My main complaints aren't about Pokedex size or how easy or hard the game is. I too preferred a cakewalk just to relax, and catching 400 Mons is still fun even if it's only half of them. I love the Gym battles now; they feel like real sporting events, if Pokemon were brought to our world.
Sword and Shield just felt so underwhelming as a game though in terms of overall quality. No spoilers, but the story is virtually an afterthought. Some main characters specifically tell you not to worry about important events and focus on Gym battles, and plot stuff happens in the background without you. At the end, you get like 20-30 minutes of overall story time (minus the battles). Even though they use an in-game engine to animate cutscenes, one important cutscenes is told through still-shot images of two main characters talking. That's just lazy! Especially when the in-game engine starts right back up after the lengthy still-shots!
And then there are more technical issues and oversights. Frame rates dip in the Wild Areas at points. It's a shame since games like BotW have more level of detail and manage the same, if not better, draw distance. Speaking of the Wild Areas, while I very much appreciate and love the idea (the ultimate Safari Zone that genuinely feels alive), the implementation is lacking in a few regards. The killer issue is size. Once you explore everything once, you realize just how small it is. There are no hidden areas either. What you see is what you get, and it's not that big. For a console version of Pokemon, a mainline title on Nintendo's latest system, I just imagined Game Freak would have been more ambitious (to the tune of at least another Wild Area, maybe post game). They are already pushing how many Mons they can reasonably fit into one Wild Area, as well, perhaps another unspoken reason for them cutting the Pokedex down.
A few other things, animations stop when you're doing certain actions (like climbing a ladder). This seems so 2000-ish in terms of engine design... Additionally, the number of trainer battles in this game feels like the smallest it's ever been. The Galar region itself is exceedingly small, with only 10 routes. Even if Sun and Moon could be described as a "hallway" in terms of how you progressed from one place to the next, even the 4 islands offered more battles and scenery, and more grass to explore. Last but not least, there's the possibility of soft-locking the game during one of the last story events. You're forced to capture a certain Pokemon, but if all your boxes are full, you get blanked out options for catching it and have to reset the game.
I like the casual feel of the game, honestly. If you want to go hardcore, the online capabilities are definitely there. But there are quite a bit of glaring issues that drag the game down for me. For a true, console version of Pokemon, Sword and Shield just felt like let down even when I was giving it the benefit of the doubt and an open mind. Game Freak really could and should have done much better, but I suspect meeting those deadlines imposed on them meant quality had to be cut from somewhere. It just doesn't feel like the game we deserved compared to other Pokemon generations. These games took a number of steps forward, but stumbled and tripped all along the way.
Sword and Shield just felt so underwhelming as a game though in terms of overall quality. No spoilers, but the story is virtually an afterthought. Some main characters specifically tell you not to worry about important events and focus on Gym battles, and plot stuff happens in the background without you. At the end, you get like 20-30 minutes of overall story time (minus the battles). Even though they use an in-game engine to animate cutscenes, one important cutscenes is told through still-shot images of two main characters talking. That's just lazy! Especially when the in-game engine starts right back up after the lengthy still-shots!
And then there are more technical issues and oversights. Frame rates dip in the Wild Areas at points. It's a shame since games like BotW have more level of detail and manage the same, if not better, draw distance. Speaking of the Wild Areas, while I very much appreciate and love the idea (the ultimate Safari Zone that genuinely feels alive), the implementation is lacking in a few regards. The killer issue is size. Once you explore everything once, you realize just how small it is. There are no hidden areas either. What you see is what you get, and it's not that big. For a console version of Pokemon, a mainline title on Nintendo's latest system, I just imagined Game Freak would have been more ambitious (to the tune of at least another Wild Area, maybe post game). They are already pushing how many Mons they can reasonably fit into one Wild Area, as well, perhaps another unspoken reason for them cutting the Pokedex down.
A few other things, animations stop when you're doing certain actions (like climbing a ladder). This seems so 2000-ish in terms of engine design... Additionally, the number of trainer battles in this game feels like the smallest it's ever been. The Galar region itself is exceedingly small, with only 10 routes. Even if Sun and Moon could be described as a "hallway" in terms of how you progressed from one place to the next, even the 4 islands offered more battles and scenery, and more grass to explore. Last but not least, there's the possibility of soft-locking the game during one of the last story events. You're forced to capture a certain Pokemon, but if all your boxes are full, you get blanked out options for catching it and have to reset the game.
I like the casual feel of the game, honestly. If you want to go hardcore, the online capabilities are definitely there. But there are quite a bit of glaring issues that drag the game down for me. For a true, console version of Pokemon, Sword and Shield just felt like let down even when I was giving it the benefit of the doubt and an open mind. Game Freak really could and should have done much better, but I suspect meeting those deadlines imposed on them meant quality had to be cut from somewhere. It just doesn't feel like the game we deserved compared to other Pokemon generations. These games took a number of steps forward, but stumbled and tripped all along the way.