldn't have, and it has apparently bit them in the proverbial rear, but they hysteria around that is also overblown.

Ok, lets assume they lied to write off a bigger issue with a simple explanation to get people to be quiet. The question then becomes why? What was the issue. Again, if all they had to do was import old content, they'd have pushed the button and been done with it. If they did not do so, there is a reason either financially, deadline-based, or creatively for which they did so. Their "lie" then was not a true lie of intent, but a lie of reason. They cut additional pokemon either because it saved money (implying they were NOT just copy/pasting), it saved time (implying they were not just copy/pasting), it saved testing time/money, or not including it was part of their creative design for one reason or another of wanting a more focused group of 'mon.

Take your pick, but the very fact they didn't include them means there was a reason, and it means they didn't lie there was a business reason to cut them, merely that their simplified reasoning wasn't really the complete story. Still a lie, but not a lie of that adding the mon didn't take resources, just a lie oversimplifying that animations alone were the reason it would take resources.

Lets' forget the whole "gamefreaklied" meme. They didn't include some content from old games, either for business or creative reasons. If it was for business reasons, that means they had to do work on it which means they aren't just copying these with no effort. That's all there is to that.

Your own thinking on the matter is that there's a creative reason. Making a unique feel to each region. Personally I don't think that's it either. Their target audience doesn't even know most of the Pokemon that are or aren't returning. And we already know they're not making design decisions around what old hardcore fans want. Maybe it is about setting a regional theme though. Not about selling based on returning mon but just wanting each region to be unique with poulation. That's sensible, and understandable. Though I feel like if it were that, they'd have said so. That's a very "Nintendo-like reason" they'd proudly state rather than skirt around.

From a business perspective, all that hard content etc really ran contrary to the original intent of the series. It got carried away, and they got carried away with it. They did placate it, yes, but I feel like they must have made a managerial decision at some point to say "no, we're going back to roots, that's where we need to put our focus." Around the 3DS/3D transition when they needed to go 3D seems about when they did that.

It's not that all your points aren't valid from the perspective of your own desires. It's that I don't think your desires, experience, and comparisons are in line with where GF is positioning the product at this time. You and many others wish they were positioning the product differently, but they changed directions a decade plus ago, and went somewhere different than where people thought they were going after B&W2. Let's Go and Sw/Sh are consistent with that trajectory, which is a different trajectory from B&W.

I may play the game and be underwhelmed, I may find it really short and shallow. But I'm certainly not ready to start making any complaints about the game until, maybe mid-Jan after I'm knee deep into it, and so far I'm excited for it.

Similarly you already knew you hated it back in June, and nothing, not even playing a fun game that releases today would change your mind. You already knew you hated it before it was even boxed, and any time spent with it will confirm to you all that you hate about it because you already know what you wish it was and know it's not that. And that's the fundamental problem with any conversation on the game. The people that hate it hated it based on it's definition alone, and will never not hate it, no matter what it does right, skewing everything vastly negative.

@NEStalgia Just wanted to basically thumbs up everything you've written. You are incredibly well measured, intelligent in your arguments, and wholly thoughtful.

Way to be awesome at debating!

Someone posted a pic that showed Death Stranding has 9 hours worth of cutscenes but the new Pokemon was completed in 8 hours. If pokemon has less game then another has cutscenes then I dont know what to say lol

Edit: I am aware it's likely not a fair comparison but it's still pretty funny

@antdickens I can't believe you even keep responding to this drivel. I haven't ordered/bought Sword or Shield yet, but it's clear that Alex isn't the only one who thinks this game was FUN enough to deserve an 8. I'm still sceptical, but that's his opinion and I respect that and the most important thing are the things he actually wrote about, not the score. Comparing this game's score to a game that's decades old is just complete nonsense. Not only is that by a different person, but it's also in a different age/time. Anyone who tries to compare these scores and thinks they're making a valid argument are just acting.. silly.

@antdickens If only the people working for IGN had your attitude

@antdickens I think it's great that you do, that's for sure! It's one of the things I love about this website, the engagement by the staff. ^^ Just felt like I've never seen these many responses before (for something that IMO doesn't deserve it), which could just be me, I don't go through every comment section, obviously.

I honestly never realized (certain hardcore) Pokemon fans were so painfully entitled and stupid until now. Doesn't matter how many positive reviews there are from people who have actually played the game, it didn't fulfill their childhood fantasies so it's worthless garbage that deserves to be review bombed out of existence. What a bunch of losers. If only these people could spend their time and effort on making the world a little less miserable for everyone, instead of piling on.

@frabbit
Agreed, she does. But everyone has bias. Better to have someone who likes Pokémon review the game then someone who does not like Pokémon review the game. Question is not whether she is a fan but whether she is capable of reviewing the quality of the game regardless.

And in a statistical sense, given her score is within 1 point of the aggregate, which is well within the normal variation expected, there is no clear evidence to suggest she scored the game any differently than the rest of the reviewer population.

Pretty much everyone scored the game well, not just her. Her score was barely any different than most others, as the aggregate sits around 8.1

@SquallLeonhart86 Seems like more of a dig at Death Stranding than Pokemon.

@Zuljaras Slow news day yet again

@ShiroYo
If you agree with a review that ignores all the issues in a game and gives a high score because the person playing it had fun, you also have to agree with someone that played the game and had no fun because of the issues present.

There’s a fundamental flaw to that argument. “All the issues in a game” is subjective, and the ones that aren’t are debatable how much they impact the experience. She didn’t ignore any issues- she said either they weren’t issues in the first place or they were too negligible to impact the experience. And all the ones that don’t fit into those categories were accounted for.

Almost all reviewers gave a high score. The aggregate is at 81. That means it’s not just one outlier saying it’s a great game, it’s the entire community of professional reviewers whose job is to rate the game fairly without letting emotions overcome their judgement... all of them are saying the game is great.

It’s not just that they “had fun”, it’s that they had fun and rate it a quality game. And nobody “has to” agree with anything. I agree with logic and reason and my own judgment. And if the reviews that are saying the game is good give logical reasons for why these “issues” aren’t a big deal, don’t stop the game from being a fantastic experience, etc, then I will agree with them. If bad reviews convince me they have a major impact and I will not enjoy the game, then I will agree with those reviews instead.

More importantly, this game looks good, runs good, it’s fun to play, and I haven’t experienced any “issues” hindering my enjoyment thus far. I’ll base my beliefs off that more than anything else.

@SquallLeonhart86
You will find that reviews are opinions

I agree 100%. They are indeed opinions. Which is precisely why it’s so outrageous fans are attacking anyone who gives their honest opinion and says it’s good game. Especially when those people haven’t even played it themselves to form a well-substantiated opinion of their own.

Let people have their opinions.

@fluggy Okay Boomer.

@MailOrderNinja I don't know about everything being standard Pokemon. I heard from people who have been playing the story that they felt that it was the most lacking aspect of the game. Some of the past few generations had more involved plot lines so this would be a break from the trend while the competitive side could be seen as a great improvement from past entries. I am waiting to get a copy myself so I can form my opinion, but whether people like the game or not, simply call it standard or average for pokemon in each individual aspect.

Missing features? Like, Smash Ultimate, which still got great ratings? Like Breath of the Wild, the most boring game that everyone loves? So stupid...the hate is literally over the Pokédex. Nothing less and nothing more.

Wow the comments section for this article.. Felt like i was reading some war book or something. Insane

@MailOrderNinja Haha I guess it is. Hideo Kojima needs to just become a movie director instead. Although his movies will be so long you will have to bring a tent to the cinema

i never liked sword and shield ever since the presentation was shown, like, everything seemed so dull like the game was lifeless especially since the new content in it is weird and doesn't make much sense to me such as the giant projected pokemon, plus the main protagonists look dull as well, like, duller than the main protagonists from X and Y. sword and shield kinda comes off like a boring filler in the game franchise with a lack of an interesting story like as if game freak is running out of ideas to make one big appealing pokemon game this time. i'll wait to see if the pokemon adventures manga chapters involving this version convinces me to play it in the future though chances are i probably won't play it at all cause MAN this game feels dull.

@antdickens those trolls that are giving sword and shield 0/10 are probably the same ones that gave 0/10 to astral chain and fire emblem three houses.

@RiasGremory I doubt ps4 fans give a damn about pokemon. Astral chain and fire emblem sure, but pokemon seems unlikely

@NIN10DOXD Story has never been a strongpoint of the series, even in the best of games. They pretty much copy paste the entire plot over and over, which is fine, because that isn't really what Pokemon has ever been about.

@SquallLeonhart86 Be a marathon watch for just the first movie.

How did they finish the game so quickly? something fishy is going on.

Honestly I'm put off by that fanboy and fangirls of that rival girl. No feelings on the game itself right now as I haven't played it. But those fans just disturb me for some reason.

The launch of this game reminds me of the launch of Fallout 76. I hope that this game does not have the same fate as 76.

Sorry but these look like genuine reviews to me.

@BarefootBowser Didn't Gen 5 try to do that? Given the overall quality of Gen 5's Pokemon selection, I'm glad it didn't actually take off.

Honestly Metacritic (and imdb) should stop showing the "helpfulness" (and imply how many people found it "unhelpful") of user reviews. It always becomes an "I agree/disagree" button, it doesn't matter how eloquently you explain your opinions, if it doesn't align with the popular opinion (X good/bad) it will always be extremely downvoted. While a post unhelpful to someone who would be interested in the game like "Game gud/bad" will gain tons of "upvotes", because it's the popular opinion.

I wonder if they even bought the game and played it. Or just bashing like spoiled brats.

@Zuljaras The one thing I hate most about this website: people like you.

With your incessant whining about how worthy articles are of being news. Or how this is clickbait when you get exactly what it says in the headline.

Yes this deserves a special little article, yes I found this interesting and that's why I clicked. And finally, about 200 people have commented on this: so it seems to be news people are interested in!

Why do you people do this?! I'm actually interested from a social studies perspective!

In other news, water is wet.

"Come from a place of love and passion for the Pokemon series", written by a fan entity. And then it's Game Freak that's accused of telling lies in public? Or is this just the perennial sincere delusion at work?

I never read the reader reviews on Metacritic anyway and this is one of the reasons why. There's just too many immature people out there who do this kind of thing.
Anyway, after playing a fair chunk of the game I agree with Nintendolife's score of 8.

I’m liking the game. But this game looks like a 1080p DS game. It’s borderline offensive graphically. 🤣

I wasted my time and read a lot of them and most of them are not written as poorly as I expected. Yeah there are some that are just extremely negative with false information and there are some that are extremely fanboy-ish and anti informative. But overall they really aren't that bad. The thing with Astral Chain and Bayonetta review bombing is that most of the criticism wasnt even about the game, it was about why its not on other systems. SwSh's "review bombing" to me just looks like people feeling very disappointed with Game Freaks new title and wished for more.

It's hard to take a user aggregate score seriously when you have reviews like "0/10 too many women not in the kitchen".

I don't care what anyone says. This game feels like Sun and Moon with a cut Pokedex and an even less challenging story mode. I mean... why do I have to use the lame exp. share? Why am I not able to turn it off? This is so lazy. The animations are obviously 100% from S/M. The game looks good enough for me, but there's gotta be more potential. Luckily I enjoy the online matches too much, so I still will have fun, but I get every casual gamer who complains.

All I'm saying if you're gonna review bomb and still give an informed opinion on a game you never played. At least don't put in a 0, like that just makes everyone not take you seriously in your motives.

I'll say it before, and I'll say it again. Point based reviews are pointless.

This goes for users and professional reviewers.

Both have abused the system for far too long.

7.8/10
-Too much salt
-Too many shills

@Kalmaro
Captain Marvel was a fine movie, although I couldn't help but feel it was meant to establish her as a hype magnet for Avengers Endgame.

To be fair I didn't play any of the 3ds games. But Pokemon Shield is so far the best Pokemon I've played & it's just fun & surprising all the time. The new Pokemon you wanna see their evolution forms, the wild area sometimes wild Pokemon run into you & can knock out your whole team cause their level is way higher than yours & you can't run away sometimes, & it's just got this different about it healing your Pokemon on the go & all but it does require you setting up a camp & collecting berries or going to someone. The graphics arent ok but Pokemon open world I feel it's acceptable. My only problem is too much talking & some of the Pokemon fighting animations they could've done more with but it's fun nonetheless. All games rehash some things nowadays don't let it keep you guys from a great game

Oh & some of the Pokemon designs I think are weak. Some you can tell they just took a real animal & changed one thing on it & decided to call it a Pokemon. But boy it's a lot of new Pokemon from what I seen so far that I actually really like them & they're my favorite of all Pokemons now. Specifically the fighting types

@Damo

"I simply said our reviewer played the game for over a week"

"oh, have you played the game for as long as our reviewer."

I mean, you'd think that for someone that writes for a living, you'd understand how the way something is written completely changes the tone. Or are you just trying to back track on how you responded to someone who simply stated that the criticisms seemed reasonable?

@AlexSora89 Glad you enjoyed it, I didn't like it to much myself.

@Ardisan Would you mind saying what the false information was?
@Whyita That is false, the hate is over more than the Pokédex

Im playing Shield and loving it. It is vastly superior to Sun and Moon, and maybe even X and Y. The balance between old and new pokemon is really good and there is plenty of choices. I just got badge 4 and the game is not slowing down. Thanks Gamefreak.

@MailOrderNinja They have a pokemon league, but the actual overarching plot is still different. especially later generations.

@Agramonte Honestly that was.... my thought?

Like "The game just came out. My browser list this article was posted at 5h45am ... how the hell did you have enough time to play the game in that little time to actually write a "detailed" review of something that still wasn't accessible yet for many players?"

Are people really this small and petty?
I feel like this new generation of kids act incredibly entitled, soft and just easily offended and whiny. The game looks visually clean and is FUN to play. Does it have flaws? Plenty...so please, Make a REAL review if you want but this bombing bs has got to stop

@MailOrderNinja Plus if you look at the protagonist 's age as an indication of a lot of the core population they always wanted these games to tackle....

... for a lot of players, the ones who don't go online to ramble about this, it's always going to be their FIRST pokemon game and thus their FIRST pokemon story?

@Bizzyb Believe, I suspect it's not the kids who rants about this.

At least not the pre-teen and younger this franchise traditionally cater to if you look at the age of your average Pokemon game protagonist(around 12, iirc?).

It takes at least a grown teenager to get into this kind of toxicity that spends more time ranting about it online than actually playing the game, like when I saw someone mention how they'd seen a 15 year old rant(when the game wasn't even out yet!) and yell at his younger sister about how it was "going to be the worst pokemon game ever" until she literally started crying as she was holding onto her Scorbunny plush.

And honestly I hate to say it, but it's very often a lot of us guys who're the worst about that "must prove everyone this thing is crap!" kneejerk reaction like that teenager was doing for something that wasn't even out yet.

Like it didn't matter to him that for his kid sister, what he complained about was of no importance to her when she was looking forward to the game with the colorfully bright graphic where she could train her own scorbunny on the console and big screen?

Like I'm playing the game and I'm impressed by the level of detail that went into the environments and their bright colors. I've studied 3D so I can see where they did things in a way to keep performance good(such as some of the houses where the "light" from windows is actually textures baked directly into the floor rather than a true light effect, but it still conveyed the idea of it) but even there it's generally assembled in a way that works and in fact will specifically work for the target audience of kids coming from the show.

And honestly? I'm not even sure more "advanced" lighting/etc would have been better. I'm coming from DQ11 on PS4 and DQ11 S on Switch and honestly there's times I preferred the Switch's more primitive shaders because though the PS4 version had more advanced graphics... there were many times the shaders and atmospheric it uses made the visuals darker than what would have really looked good with the characters and town's visuals, especially considering the Toriyama-inspired style used in Dragon Quest game.

As it is, the kind of shaders/colors/etc used in Sword and Shield is just utterly gorgeous if you think in terms of art direction rather than purely technical hardware thinking only of framerates or image resolution. Of course, it might be the part of me that enjoyed past Art History classes the most and work as a commission artist part-time but still. The use of colors to give environments with clear palettes/mood in these games(also including other of Nintendo's own) always impressed me.

I am in the group that is massively disappointed with the dex cut and seeing some pokemon who survived and who got cut makes me question GF if they even took the country the region it was based on into question.

Anyway I do have my copy of sword because of a deal I got on it and I am going into it while disappointed going to have an open opinion on the game. Some things do have me worried though. 1 begining the inability to catch higher level pokemon if you don't have the right badge. What if it is a shiny? Though I have heard rumors that those encounters are shiny locked so if that is true good on GF for thinking ahead on that.

Now onto the article. Anyone who gives the game a 0/10 I don't agree on unless it is completely broken or doesn't launch (e.g some steam games released without the .exe file to launch the game. That is a 0/10 game.).

Same goes with a 10/10 game. To me a 10/10 game has to be a flawless game that runs great with no game-breaking bugs, technical difficulties, pop-in, ect. Length of a game can also play a factor depending on the launch retail price of the game.

Regarding people saying review bombing is stupid. I completely disagree. While review bombing can be used in the incorrect way like giving this game a 0/10. Sometimes it can be used in the correct way to inform new people if a patch drops that changes the game in a wrong way.

I joined in a review bomb when PayDay 2 added loot boxes to the game where it was really bad. They added skins into those loot boxes it wouldn't be so bad but the developers have stated that the game will not have microtransactions in the game before the game launched. That was a lie. Also what was worse was those skins had random stats to them which made it more sicking. Now they have since fixed that and remove the loot boxes. But are you telling me that review bombing PayDay 2 was stupid? Review bombing is a good thing if done correctly.

Now people giving it a 10/10 just as a reaction to the people giving it a 0/10 are equally just as bad. Seen some people calling out the people giving it a 0/10 that they haven't played the game or couldn't have completed it but not the people who are giving it a 10/10 with the same complaints.

When I am finished with this game I know for a fact that I won't be giving it a 0/10 or a 10/10.

Yay, more pathetic review bombing. And yes, it is review bombing. The game may not live up to hardcore fans expectations/demands but it's still a solid game that deserves a 5 or 6 at worst. Giving it a score at or near zero is intentional and childish review bombing.

I swear, people can't be realistically disappointed or critical on the internet. They have to be whiny, obnoxious babies.

@Yorumi
The argument isn’t that peoples’ opinions aren’t valid. Everyone here, myself included and certainly the author, believes everyone should have the right to voice their honest opinion whether they like the game or not.

The issue is review bombing. The issue is unjustified opinions being used as a weapon to attack a game with a 0/10, which no game deserves ever under any circumstance if it turns on. The issue is people bombing it with zero out of 10’s without even playing it the day it comes out.

There is a difference between having a negative opinion and review bombing a game with a 0/10 that you haven’t even played.

I don’t care how upset someone is. That’s unjustified and it should be called out immediately and unequivocally. I think Death Stranding is straight up garbage for its gameplay. Accidentally forgot to cancel my pre-order so I decided screw it I might as well try it. Love the environment of the game and I love the premise and the story and certainly the graphics and presentation but my god can I not stand in the game play. And I think it’s absolutely ridiculous that reviewer‘s who were even admitting the game was boring and not fun were then turning around and giving the game a 10 out of 10. That angers me but you don’t see me review bombing the game with a 0 out of 10 as a result. And the people who were review bombing it are everything that’s wrong with gaming.

The people review bombing this game are likewise precisely what’s wrong with gaming. Mob outrage ruled by emotion leading to unreasonable conclusions which are then weaponized under the justification of “but the game is XYZ”. Nobody is arguing people can’t have a negative opinion of the game. What people are arguing, is that review bombing with 0/10 for a game you haven’t played (heck even if you have played it, unless it won’t even turn on) is 100% unjustified and needs to be condemned at every opportunity.

Why are you bullying and shaming people who have legitimate constructive criticism? Because you come across as awful, bias bullies. Shame on you all. That second review sounds very polite.

I've played for 4 hours so far and unless it takes a turn for the worse I'd be staggered if any of those 0's were even remotely sincere.

So far it advanced on from Sun/Moon in a positive direction.

Pokemon distribution is great, lots of new ones with intetesting designs and Pokemon like Tyrogue and growlithe appearing earlier than usual. I had a full team by route 2.

Town design up to motostoke is a lot better than the DS/3DS ones, which had questionable designs for the big cities. Though so far outside the wild area the game seems to be linear.

The change to having Pokemon encounters appear in the environment from random encounters is a good change, since for caves you'd usually end up spamming repels.The split of moves into reusable TMs and one-time TRs seems like a good balancer. Moves like rapid spin have been giving buffs.

So far the idea that these have been the results of lazy game design and not measured consideration seems like bunk. Though until I complete it I'll hold off on a final judgement.

@JaxonH I agree, kneejerk reactions and mob mentality do not make for reliable feedback.

It spits on fans who want to take the time to reflect on the game and provide thorough feedback by burying them beneath a sea of the exact same viewpoint that can't even be trusted to have played the game.

Once again, this shows why open review sites can never be taken seriously. Anyone can "review" games without even needing to play nor even buy them in the first place. I'll take sites like IGN and Polygon any day over these sites.

And as we have seen plenty of times before (not just with Pokemon), review bombs literally don't do anything. Anyone who still particaptes and/or supports review bombing don't deserve to be taken seriously no matter what they have to say

Actually this game deserves to be review bombed. Half of the Pokemon are missing, and my legenderies would ne transferred over, the GTS has gone making trading more difficult, the battle animations are awful, the music is a god awful midi soundtrack you cant turn off, there are no touch screen controls, gigantimax is nowhere near as competitively interesting as mega evolutions, the story is just plain bad, the lack of voice acting, the pokemon not speaking their names like they do in the anime, and the game is far too low budget for a game that will likely sell 15million plus. I do not think this is review bombing, I think the lowet scores are justified in my opinion. Definitely my least favourite mainline entry since Diamond and Pearl. This is newer more powerful hardware and we deserved so much more.

@Yorumi
If you know anything about statistics you’ll understand what an outlier is and what is standard deviation is as a measurement of how far away from the norm something it. Professional reviewers aren’t reviewing with scores more than 3 standard deviations from the mean. Furthermore they are reviewing the game after having played it. People who review with 0/10 are not only outside of the 3 standard deviation outlier limit, they are furthermore doing so without even having played the game (and for the record, you could get into the weeds by saying the distribution is bound by the endpoints of the scale which will technically skew it to be not normally distributed but if you read Donald J. Wheeler you will understand why a 3-sigma limit is still a good threshold for non-normally distributed data sets).

There is no argument you can make to try to rationalize that and there is no argument you can make they can say it’s “just their opinion”. Ppl can have whatever opinion they want, but if they’re going to actually review it it better damn well be an informed opinion after having played the game, and anything outside of the three standard deviation threshold should automatically be scrubbed from the site, immediately without question.

A 10/10 may not be justified either, however, it’s like 1.9 points away from the mean. The equivalent of scoring a 6.2. And nobody would be making a fuss over someone who scored a 6.2. So nobody can rightfully make a fuss over someone scoring a 10.

Now. If the aggregate was a 1.9/10. THEN 0/10 would be in the “within the norm” and a 10/10 should not be. But that is not the case and it is not the same thing to give a game that averaged 8.1/10 a meager 1.9 points higher. The amount that unrightfully pulls the score up is a pittance compared to the insane amount 0 pulls it down. So not only is it within the norm, it doesn’t even have the same effect. It’s one thing to have an opinion, it’s another thing to tank a games review score with 0’s just because you’re emotionally insecure about the game getting a good score.

This reminded me of the "review bombs" of The Last Jedi, Terminator Dark fate and Batwoman. Painting the reviews as a bunch of fans angry and giving bad scores just because.

Maybe like those movies, these new games aren't actually good? have you guys stopped to think about it?

This shame tacting of "review bombing" to deflect criticisms from THE GODDAMN MARKET is shameful and unprofessional. No wonder why people don't trust in mainstream media anymore.

@Yorumi
They might. But that’s speculation so it doesn’t matter.

The point is, people rating it a 10 aren’t causing the user score to fall out of line with the main review aggregate. When the day comes you see a user score average that is outside of three standard deviations from the aggregate then you can make an argument that it’s a problem. But until that day comes it’s not a problem, regardless of whether it’s right or wrong.

Nobody here that I’ve seen is lumping all criticism together as review bombing haters. Unless somebody specifically says every single person who criticizes the game falls into that camp, then you can’t claim that that’s what people think. If somebody does then you single that person out, not lump everybody into one group.

There are some idiots giving it 0 and there are some idiots giving it a 10, the difference is there are far more idiots giving it a 0 and those idiots are being far more extreme with their ignorance because it’s pulling the review score way out of whack with the aggregate. And it only ever seems to happen in one direction- down.

There have always been people who give a game a 10 regardless and there have always been people who give a game 0 regardless. Generally the two cancel each other out and user scores tend to be around the aggregate as a result. But when a hate mob bum rushes the user score tool to abuse it, that’s when things get thrown out of whack. You never see mobs of people rushing to give a game at 10 (outside of the usual small number on each side I’ve already discussed), unless it’s in reaction to a review bombing mob. It’s reactionary, whereas the review bombers are the aggressors. And even then it’s never enough to counter them, because giving any game with a an aggregate close to 10 a perfect 10 is actually scoring it really close to the aggregate, so it doesn’t do much to counter the 0s.

Hence why review bombing is a problem, and people giving 10’s generally isn’t. Not saying it’s justified, I’m just saying it’s not producing a tangible problem as a result... this is.

Tbh, I always thought there should be sort of two ratings for each Pokemon game: one for new players and another for those that already played the previous games (so generally long term fans).

In the first case, I think if someone picks up and plays a Pokemon game and loves it or dislikes it he'll keep his opinion no matter whether he would've started with another or not. For example, I started with B/W and Gen 5's now my favorite and I heard from so many other people that their favorite gens are the ones they started with. From this I would argue that new fans would likely love SwSh and give it high scores.

In the second scenario where users actually played past entries, they would obviously compare the new product with the one that was previously released. I could thus see how many wouldn't be satisfied with how SwSh turned out and voice complaints as they compare it with UsUm (I won't mention Let's go as it also removed a lot of aspects we were used to, so the last most complete verion we got was UsUm). This would be the reason for the low scores which I believe is also completely justified.

Yes the '0' scores are kinda harsh, but I'd argue a '0' isn't necessarily attributed to a broken/unplayable game, but also to a game that was advertised as a brand new experience with new models/animations but that ended up getting lots of cuts and being inferior to it's predecessor (UsUm). It's normal for past players to see the 'evolution' of the new entry, but if there's none or worse, less, then comparatively it would get a really low score. (Note that I'll admit that a zero is kinda too low, but there is still a reasoning behind their actions besides discontentment. Tbh I'd give the game a 2 if it were only in terms of evolution or, more accurately, improvements.) From this, I'd say as many have stated that the low scores are legitimate arguments and not 'review-bombing' (Also the ones that were cited seemed to have played past entries).

@Yorumi I also agree with your reason for removing a part of the dex. It doesn't cost anything for them to remove most mons and buisness-wise that would make each game more unique. If it were really about them remodelling/reanimating all mons then why not say that they'll include the nat. Dex in a future entry. (From what I heard apparently they actually stated that they will do the exact opposite and not include all mons in future entries though don't remember the source, so don't take my word for it) But whether that's true or not if they actually invest resources in remaking the models/animations why not add more mons from gen1 that were already made in let's go. Furthermore why make those models/animations so similar to the ones we were used to and even make such a question (of them lying) arise. They could've taken that opportunity to truly make the Pokemons feel 'alive'. Given all previously said it really feels like it was an excuse.

@NEStalgia
I don't disagree that many of them can't have finished the game, but even 13 hours in there are some obvious issues. Personally I think it's okay so far and I won't leave a review until I've gotten as much out of the game as I can, but I think disregarding all negative reviews is a bit harsh and one-sided.

There are also people giving 10s who obviously haven't played yet , but nobody ever suggests these people are review bombing.

@Kalmaro
That's a pity, the way it played with Marvel lore was neat - Fury's eye injury, the Skrulls and everything.

@AlexSora89 Fury get his eye scratched out by a cat... That was kina sad imo. He played up his eye injury as being something cool and it was just a cat alien.

Skrulls being refugees was interesting. Usually they aren't so good.

Honestly, the main thing I didn't like about the movie was Captain Marvel.

@Kalmaro
Well, yeah. At some point it seemed like Marvel was trying too hard in making her the "next big thing" in the MCU. Then again, as was the case with Black Panther, the Marvel Studios higher-ups made a point about extending the movie's representative angle to the creative team as well, with Captain Marvel's director being a woman and, IIRC, the writers being also women. The result I saw was a good flick, absolutely on par with other MCU movie.

The cat was a fantastic punchline to a decade-long joke, though.

@AlexSora89 I can not stand diversity for diversityvs sake. I don't mind a diverse cast. I do mind just hiring people based on their sex/race. Black panther (which I liked because the bad guy made sense) and Captain Marvel should have just picked based on merit.

@Kalmaro
Well, yeah. Diversity for diversity's sake kind of undermines the point of diversity in the first place.

@Yorumi
Well I’ve made it perfectly clear, and said point blank in English multiple times it’s not ok, as have others, so if you’re still choosing to take it in any other way than what I’ve said plainly that’s on you.

I’ve made it abundantly clear that neither is OK however, only one of them is producing a tangible problem as a result, one is far more extreme and a statistical outlier, and only one is creating an actual deviation from the aggregate. The people rating it a 10 are counterbalanced by the people rating it 0, and all is balanced. But when you then have an additional hate mob bum rushing the game thousands deep, that becomes a serious problem and hence why the score has tanked far out of whack from the aggregate and can be statistically proven as outliers.

There’s no argument that says that’s OK, and simply pointing the finger and saying “ya but a small percent gave perfect 10s” doesn’t justify that fact or make the issue not an issue. There’s nothing that can be done about the small number of people who give perfect 10s, or 0’s. But as long as it’s in small enough number that it’s not causing the net aggregate to deviate it’s not a problem.

Furthermore, you can’t rightfully claim somebody giving it a 10 is wrong when it’s only 1.8 points away from the average, but you can definitely claim somebody is wrong giving a game is 0 when its 8.2 points away from the average. That’s just statistics. I’m not claiming that- the mathematics are claiming that, and if you want me to break it down with a hypothesis test to prove it to you I can do that.

It has nothing to do with “sides” it has to do with REAL PROBLEMS THAT OCCUR AS A RESULT. When you can point to a game where people are giving a Pokémon game 10/10 that has an aggregate of 1.8/10 and not only that, but in such strong numbers the aggregate deviates into statistical outlier territory, only then will you have a point. Until then, statistics prove only one of these groups are an actual problem, regardless of who’s morally right or wrong.

@NEStalgia great points.

@JaxonH
I think @Yorumi is saying that your picking the average as being that of the reviewers is a flaw in itself. You currently have two means (averages), and you picked the one that would prove your point. If on the other hand, you picked the user's score as the mean, all of the 10s would be ''wrong''. If anything, the user score should be the one that's used because many more 'voted' therefore you have a larger sample. Having a larger sample makes it closer to the population mean (The hypothetical average where every single person having played the game gave a score).

That aside, you cannot say that statistics will prove some to be 'wrong' and leave it at that. Statistics can prove some to be wrong with a % estimate. In other words statistics can make a claim while having an estimate of the chances of their being wrong. So statistics can claim that something is wrong and such, but the statement in itself can be wrong and is therefore not absolute.

All of this to say that statistics cannot deny the 0s that are present, if anything, they can be used in the opposite way but even there the argument wouldn't be absolute.

@fancypants Same here. Enjoying the heck out of it. Already got my money´s worth.